Violin and piano recital in a new concert hall makes life worth living again

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Chamber Music New Zealand

Amalia Hall (violin) and Stephen de Pledge (piano)

Beethoven: Violin Sonata No 5 in F, Op 24 “Spring”
Gao Ping: Bitter Cold Night
Gershwin (arr.Heifetz): Three Preludes
Mozart: Violin Sonata No 19 in E flat, K 302
Saint-Saëns: Violin Sonata No 1 in D minor, op 75

Public Trust Hall, Corner Lambton Quay and Stout Street

Thursday 6 August, 7:30 pm

The first concert, post-Covid-19 lock-down from Chamber Music New Zealand was held in a new auditorium which was opened in September last year: in the former Public Trust Office headquarters. The hall, presumably the former public area, with ceiling decoration that survived in banks half a century ago; a well-proportioned, elegant space. It seats 300 people, about the same size as the Ilott Theatre in the old Wellington Town Hall (and what, exactly, is planned for the Town Hall?).*

The concert attracted a full house. It was the second to last in a 12-concert tour of the country.

The Spring Sonata
I was sitting in the front row, rather too close for a balanced impression of both the players and the acoustic of the space. It began with Beethoven’s Spring Sonata, and at once the acoustic had the effect of amplifying the piano to the disadvantage of the violin’s voice, particularly in the opening Allegro. My seat, to the left of the players, with the violinist’s back towards me, didn’t help. The result was that subtleties of both instruments were somewhat diminished, while a bit too much of the ‘mechanics’ of hammers and bows on strings was audible.

Nevertheless, the happy rapport between the two players and their feeling for the music were clear enough. Balance between them seemed more normal in the lovely second movement, Adagio molto espressivo; and the brief Scherzo too, with sparkling staccato playing from both, handled the spatial conditions well.

Gao Ping and George Gershwin
Bitter Cold Night, the piece by Gao Ping, who lectured for some years at Canterbury University, had its genesis with the pandemic. Gao composed this bleak piece in memory of the Chinese doctor, Li Wenliang, who broke his government’s silence about the Corona virus, was punished and he subsequently died of it. There was a brief, sunnier episode led by the violin, discreetly supported by the piano, but then came a burst of anger. It spoke clearly and movingly, as music can often do, better than other arts; let’s hope that Gao Ping will not be treated as was Li Wenliang.

I hadn’t come across Jascha Heifetz’s arrangement for violin and piano of Gershwin’s three Preludes for piano. Not only were they so successfully modified, but they were played with a delightful naturalness, with almost more sophistication and musicality than the plain piano versions, as if that had been the way Gershwin had conceived them.

Mozart
The second half comprised two more sonatas: Mozart’s No 19, in E flat. I don’t suppose it’s too embarrassing to confess that I couldn’t recall hearing this before: just two movements: Allegro and Andante grazioso, as De Pledge told us, along with remarks about Mozart’s relationship with the Elector Palatine’s court and the musicians, based in Mannheim through the middle of the 18th century. (His interest flowed partly from the Elector’s excellent orchestra, particularly its clarinets, and his unrequited love for Aloysia Weber – the fall-back position was her sister Constanze whom he did later marry).

I might remark that the programme, A4 size, had a striking cover, a message from the chief executive of CMNZ, another from Anne Rodda, the executive director of the Michael Hill Violin Competition, large photos and brief biographical notes about the two performers, and the back page filled with logos of the sponsors; but no information about the music.

The music gives more equal attention to both instruments than was normal at the time. It’s a charming piece, especially the second movement; and I enjoyed it better since a friend, seeing where I was sitting, had offered to exchange seats so I might enjoy a better balanced experience, in the fourth row. I was grateful, for the balance and coherence were distinctly better, in particular exposing properly Amalia’s warm, lyrical playing.

Saint-Saëns
The final work was Saint-Saëns’s first violin sonata, of 1885 when the composer was 50: I suspect it’s probably unfamiliar, but I knew it from a performance that had stuck in my heard thirty years ago. The Japanese violinist, Midori had played it in a recital at the New Zealand International Festival of the Arts in 1990 or 1992. The last movement is a splendid, endless bravura experience of demi-semi quavers, and Midori’s playing had, naturally, remained in my head over the years, when I may have heard it no more than a couple of times on Concert FM.

I suppose the sonata’s unfamiliarity is a result of the common tendency to denigrate Saint-Saëns as conservative and unadventurous; not a view I share. Happily, many of us have long felt that such intellectual pretentions are not a sensible way to pass one’s life. There’s an infectious melody in the first movement, and it presaged the warm, melodic character of the entire piece. It moves without a break into the second movement, Adagio, which they played thoughtfully, with touches of whimsy. The third movement, an Allegretto moderato, Scherzo in triple time which fades and then suddenly bursts into the moto-perpetuo kind of Finale. Perhaps it looks more difficult than it actually is but it served as a splendid conclusion. I hope it has had a joyous effect on the hundreds of audience members in the eleven towns where it’s been heard so far.

So it proved a splendid way to help restore a sort of normality to the fortunate few who go to chamber music concerts. The music and its performance by these two genial and highly musical players, as well as the feel of the new venue that has been transformed so effectively into a concert hall, must have done something to make life worth living again.

*The Public Trust Office dates from 1908, designed by the then Government Architect, John Campbell, who designed many state buildings such as the General Post Office in Wellington (sensibly! replaced by the Intercontinental Hotel on Featherston Street), and the Central Post Office in Auckland which survives at the bottom of Queen Street, and the House of Parliament, which disappointed the architect when the south wing, a mirror image of the existing building was never built.

The Wellington Architecture Centre describes the building as “possibly the most architecturally elaborate façade in the capital – if not the entire country, and is without doubt … Government Architect John Campbell’s finest work outside of his design for Parliament House.”

After the Seddon Earthquake in 2013 the Public Trust building was sold to Maurice Clark whose firm McKee Fehl and architects Warren & Mahoney carried out its strengthening and renovation. It is a Category 1 Historic Building.

Mr Clark spoke at the Interval, noting that the hall’s use for classical music was free – a stark contrast to the cost of venues owned by the city council which are widely known to be the dearest in the country: as you’d expect from a city that boasts of being ‘the cultural capital’.  

Simon O’Neill generates plenty of “Spirit” in NZSO Podium Series Concert

Posted on by Steven Sedley

NZSO Podium Series
SPIRIT – with Simon O’Neill

Simon O’Neill (tenor)
Hamish McKeich (conductor)
New Zealand Symphony Orchestra

Berlioz – Overture “Le Corsaire” Op.21

Mahler – Lieder eines Fahrenden Gesellen

R.Strauss – Lieder – Allerseelen Op.10, No. 8 (orch. Heger) / Ruhe, mein Seele, Op. 27 No. 1 (orch. R.Strauss) / Cäcillie, Op 27 No. 2 (orch. R.Strauss) / Heimliche Aufforderung, Op. 27 No. 3 (orch. Heger) / Morgen, Op 27 No. 4 (orch. R.Strauss) / Zueignung, Op. 10 No. 1 (orch. Heger)

Prokofiev Symphony No. 5 in B flat Major, Op. 100

Michael Fowler Centre, Wellington

Thursday 6 August

Hurrah for the NZSO, one of the very few orchestras anywhere in the world able to give live concerts. The large audience showed its appreciation. For reasons not clear to this writer, the concert was labelled “Spirit” though there was nothing particularly spiritual about the programme.

