Is the Government paralysed by timidity? An update on the RNZ Concert crisis and a mass protest concert at Parliament

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

An update on the RNZ Concert crisis

A protest concert on Parliament’s steps
News website Scoop has published details of a concert involving hundreds of musicians performing in Parliament Grounds to voice their opposition to plans to axe RNZ Concert, the country’s only classical and jazz music station.

A massed choir and orchestra, conducted by Wellington’s Brent Stewart, have chosen RNZ Concert’s 87th birthday, Monday 24th February, to voice their support, with a performance of the classical hit Carmina Burana by Carl Orff.

The protest concert will be on the steps of Parliament at 4 pm on Monday 24 February
See: http://wellington.scoop.co.nz/?p=125655

Government appears paralysed on RNZ crisis 
You won’t be surprised that I am more than a little agitated, dismayed, even angry about this attack on RNZ Concert. While it looks as if they’ve found a spare FM frequency, so allowing them to persist with their misguided intention of creating a new radio channel ‘catering for’ young audiences, many other destructive things could still happen.

Starting from the top, Thompson must be removed along with the board who have been unbelievably complicit in and ignorant in their promoting plans virtually to wipe Concert out.

Bearing in mind that the Government has in the past abolished statutory bodies such as regional councils and school boards, only a little courage is needed to remove a wrong-headed, incompetent CEO of Radio New Zealand, and perhaps its entire board.

The issues are far from resolved, yet they are extremely serious  
Will all existing staff be retained and given secure positions? Or is the unspoken intention still to turn it into an anonymous station, like the present midnight to 6am broadcasts, playing endless, unidentified music, as in some web media?

And will RNZ Concert abandon its tedious practice of endlessly self-promoting various ‘programmes’, promoting personalities and individual announcers’ sessions, in the style of TV presenters? And will the ‘popularising’ policy cease, that seeks to generate an intimacy through the presenters’ language, encouraging them to decorate their words with personal anecdotes, gushings about the rapturous or wonderful music about to be played?

Yes, it’s nice to sound friendly and interested (and all current presenters do that), but we also want them to treat us like grown-ups, and not patronised with adolescent speech and affectations.

Will RNZ Concert be more adequately funded (drastically reduced over the past decade and more) so that more live performances can be recorded for rebroadcast, and their ability restored to commission talks and documentaries about music and the other arts, such as there were up to 20 or so years ago? Being increasingly constrained in the quid-pro-quo of exchanging programmes with European and American networks, I gather we are now being treated as a charity case; a shameful situation that should embarrass the