There was no narrative theme to the programme, but this didn’t matter. Many in the audience came especially to hear the renowned New Zealand heldentenor, Simon O’Neill, star of the greatest opera houses and concert halls of the world. They were not disappointed. He presented an uncompromisingly challenging fare, Mahler’s song cycle, Songs of a Wayfarer, and a selection of six songs by Richard Strauss from his Opus 10 and Op. 27 series, composed ten years apart, between 1884 and 1894. These were orchestrated later by Richard Strauss himself and by the German conductor and composer, Robert Heger.

On the face of it, there was much in common to these selections of songs by Mahler and Strauss. They were all composed in broadly the same period, they could all be described as late romantic works, yet they reflect the different personalities of the composers, Mahler deeply introspective, Strauss detached, the thorough professional, focused on his craft. Mahler wrote these songs when he was only 24, getting over a disappointing love affair. The songs, words by the composer, trace the journey of a distraught young man from desperation to acceptance: “I weep, weep! For my love” and “I think of my sorrow” in the first song, but by the second song it is “Good day! Good day! Isn’t it a lovely world?” The words are set to a joyful theme that Mahler used later in his First Symphony. In the third song he has a vision of his lost love, but the final song is about acceptance: “Love and sorrow, and world and dream”.

Simon O’Neill sang these with feeling and empathy, reflected in his powerful yet controlled voice and in his clear diction. His singing touched all by its emotional intensity The orchestra supported him with beautiful responses and echoes to the vocal line, which involved notably fine solo instrumental playing.

The six Richard Strauss songs were originally written for voice and piano and were later arranged for voice and orchestra. The songs are set to poems written by now largely forgotten poets. Strauss wrote the four songs from Op. 27 as a wedding present for his wife, soprano, Pauline de Ahna. These were bracketed by two from the earlier Op. 10. Significantly Strauss added the orchestral accompaniment to the song, Ruhe, meine Seele (Rest thee, my Soul), many years after the song was composed, in 1948, just before his death at the age of 85. The words “Rest thee, rest thee troubled spirit and forget all, thy sufferings will soon be over” had a special meaning in the years after the war. The orchestral accompaniment to these songs added a striking colour, with a fine violin solo in the penultimate song, Morgen, beautifully played by Vesa-Matti Leppänen . This was a memorable performance that will stay in the memories of all who were there to hear it.

The major symphonic work on the programme was Prokofiev’s Fifth Symphony. It was written in 1944, by which time the war was turning in the Allies’ favour. It is a work written for a very large orchestra. There were 94 players on stage. It is full of rich melodies and strong Prokofiev rhythms. It is a long 46 minute colourful work. Prokofiev claimed to have conceived it as a symphony on the greatness of the human soul. This might have satisfied Stalin and his cultural henchmen at the time, but there is a sense of cynicism behind the lovely melodies and exaggerated bombast. It is a challenging work for the orchestra and without any question, the orchestra coped well with the difficult passages, with some outstanding solos and great brass chorales. A wide range of instruments were at work, including something of a solo passage for the wood block. It would be ungenerous not to acknowledge that the work was thoroughly well prepared and performed with dedication. Yet there was something missing, the passion, the warmth of the melodies, the striking contrasts. It was a deliberately careful, but understated performance.

The concert opened with the vigorous start of Berlioz’s Le Corsaire Overture,  followed by a rich extended melody, then more tempestuous music. The contrasting passages represented the adventurous life of a pirate at sea. The title was a clear reference to Lord Byron’s poem of that name. It is attractive programme music which gave an opportunity to every section of the orchestra to shine, with busy strings and great brass chords. The music embodies the emotional extremes of Romantic music, adventure, pirates, tender nature and love. It was cheerful music, and a contrast to the melancholic mood of the Mahler songs, but it foreshadowed the rousing energy of the Prokofiev Symphony of the second half of the concert. It was an appropriate introduction to a varied evening of music that followed.

This was a great concert with which to open a shortened concert season. It was recorded and is available on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watchtime_continue=823&v=6hFqcxikBYY&feature=emb_title and will go on tour of to many of the main and provincial centres, so that people can access it anywhere in the country.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Preview YouTube video NZSO: Podium Series – Spirit with Simon O’Neill

Following last year’s NZ Opera production, another local “take” on Henry James’ famous ghost story “The Turn of the Screw”

Posted on by Peter Mechen

THE TURN OF THE SCREW – A film (2020) by Alex Galvin  after the novella by Henry James (1898)

Cast: Greer Phillips (Julia/Governess) / Ralph Johnson (Richard) / Ben Fransham (Uncle/Peter Quint) / Jane Waddell (Mrs Grose) / Ella Olssen (Flora) / Alex Usher (Miles) / Sarah Munn (Miss Jessel)

Writer – Alex Galvin
Producers – Alex Galvin, Emma Beale, Nicola Peeperkoorn, Edward Sampson
Production Designer – Debbie Fish
Costume Designer – Sally Gray
Music – Ewan Clark
Musicians – NZSM Orchestra
Sound – Matthew Lambourne, Callum Scott, John McKay
Cinematographer – Mark Papallii
Editors – Elizabeth Denekamp, Edward Sampson, John McKay
Executive Producers – James Partridge, John McKay

Embassy Theatre, Wellington

Thursday, 6th August, 2010 (NZ Premiere)

A recent feather in the cap of New Zealand film-making has been the inclusion of “The Turn of the Screw”, an adaptation of Henry James’s classic ghost story by Wellington director Alex Galvin, in the recent Shanghai film Festival. Within a few days of the Shanghai showing the film had its New Zealand premiere at the Embassy Theatre in Wellington, an event that was sold out. Its audience witnessed an intriguing “take” on James’ novella, one which effectively paralleled the way the author “framed” his original story by having a guest at a country house party produce a written account of a new governess’s experience with two children she claimed were “haunted” by two dead servants wanting to “possess” them. Here, the story was enacted as a dress rehearsal for a stage production at the Wellington Opera House,  where a replacement actress for the part of the governess (Greer Phillips) arrives by taxi just before the rehearsal is about to begin, and is quickly and somewhat bewilderingly thrust into her stage character by Richard, her director (Ralph Johnson). The latter’s slightly creepy fulsomeness supported James’s own observation that there should be “a suggestion of strangely gruesome effect” in the story from the beginning, and even if none too subtly as the action proceeded, this state of things was certainly engendered here.

What was also straightaway evoked as the story itself began, by dint of superbly-wrought lighting and properly-suggestive music (a tangibly atmospheric, if perhaps sometimes over-wrought, score by composer Ewan Clark) was a sense of disorientation on the part of both Julia, the actress, and her character the governess, most convincingly “inhabited” by Greer Phillips at this and every other point. This was aided by a prevailing opaque luminosity of visual effect working hand-in-glove with a soundscape that engendered and harboured all-pervading unease – unlike with the written word, which the reader can modulate at his or her pleasure in terms of a time-frame, a spoken narration or drama grips the listener or observer in a more-or-less continual flow – so James’s story was here essentially telescoped into what seems like a much shorter period, having the effect of taking over in real time a “house of horrors” from which there could be no relief. The reader might register with the story’s telling the gradual disappearance of summer into autumn, and the succession of days passing “without another encounter” (with the ghosts), but we in the theatre seemed as prey to omnipresent interaction with these spectral forces, or the threat of it, as seemed the story’s ill-fated governess to be.

The effect of this concentration of untoward incident I thought akin to a ride on one of those “ghost trains” of my youth set up in the amusement parts of fairs, with bangs, screeches and crashes at regular intervals, each played for its maximum effect!  At first the sheer visceral impact of each “scare” I found overwhelmingly sonorous and atmospheric but soon felt the too-frequent scares becoming counter-productive with every irruption (one has only to recall F.W.Murnau’s silent film “Nosferatu” to remind oneself how the visual alone can make as terrifying an impression). I thought the “bird” incident, for example, the killing of a stray sparrow by the housekeeper, Mrs Grose, gratuitous in effect, accompanied by a noise out of all proportion to the action. Still, there were places during which  the camerawork allowed images to create their full effect largely unaided, generating enormous tension and anxiety – the governess’s discovery of and approach towards the veil worn by Miss Jessel, for example, let us for a few moments ourselves do some of the work towards creating tensions in our own minds, culminating just as fraughtfully with the shock of our unexpectedly encountering the housekeeper.

Something the film certainly conveys is the ever-burgeoning obsessiveness of the governess regarding the presence of the ghosts and their intent regarding the children, a point which has taxed analyses of the original James story since its appearance – there have been various “stances” taken by critics, ranging from those who regard the story as an out-and-out supernatural tale, to the argument that the governess herself is an “unreliable” narrator, bringing her own imaginative, deluded and, ultimately fatal obsessions to bear on the situation. Complicating the ambiguities of James’s own colouring of the character’s narrative is the stress and uncertainty the film’s setting and action puts her as an actress under from the outset, so that we are having to take into account her having to “feel her way” through the stage business’s unknown territories irrespective of her knowledge of the script – her “off the cuff” expletives in response to various happenings are mere tips of the iceberg which compound her uncertainties (and her reactions) in this role, and effectively “run together” the strains of motivation for her actions.

Generally I thought the actors’ characterisations had a basic and attractive naturalness and ease, cleverly contrived to create tension whenever this was disturbed. Alongside, and a perfect foil for, the governess of Greer Phillips was the non-imposing figure of the housekeeper, Mrs Grose, played by Jane Waddell with disarming literalness – in James’s narrative she is described by the governess as “a magnificent monument to the blessings of a want of imagination” (itself an intentionally spontaneous self-revealing remark), and Waddell’s unequivocal, if occasionally uncertain response to the governess’s quickness of supposition effectively throws the latter’s obvious susceptibility to such things into bold relief.

The children, Ella Olssen as Flora, and Alex Usher as Miles, both looked and lived their respective roles most assuredly, playing their part in heightening the ambivalence of our feelings towards their states of awareness, the camera-work a particularly candid exploration of skilfully-wrought expressive nuance on the young actors’ part delineating their interactions with the governess. With Miles, the elder of the two,  around whom an aura of misconduct had already been created by his supposed expulsion from school, the sexual tensions which are contrived via the governess’s superheated protectiveness of the boy from the house’s malignant presences, are inversely reflected by her earlier alienation from the girl, Flora, in dramatically confronting her with a kind of  supposed “guilt of awareness” of those same presences. Each of the encounters exploits the full impact of one’s immersion in appropriately dramatic visual and sonic happenings – climaxes in a veritable symphony of drama, and appropriately full-blooded at those particular moments.

Regarding the “ghosts”, both brought to their respective presences a time-honoured frisson of fearful thrill through their unerring immersion in the drama’s capacities for shock and surprise, however much I thought some of the gestures might have been wrought or framed in a less obvious kind of way. An interesting touch was having Ben Fransham play the roles of both the Uncle (in the story’s Prologue) and the ghostly manservant, Peter Quint, underlining the elsewhere-expressed theory of Quint being a kind of “alter ego” of the Uncle (whom the governess gives every indication of being infatuated with), a juxtaposition which would heighten her “reverse abhorrence” of the idea of Quint having anything to do with Miles. The other ghost, Miss Jessel, an even more enigmatic presence (James deliberately sparing with his detailings concerning her, with Mrs Grose being the “agent” of information for the governess in each of the ghost’s cases, rendering the unfortunate pair in terms mixing memory and heresay. Sarah Munn as Jessel fully matches and fills out whatever projection of fear and unease we might bring to an encounter with her character in such a context.

How these “onion layers” of supposed actuality, conjecture and fantasy play themselves out is a process which I thought here made by and large a riveting experience in the cinema/theatre. And the drama’s closing post-rehearsal scene presents a final enigma, one that bonds with the film’s opening circumstance of the young replacement actress, Julia, tossed into a kind of maelstrom of her character’s overall fantasy and (possibly) self-delusion. Interestingly, the circumstance is presented plainly and simply, its stark actuality all that is needed to suitably disturb. Writer, producer and director Alex Galvin has here formulated an absorbing “take” on a much-examined story, at once “bringing it home” to us in a localised and contemporary way via the setting, and expanding our own sensibilities and visions in the context of a vibrant occasion of world-wide currency.

 

Stimulating, evocative recital from NZSM piano student Liam Furey at St Andrew’s

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

St Andrew’s lunchtime concert

Liam Furey – piano

Schoenberg: Sechs kliene Klavierstücke, Op 19
Schumann: Fantasiestücke, Op 12
Liam Furey: Silence of Kilmister Tops and six Preludes for piano

St Andrew’s on The Terrace

Wednesday 5 August, 12:15 pm

A month ago Liam Furey was one of several piano students representing Victoria University in St Andrew’s lunchtime concert; then, he played Beethoven’s Op 49 No 2. This time he moved some distance from the sort of music played and enjoyed around 1800: into what must still be regarded as music that after more than a century has still not found anything like comprehension, acceptance and enjoyment, among 90 percent of music lovers: Schoenberg’s six short piano pieces.

Schoenberg 
Setting one’s mind adrift and following Schoenberg’s demand to banish notions of all the music written before 1910 (and almost all that has been written since then), with no expectation of attracting a big fan mail, is still an interesting experience. Yet at the time Schoenberg was still working on the reasonably accessible Gurre-Lieder. While I’ve heard most of Schoenberg’s music over the years, and enjoy all that was written before 1910 and some later, music like these pieces generates no positive emotions, apart from a kind of dismay.

Nevertheless, each piece is clearly differentiated and that demands the arousal of emotions; in spite of the composer’s determination to rid his music of conscious harmony and pathos and a simplification of emotion and feelings. Though the sixth piece, a sort of lament on the death of Mahler, can hardly not be based on an expression of feeling.

Nevertheless, no one can complain about challenging oneself with such a set of short pieces, and seeking to register the feelings that result – though Schoenberg would undoubtedly condemn a listener seeking to pin down specific feelings. I was pleased to have heard this well-studied, serious-minded performance.

Schumann 
The only similarity with the next group – Schumann’s Fantasiestücke, Op 12 – was the heterogeneous nature of a variety of pieces.  The juxtaposition of Schumann and Schoenberg, in itself, invited expectation, mystification, artistic curiosity. Both are technically challenging and their performance must be regarded as marks of very considerable technical skill and intellectual achievement.

One difficulty I had with them, and surprisingly perhaps with the Schumann, was dynamics. In order to play them with the occasional, unrestrained outburst of passion, there was no need for the piano lid to be up. Apart from Aufschwung, I’ve never felt they called for fortissimo playing, even in pieces like Grillen and In der Nacht.

But generally, these pieces were rich with emotional and impressionistic variety: the glimmering light of Des Abends, capturing the enquiring, endearing sense of Warum?, even the nightmarish story that Furey seemed to read into In der Nacht: sure, it goes fast, but I’ve never experienced the feelings that he seemed to seek. All was forgiven however in the last piece, Ende vom Lied (never mind a few little smudges). Though they could have used more magic and subtlety, these are typically 1830s Schumanesque pieces, and the performances were enchanted and enchanting.

His own music 
Then Furey played a couple of his own pieces: the first playing of Silence of Kilmister Tops inspired by the atmosphere of the hill-tops west of Ngaio, during the Lock-down; the uncanny calm, the sudden wind gusts, but an underlying unease.

Then Furey presented his own take on the form of impressionistic pieces in Preludes for Piano – six of them. They depicted the weather and nature’s response to it. Some rather weighty leaves in the first piece, icicles that sounded threatening, clusters of wide-spaced raindrops that were suddenly disturbed by violent wind gusts in Raindrops dancing on the lake; but I didn’t recognise the wind’s performance on the Aeolian harp in the next piece. Nor did I really hear  the tremors on the sea floor, but that’s perhaps because I’m not a diver. The joyous birds in the morning might rather have introduced the suite of preludes, but it brought the attractive set of pieces to a genial finish.

They were charming, evocative pieces, which the composer played, as you’d expect, with understanding and pleasure. In spite of certain interpretive details, this was a recital that stimulated, tested and afforded considerable interest for the audience.

“Morgen” – pianist Rae de Lisle makes a welcome return to performing, with ‘cellist Andrew Joyce – and with help from Julia Joyce

Posted on by Peter Mechen

MORGEN
Songs for ‘Cello and Piano
Andrew Joyce (‘cello)
Rae de Lisle (piano)

items marked * with Julia Joyce (viola)

BRAHMS : Liebestreu Op3, No.1 / Minnelied Op.71, No.5 / “Immer leise wird mein Schlummer Op.105 No.2
“Wie melodien zieht es mir leise durch den Sinn” Op.105, No.1 / Sapphische Ode Op.94 No.4
Feldeinsamkeit Op.86 No.2 / Wiegenlied Op.49 No.4
DVORAK: Als die alte Mutter Op.55 No.4 / Lass mich allein Op.82 No.1
REYNALDO HAHN – L’heure exquise / A Chloris    FAURE – Apres un reve Op.7 No.1
SCHUMANN – Widmung Op.25, No.1 / Du bist wie eine Blume Op.25 No.4 / Mondnacht Op.39 No.5
BRAHMS – Zwei Gesange Op.91 – *Gestillte Sehnsucht / *Geistliches Wiegenlied
ERICH KORNGOLD – Marietta’s Lied – “Gluck, das mir verblieb”
SCHUBERT – Du Bist die Ruh Op.59 No.3 / Nacht und Traume Op.43 No.2
ALFREDO CATALANI – Ebben? Ne andro lontana / RICHARD STRAUSS – *Morgen  Op.27 No.4

Atoll Records  ACD 280

This recording has gone to the top of my “play for friends” list!  The beauty and expressiveness of it all instantly captivates whomever I demonstrate the disc to, and never fails to re-ignite my own initial struck-dumb response  – beginning as a “double distillation” of beauty, with Andrew Joyce’s ‘cello and Rae de Lisle’s piano exquisitely duetting their way through vistas of the utmost enchantment, it transforms into a trio when a fellow-traveller, violist Julia Joyce briefly joins the pair for an equally rhapsodic mid-journey sojourn, and then reunites with them right at the end. The recording is, of course, a “family affair”, cellist’ Andrew Joyce being the son-in-law of pianist Rae de Lisle, and violist Julia Joyce her daughter, and the ‘cellist’s partner – whether as a duo or a trio, their combination, on the strength of this recording, produces for this listener an unforgettable amalgam of artistry and feeling.

For pianist Rae de Lisle, this album has meant something of a “return to life” as a performer, having over the past quarter-century been in retirement through injury from her previous career as a successful concert pianist – though never having heard her play “live” I well recall a series of television programmes from around the 1970s featuring her as the soloist in a number of presentations of Beethoven piano concertos, recorded in those halcyon days when people in charge of New Zealand television regarded the arts as a necessary component of what went to air to the public. De Lisle, of course, subsequently became one of the crucial figures involved with fellow-pianist Michael Houstoun’s rehabilitation as a performer after the latter suffered similar injuries, helping him “remodel” his piano technique to a point where he was able to return to public playing. She herself describes in a personal note something of her own process of dealing with injury and her painstaking “retraining” to the point where she could actually make music again, and of her immense joy in being able to collaborate with the talented musicians in her own family!

What was indubitably given to her many piano students over the years of her indisposition poignantly “mirrors” the loss experienced by us in having the quality of pianism such as can be heard on this new CD cruelly denied us over the years. In the course of listening to these treasurable tracks, one readily appreciates – in fact, right from the disc’s beginning (featuring a group of Brahms’ songs given an eloquent introduction with Liebestreu Op.3 No. 1,) – how the “line” of lyrical expression is so unerringly shaped by both instruments, with the piano preparing the ground for the ‘cello in so many subtle ways, in the course of a handful of phrases suggesting and then leading, shaping the way forward and then echoing the fulfilment by the ‘cello of the music’s expressive quality. This piece epitomises the creative interplay at work in so many varied ways throughout the rest of the disc, as does the succeeding Minnelied Op,71 No. 5, demonstrating such exquisite sensibility from both players as to bring tears to the eyes of those susceptible to such things!

Both of the Dvořák settings are “lump-in-the-throat” affairs as realised here, de Lisle bringing out the music’s astringent quality of reminiscence in the piano’s opening to Als die alte Mutter Op 55 No.4, which so sharpens the sensibilities for the hushed quality of what follows, with Joyce’s ‘cello tone fusing the voice of the “mother” with that of the narrator, as the vocal line catches an individual accent or phrase which rivets the attention. And the gentle melancholy of Lasst mich allein Op.82 No.1 speaks volumes in the subtlety with which the minor key-shift deepens the emotion.

There’s insufficient space in which to comment on all of the tracks – but their characterisations by these two artists readily transport the listener into what Robert Schumann called “wondrous regions”, with Schumann’s own music ready to illustrate these magical excursions – the central, beautifully half-lit sequence at the centre of Widmung Op.25 No. 1, for example, followed by a beautifully rapt Du bist wie eine Blume Op.25 No.24, and the more extended, equally hypnotic Mondnacht Op.39 No.5. And, of course, there’s a brief but telling augmented strand contributing its own resonance to the proceedings, in the form of Julia Joyce’s viola, adding its wholly distinctive voice to those of the ‘cello-and-piano duo, in a pair of songs composed by Brahms for the violinist Joseph Joachim, the Zwei Gesange Op.91. The reprise of the first song is a particularly melting sequence, the viola and ‘cello duetting in counterpoint with rapturous accord, while the brighter-eyed setting of the carol “Joseph Lieber, Joseph mein” imparts a warmly ritualistic aspect to the musical collaboration, by turns full-throated and gently reassuring.

I ought to mention Andrew Joyce’s astonishingly candid realisation of Korngold’s Marietta’s Lied, from the opera Die tote Stadt during which his instrument sings the vocal lines with almost unbearable emotion, “inhabiting” the intensity of characterisation that the music suggests so readily. The disc ends, somewhat less fraughtfully, with another stellar display of string-playing, Julia Joyce’s viola substituting for the usual violin in Richard Strauss’s Morgen Op.27 No.4, the combination triumphantly expressing the essential flavour of the composer’s regard for the voice and his love for his wife, Pauline, in a new day’s blessed context.

Beautifully-balanced, warm and clear recorded sound completes a most attractive issue from “Atoll”.

Delightful vocal recital from Takiri Ensemble at Waikanae

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Waikanae Music Society
Takiri Ensemble

Soloists: Maike Christie-Beekman (mezzo), Robert Tucker (baritone), Emma Pearson (soprano), Declan Cudd (tenor), Kirsten Robertson (piano)

Beethoven: Six songs for soloists
Mahler: Songs from Des Knaben Wunderhorn
Poulenc: Priez pour paix (ensemble)
Quilter: Go Lovely Rose (ensemble)
Rossini: I Gondolieri (ensemble)
Copland: Three songs (ensemble)
Lauridsen: Three songs

Waikanae Memorial Hall

Sunday 2 August 2:30 pm

The journey by train to Waikanae to one of the Waikanae Music Society’s concerts is one of the real pleasures for Wellingtonians; especially bearing in mind that for those of a certain age, train is free. We keep running into people who are unaware of both the delightful train ride (enriched by the sight of endless queues of cars travelling south on the return journey), and the wonderful concerts themselves.

This was a departure from the chamber music recital: four singers plus pianist.

Beethoven
The first four songs, of Beethoven, exposed the four individual voices: Emma Pearson’s operatic scale voice singing the ‘Maileid’ (May Song), unseasonally perhaps, with an attractive, tremulous quality; then Maike Christie-Beekman in ‘Mollys Abschied’ (Molly’s Goodbye); her voice invested with sadness that faded right out at the end. Both were from Beethoven’s eight settings in his early 20s of Goethe poems (Op 52).

Robert Tucker will be remembered from his role as the King in Eight Songs for a Mad King in the Festival in February; he sang the next song, ‘Die laute Klang’, an 1815 song without opus number (WoO). Beethoven was totally deaf by that time and Tucker remarked that Beethoven had taken the liberty to change some of poet Herder’s words (Herder was a little older than Goethe, described as a philosopher and critic rather than a poet). His warm baritone voice produced a striking rendering of this serious song.

Tenor Declan Cudd sang ‘Der Kuss’, (a mischievous poem by not well-known Christian Felix Weiße, two decades older than Goethe). The main element, in hindsight, was Cudd’s teasing words “Lange, lange, lange” to describe the lady’s response to the uninvited kiss.

The last of the Beethoven songs was the duet ‘Lebens-Genuss’ sung by Pearson and Cudd; it was a ‘paraphrase’ of a text by the most prolific of all 18th century Italian opera librettists, Metastasio. The two voices might not have very compatible, but perhaps that was appropriate in this instance.

And it was time to note the beautifully gauged accompaniments throughout by Kirsten Robertson.

Mahler
Then there were five Lieder from Mahler’s cycle, Des Knaben Wunderhorn. They are taken from a famous eponymous collection of twelve, possibly not-entirely anonymous folk-songs, collected – part written by? – a couple of the many poets who flourished during the height of the German Romantic era around the turn of the century (1800-1810), Achim von Arnim and Clemens Brentano; they were contemporaries of Wordsworth and Coleridge. In general, they don’t touch me as much as do the Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen or the Kindertotenlieder, but the aim of this ensemble was clearly not to pander to tastes limited to just the best-loved songs.

Two voices, Tucker and Beekman, sang the first song, ‘Der Schildwache Nachtlied’, investing it with as much narrative and dramatic quality as possible. The four singers shared the rest of the songs.  Almost all the five songs lent themselves to narrative delivery and they were much enlivened in that way. Treatment varied, allowing the piano to tell part of Emma Pearson’s story in ‘Wo die schönene Trompeten blasen’.

The original twelve were published with orchestral accompaniment and then arranged for piano accompaniment. But Mahler removed the last song, ‘Urlicht’, from the collection and used it in the Andante of his second symphony. It’s not clear to me whether or not Mahler made a piano arrangement of it, but Robert Tucker had a hand in the arrangement for piano that we heard, with all four voices, creating a distinct liturgical feeling. The four voices proved to be rather well balanced, bringing the first half of the concert to a happy end.

Sins of old age, and other times…
The second half comprised an interesting variety of music. The earliest was one of Rossini’s Péchés de vieillesse (Sins of Old Age), ‘I gondolieri’. One might have found it hard to guess its composer, especially if Offenbach’s interpretation was in one’s mind. Rossini’s is far from any hint of satire or scornfulness. It was sung rather engagingly, with the slow triple rhythm offering sufficient colour.

The programme was slightly re-arranged. First was Morten Lauridsen’s ‘Dirait-on’ from his cycle Chansons de roses (of 1993): an utterly charming song. I didn’t realise till it began, that I knew it, as American, Lauridsen, has not been in the least absent from the programmes of our choirs. A little search showed that I probably first heard ‘Dirai-on’ (‘one would say’) about four years ago. Leaving the United States for Britain, it was followed by Roger Quilter’s ‘Go lovely rose’, again sung by the quartet, which continued the pattern of affecting, melodious songs of the past century. And then a French song inspired by the approaching Second World War: Poulenc’s ‘Priez pour paix’, ‘Pray for peace’. This might have seemed to minimise the coming horrors: another melodious song, just a slightly disturbing expression, the words of which actually came from late Medieval/early Renaissance (early 15th century) French poet Charles d’Orléans (of course, the war d’Orleans was troubled by was the Hundred Years War between France and England that ended about the time d’Orleans died, 1465).

Three simpler songs, folk songs, by Aaron Copland followed, though they seem not to be called that: ‘Simple gifts’, ‘At the river’ and ‘Ching-a-ring Chaw’. The fours voices in ensemble were again genial, again capturing the warm, sentimental (in the best sense) character of songs that have become a fundamental part of American music.

To finish, Robert Tucker and their admirable pianist Kirsten Robertson, returned to sing Lauridsen’s typically moving ‘Prayer’, and that was capped when Declan Cudd came forward to sing Lauridsen’s best loved ‘Sure on this shining night’; all four joined in the final stanza. That might have done, but it was followed by a return to one of Schubert’s loveliest and most appropriate songs, ‘An die Musik’.

Even with no other Schubert… or Schumann… Brahms or Strauss, this was a very happy recital that might well have signalled hope for our success in continuing to ward off further pandemic dangers.

 

Two less familiar cello masterpieces from Lavinnia Rae and Gabriela Glapska at St Andrew’s

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

St Andrew’s lunchtime concert

Lavinnia Rae (cello) and Gabriela Glapska (piano)

Beethoven: Cello Sonata No 5 in D, Op 102 No 2
Britten: Cello Sonata in C, Op 65 (movements 1, 3, 4, 5)

St Andrew’s on The Terrace

Thursday 30 July, 12:15 pm

Although this recital offered a good opportunity to hear two significant cello sonatas, not often played, the audience at St Andrew’s was a lot smaller than it had been for New Zealand School of Music vocal students the day before. Two lunchtime concerts a week might seem excessive; no doubt it’s an effort to meet the expectations of players whose concerts were scheduled in the months of silence: it’s a shame if audiences don’t respond to these free concerts by being as generous with their time as the musicians themselves are.

The players
Gabriela Glapska has been heard recently with the Ghost Trio at St Andrew’s and later at the Adam Concert Room at Victoria University. She’s also been involved in recent months in concerts by the SMP Ensemble and Stroma, as well as other ensembles and in an accompanying role. She was prominent in the performances of Poulenc’s La voix humaine in the Festival in February.

Lavinnia Rae has not been so conspicuous in the last year or so as she’s been a post-graduate student at the Royal College of Music in London. But her name appears in many of Middle C’s reviews in earlier years.

Both musicians played in the NZSM orchestra accompanying Janáček’s The Cunning Little Vixen in 2017.

Beethoven Cello Sonata in D
Though the Op 69 cello sonata (No 3) seems to be more often played, neither the early pair, Op 5, nor the two of Op 102, written in Beethoven’s last decade, are to be denigrated. The last of Beethoven’s five cello sonatas is the only one of the five in the conventional three-movement shape; three others have only two movements while Op 69 has three which are somewhat unusual in character. The Op 102 sonatas probably need to be heard as foreshadowing the piano sonatas and string quartets of his Late period.

Its opening is straight away marked by the vivid contrast between Glapska’s arresting piano and Rae’s quiet, legato cello playing, and it continues to draw attention to the essential differences between the percussive piano and the quiet, more lyrical cello, though now and again, the two merge; there’s no doubt that Beethoven intended it to be heard like this.

The second movement might have been some kind of reminiscence of the Ghost movement of the piano trio carrying that name. There was a mysterious character in the duo’s playing, and they adhered to Beethoven’s clear intention to use this movement to emphasise a musical affinity between piano and cello, in contrast to the first movement. The third movement again challenges the conventions with a densely created fugue that, with only a brief, unexpected, calm respite, resumes its relentless passage. These were indeed the characteristics of this performance that left one with a strong understanding of the composer’s intentions and genius.

Britten’s Cello Sonata
I have to confess to not being a total devotee of Britten, apart from a hand-full of what I guess are his more popular works. Much of his cello sonata however, is moving, and though I didn’t warm to most of it at my first hearing some years ago, more hearings have given me a distinctly greater appreciation. Perhaps it’s unfortunate that the skill and musicality of performers are rather important in inducing real enjoyment. My familiarity with the Britten/Rostropovich account has set the bar very high, bringing it to life with remarkable conviction, creating the feeling that it is indeed a masterpiece.

It’s in five movements, though the second was left out, the spikey, Scherzo-pizzicato.

This performance opened, Dialogo Allegro, imaginatively, with a sense of inevitability, evolving as a dialogue, such as would have come naturally from the warm friendship between composer and its dedicatee and first performer.

I enjoyed the next movement – the second, Elegia: the calm, secretive, impatience of its opening; with its enigmatic piano chords generating a melancholy, lugubrious spirit, as the cello meanders over its lower strings. The notes accurately described that fourth movement, the extravert Marcia energico: its menacing spirit generated by uncanny, fast harmonics.

The extended, scampering Finale sounds fiendishly difficult for both players. The notes defined the bowing technique, bouncing the bow on the strings in the Finale, as ‘saltando’. As a youthful cellist myself, I was embarrassed not to have known, or remembered, that name.

There were moments when I felt the composer was rather obsessively concerned to provide dedicatee Rostropovvich with a strikingly challenging work that he would turn into great, arresting music through his sheer performance and interpretive genius. I mean no criticism in observing that it’s hardly possible to expect lesser musicians successfully to uncover and give life to everything in this big five-movement work.

As so often with these lunchtime concerts, here were two minor (probably better than that) masterpieces that don’t get much played, and we must be grateful that so many professional – or near professional – musicians are ready to play without fees at St Andrew’s, and that Wellington has an amateur (read ‘unpaid’) entrepreneur, Marjan van Waardenberg, with the persuasive powers necessary to recruit them, to schedule and publicise their performances, as well as a central-city church happy to accommodate them.

 

NZSM Concerto Competition – an evening of elegance, frisson and feeling

Posted on by Peter Mechen

Te Kōkī New Zealand School of Music Concerto Competition 2020 – Final

Finalists

Lucas Baker (violin) – BARBER: Violin Concerto
Isabella Gregory (flute) – REINECKE: Flute Concerto in D Major, Op.283
Otis Prescott-Mason (piano) – SAINT-SAENS – Piano Concerto No.2

Collaborative Pianist: David Barnard
Adjudicators: Catherine Gibson (CMNZ)
Vincent Hardaker (APO)

Adam Concert Room, NZSM Kelburn Campus
Victoria University of Wellington

Thursday, 30th July 2020

This year’s final of the NZSM Concerto Competition provided something of a musical feast, even if one of the concertos performed (Saint-Saens’ Second Piano Concerto) was presented with a somewhat truncated finale, for whatever reason. With three promising and extremely accomplished performers playing their respective hearts out (and admirably supported by the efforts of collaborative pianist David Barnard, whose playing of the orchestral part of the Samuel Barber Concerto was a treat in itself to experience), it made for an absorbing listening experience, one to rate at least equally with the actual result of the contest, at least for this listener, with no “affiliations” connected with the outcome!

First up was violinist Lucas Baker, whose chosen work (Samuel Barber’s beautiful Violin Concerto) brought out the young player’s seemingly instinctive feel for the “shape” of the composer’s largely rhapsodic phrases and larger paragraphs – throughout, I was convinced by Baker’s heartfelt approach to both the work’s lyrical and more heroic sequences, his instantly characterful tones enabling us to quickly enter the “world” of the music, despite some untidiness of rhythm and intonation in some of the transitions. The player then confidently attacked the angularities of the second movement, and nicely brought out the fervour of the lyrical writing and the silveriness of the contrasting stratospheric section, concluding with beautifully withdrawn tones at the movement’s end.

The finale’s technical difficulties were also most excitingly squared up to by Baker, his fingers flying over his instrument’s fingerboard to exhilarating effect, with his pianist an equally committed and involved participant in the composer’s vortices of note-spinning – the spills were as exciting and involving as the thrills, both players capturing the devil-may-care spirit which abounds throughout this final movement. Whatever niceties of detail were smudged or approximated, Baker readily conveyed to us an engaging sense of “knowing how it should go”, which carried the day as a performance.

No greater contrast could have been afforded by both the player to next appear and the work chosen! – this was flutist Isabella Gregory, and the work Carl Reinecke’s D Major Flute Concerto, written (somewhat surprisingly, I thought, upon hearing the piece) in 1908, the composer hardly deviating from his early enthusiasms for the music of Mendelssohn and Schumann. In effect, the work is that rarity, a romantic flute concerto – here, it was given a sparklingly lyrical performance by its gifted performer, obviously in complete command of both the piece’s overall shape, and the mellifluous detailings that gave the music such a unique character – complete with a surprisingly abrupt conclusion to the first movement! The sombre nature of the second movement’s opening accompaniment contrasted with the solo instrument’s more carefree manner, played here by Gregory as a somewhat easy-going accomplice to rather more stealthy mischief-making, though I found the Moderato finale a wee bit under-characterised – I thought the rhythms could have a bit more “kick” in places, though this was something which the more energetic concluding sequence in due course suitably enlivened, the virtuosity of the soloist making a breathlessly exciting impression to finish! Altogether, a delightful and suitably brilliant performance!

The evening’s final contestant was pianist Otis Prescott-Mason, who had chosen Saint-Saens’s wonderful Second Piano Concerto – a work whose character I recall once described as “beginning like Bach and ending like Offenbach”! Throughout the first movement I found myself riveted by the young musician’s spell-binding command of the music’s ebb-and-flow, the “spontaneous” element of the opening improvisation as finely-judged as I had ever heard it played, Prescott-Mason truly “making the music his own” and working hand-in-glove with his collaborator to create the sense of Baroque-like splendour that informs the music – what I particularly liked was the spaciousness of it all, allied to the clear direction of the underlying pulse of the music, to the point where the sounds had an inevitability of utterance which perfectly fused freedom and structure, Saint-Saens at his most potent as a creator. What a pity, then that such poised, and finely-tuned focus seemed to me to be then somewhat impatiently cast aside, the second movement’s playfulness over-rushed and the rhythmic deliciousness and delicacy of it all to my ears duly lost – Saint-Saens’s humour is always po-faced and elegant, and the playing in this movement I thought unfortunately failed to realise that “insouciance” which keeps the music’s character intact. I then hoped that the whirlwind brilliance of the finale might have restored some of the impression created by the pianist in that superbly-crafted first movement – but the work was unexpectedly and severely shortened, allowing little opportunity for a “renaissance” of identification with the music’s world on the young player’s part.

All in all, the result of the competition very justly, I thought accorded the laurels to flutist Isabella Gregory, whose performance indicated an impressive totality of identification with the music she played, as regards both execution and interpretation. Both her rivals, Lucas Baker and Otis Prescott-Mason, I thought, turned out most engaging performances of their pieces, without quite rivalling the winner’s consistency and strength of purpose. But what things all three achieved in their different ways!  And how richly and gratefully we all relished their talent and musicality in entertaining us us so royally during the evening!

Koru Trio – giving the St.Andrews’s audience its koha’s worth and more……

Posted on by Peter Mechen

The Koru Trio at St.Andrew’s-on-The-Terrace, Wellington

BEETHOVEN – Piano Trio No.5 in D Major Op.70 No. 1 “Ghost”
ZEMLINSKY – Piano Trio in D Minor Op, 3

The Koru Trio – Anne Loeser (violin) / Sally Isaac (‘cello) / Rachel Thomson (piano)

St.Andrew’s-on-The-Terrace Lunchtime Concert Series, Wellington

Wednesday, 29th July, 2020

One of the largest lunchtime concert audiences I’ve seen at St.Andrew’s-on-The-Terrace enthusiastically responded to two splendid performances by the Koru Trio, a group known to me up to now by reputation only – a quick check of the Middle C review archive confirmed that so far I’d not had the good fortune to review a single concert by the ensemble. I must record here that, long before the interval I was already bemoaning the opportunities I’d missed out on over the years, the Trio having been formed as long ago as 2011! In fact, to my astonishment and pleasure,  the concert replicated the excitement and interest of another I’d recently attended at the same venue, and had subsequently reviewed – that by the newly-formed Ghost Trio, coupling, as here, one of Beethoven’s masterly works in this genre with a lesser-known one by a different composer. On that earlier occasion it was the miraculous Op.1 Piano Trio of Andrzej Panufnik, while here, the Koru Trio after THEIR Beethoven performance gave us the no less remarkable, youthfully-conceived Op.3 Piano Trio of Alexander Von Zemlinsky.

First came the Beethoven Trio, Op.70 No.1, known popularly as the “Ghost”, a nickname attributed by most accounts to the composer’s former pupil Carl Czerny associating in later years the second movement’s evocative writing with the ghost of Hamlet’s father – interestingly enough, Beethoven was toying at the time of writing this trio with the idea of an opera about Macbeth, which accounts for the forgivable slip of association in the Koru’s otherwise excellent programme notes, which had Beethoven’s music recalling Hamlet’s encounter with his father “in Shakespeare’s Macbeth”! The work begins completely differently, of course with an exciting, energetic unison, here instantly grabbing the listeners’ attention with strong, focused playing, which continued throughout the lyrical response to the opening “helter-skelter”. The development began with “another way of doing the opening”, whimsical exchanges leading to major key exhortions and wonderful roller-coaster ride figurations, and left me relishing the thought of the composer’s chortling with exuberant glee at the “plunge” back into the recapitulated opening figure! As much as I loved the energy of the playing I was as much taken with the delicacy and feathery quality the players found in some of the writing, even if from where I was sitting the St.Andrew’s acoustic seemed to favour the piano at the strings’ expense.

Vibrato-less tones from the strings added to the slow movement’s “spooky” effect, the lines suitably eerie and suspenseful, punctuated by sudden bursts of tone and spidery keyboard descents and tremolandos – I thought pianist Rachel Thomson’s beautifully-sustained trilling and tremolandi helped create an almost Musorgsky-like atmosphere in places, with Anne Loeser’s and Sally Isaac’s string playing suitably spectral in attendance. The group marshalled the tensions to great effect – in places the tones were more “lament-like” than ghostly, with the two crescendi almost unnerving in their lack of inhibition. I thought that, as the movement’s end approached, the instrumental sounds in places became “as from the earth”, the music a mere conduit through which mysterious impulses were giving tongue.

A measure of relief was afforded by the first strains of the finale – a kind of “glad we’re out of there” feeling which burgeoned into exuberance in places, every player contributing to the buzz of activity, and sharing the bouts of momentary bemusement at the lines occasionally spinning upwards and disappearing in Houdini-like fashion, only to reappear as if descending by parachute! It made for a thoroughly invigorating entertainment, bristling with good humour and well-being, just the stuff needed! – a lovely performance!

Alexander von Zemlinsky’s Piano Trio made up the rest of the concert, the work exerting no less a fascination on an audience by this time in thrall to the blandishments of the music-making. The work’s Schumannesque opening – darkly passionate, as if its composer was “wrestling with ghosts” – alternated with contrasting sequences, a wistful longing which transforms into a feeling for the German woods with characteristic horn-calls evoking the romance of darkness and mystery. We heard long-breathed lines whose harmonies modulated in and out of the shadows in fine Romantic style, the influence of Brahms, who encouraged the younger composer, readily apparent (Brahms, incidentally, insisted that his own publisher print Zemlinsky’s work). A grand romantic summation ended the first movement, brought off here with great style and panache!

A warm, richly upholstered piano solo (in places bringing to my mind Janacek’s piano writing) began the slow movement, before violin and ‘cello joined in, and so initiated a most passionately-voiced threesome, bristling with impulsive sequences (amid which I caught an echo of Dvorak’s ‘Cello Concerto!) and reaching a kind of fever-pitch before subsiding, exhausted, into gentleness and rapture. By contrast the finale was all skitterish urgency and al fresco energy to begin with, accompanied by redolent hunting sounds from the piano, which fought a rearguard action to keep the strings on the move – I enjoyed the lively interplay between the opposing camps, Zemlinsky’s writing never predictable, and, in fact, saving a brightly-gleaming frisson of surprise and delight for the very end – a work I enjoyed getting to know, and through which the Trio made a lot of fun in sharing with us so joyously!

 

 

Orchestra Wellington concert triumphs despite first-half technical glitch

Posted on by Peter Mechen

Michael Houstoun plays Rachmaninov

RACHMANINOV – Piano Concerto No. 3 in D Minor Op.30
TCHAIKOVSKY – “Manfred” Symphony in B Minor Op.58

Michael Houstoun (piano)
Orchestra Wellington
Marc Taddei (conductor)

Michael Fowler Centre, Wellington

Saturday, 25th July 2020

Saturday evening’s concert by Orchestra Wellington, the first of the ensemble’s somewhat rearranged 2020 season, promised to be something of a blockbuster occasion, with two justly famous (for vastly different reasons) works from the Russian  repertoire together making for an evening’s spectacular music-making. Long regarded as one of the most difficult and demanding of romantic piano concertos, Rachmaninov’s legendary D minor work has proven an irresistible challenge for many of the greatest pianists over the years, and on this occasion was given a beautifully persuasive rendition by Michael Houstoun, supported both flowingly and meticulously by conductor and orchestra. An unexpected hiatus during the work’s second movement caused by a technical problem was quickly and securely dealt with, and the music safely gotten on the rails again by the musicians in an entirely admirable fashion.

Tchaikovsky’s programmatic B Minor Symphony “Manfred” has achieved a different kind of fame over the years, one based on its relative neglect by default, having as many detractors as champions, and being generally regarded until recently by both musicians and commentators as the weakest in a structural sense of the composer’s seven works in this form. Marc Taddei and his musicians ignored all such preconceptions by approaching the symphony very much on its own terms, fully embracing its programmatic nature and thus setting free all of the music’s dramatic and poetic possibilities, with truly spectacular results!

Added to the attraction of the programme was a real sense of occasion generated by the musicians involved brought about by the post-lockdown recommencement of Orchestra Wellington’s original programming for the season – achieved with a couple of time readjustments,  this was possibly a “first” for any orchestral body in the world for 2020. Music director Marc Taddei paid tribute in a short speech to the leadership and purpose demonstrated in high places which had enabled concerts here in New Zealand to be recommenced in such a manner. The orchestra had, of course, already made a highly-acclaimed reappearance on the concert platform for a Mozart series during the previous month, one featuring concertmaster Amalia Hall as both soloist and music director.

Another musician whose plans (sadly for us all, for retirement) had been “put on hold” through his generous response to a need created by the Covid-19 pandemic for his services was the evening’s soloist, Michael Houstoun. Having on previous occasions amply demonstrated his mastery of all aspects of Rachmaninov’s piano writing in this concerto, Houstoun seemed here to take a less virtuosic, more-than-usually organic view of the music this time round, with little untoward irruption or attention-drawing point-making allowed to disturb the flow of ideas, instead expressing everything as integral to the whole, and certainly never allowing the piano to dominate . The orchestral voices were given full rein, making for a fascinatingly-voiced dialogue of phrases and longer lines, with the wind-writing in particular making its presence felt. Rachmaninov has never, I feel,  been given sufficient credit for the more “intellectual” aspects of his writing, his detractors in particular quick to overemphasise his emotionalism and his “outdated” romantic gesturings, ignoring felicitations such as the skill with which he inter-relates the various motifs throughout this work. And those moments of “glorious expansion”, particularly those given tongue by the strings in places, here grew out of the material so naturally, for me further underlining a sense of being caught up in the first movement’s incredible flow of impulse and colour.

Just as beguiling here was the second movement’s richly-wrought sense of undulation, those various outpourings of feeling building and breaking over the waves’ edges so gloriously, led variously by the piano and then the orchestra – such a pity that one of these oceanic burgeonings was unexpectedly interrupted by the pianist’s electronic page-turner malfunctioning or inadvertedly losing its way, bringing the music to a halt – a brief re-alignment from soloist, conductor and orchestra, and we were off again, climbing towards that same ecstatic fulfilment of expression with even more determined energies – by contrast, the movement’s “scherzo-waltz”  section was here deliciously, almost lazily realised, giving the notes a chance to scintillate rather than merely “blur at speed” – the nocturne-like mood returned impassionedly, the strings allowing another surge of feeling before being silenced by the piano’s sudden call to action, heralding the finale.

Again, Houstoun chose not to assail the music with flailing figurations, but kept the momentums at a steady surge, holding the tempo in accord with an overall flow and imparting by turns a delicacy and an impish quality in places. Noble brass tones resonated the textures before hushed winds and strings introduced the haunting contrast afforded by a delicate scherzando sequence – lovely, crystalline playing from Houstoun, here, leading to the magical reiteration of the latter part of the first movement’s second subject, perhaps the concerto’s most “lump-in-the-throat” moment. Afterwards came the return of the “galloping horse” motiv that began the finale, and the almost combatative exchanges between piano and orchestra leading to the work’s apotheosis (Rachmaninov’s own “Cossack Cavalry” moment during this section rivals Chopin’s “Polish Cavalry” surgings in the latter’s Op.53 Polonaise). The orchestral strings sang the “big” concluding D Major melody like crazy, so it was a pity that the dovetailing right at the end of the work between piano and orchestra seemed suddenly fraught and uncertain, and the ending somewhat roughly-wrought! – so uncharacteristic of the performance as a whole!

Unfortunately, these relatively momentary “glitches” saw the pianist depart from the performing platform after acknowledging the orchestra and the audience, and not return, despite our enthusiastic applause, All of us most assuredly wanted to (a) let Houstoun know that the mishaps were of little consequence compared with the magnificence of the whole and (b) salute him and his fellow musicians for responding to these happenings with such efficiency and professionalism – one would hope that something like these same sentiments would have been conveyed to him as a matter of course afterwards.

Whether or not this somewhat “damp squib” ending of the first half made conductor and players all the more determined to bring off what followed in the concert with something wholly memorable is probably academic conjecture – the fact was that, from those first haunting wind chords of the opening “Lento lugubre” movement of Tchaikovsky’s Manfred Symphony, the playing exerted a vice-like grip on our attentions, the remainder of the orchestra amassing its forces in the most full-blooded manner imaginable – such trenchant string tones and baleful brass, recalling like passages in the same composer’s “Francesca da Rimini” – there was tenderness, too as the strings savoured the theme Tchaikovsky wrought to characterise his hero Manfred’s memory of a lost love, followed by wild desperation as the memory became an obsession and a torment, culminating in a full-orchestra reiteration of Manfred’s own despairing motif.

Respite from the gloom was provided by the work’s inner movements – firstly by the whimsical charms of the watery abode of the Witch of the Alps, and a charmingly graceful Trio section which could have come from one of the great ballets, Tchaikovsky adroitly working the “Manfred” theme into the music’s blandishments – both the feathery scherzo-like textures and the silken grace of the trio were brought off here with great orchestral panache. The Berlioz-like third movement at first evoked pastoral scenes with a beguiling oboe solo carried on by flutes and counterpointed by a horn with the strings, a rustic dance bursting delightfully on the scene, but just as quickly swept away by an almost martial sequence – the volatility of the music amazed and entertained as the sounds swirled into a kind of passionate frenzy, brought to a halt by distant church bells and begun again by the winds, the music’s volatility leaving one bemused as to what next to expect!

The finale was an “Allegro con fuoco”, a bacchanalian-like riot of colour and energy with a distinct Russian flavour, delivered with tremendous elan – as the excitement died down, the brass sounded a kind of ‘knell”, returning us to the mood of the symphony’s opening, the hero having failed to elude his doom, one cruelly “mocked” by a driving fugue, which quickly turned into a kind of danse macabre, hurling itself to no avail against the “iron gates” of fate. What anguished strings and pitiless harp cascadings! –  all leading inevitably to desolate lamentations and a final reiteration of Manfred’s fateful theme, given the full, apocalyptic (perhaps that should read apoplectic?) treatment, an organ thrown in for good measure at the end, to bring some spiritual peace to the hero with death’s release. Conductor Marc Taddei would have at the end, I think, been justly proud of his own and his players’ efforts in bringing this “symphonic monster” to such overwhelmingly visceral life!

Surely RNZ Concert ought to have recorded this, an historic occasion for so many different reasons? Wouldn’t one have expected this to have been an occasion worth preserving? I would have thought so!……however, as I saw no microphones, it seems as if memory alone might have to suffice when we hearken back and remember what we can of this remarkable feast of music-making, in the midst of remarkable times!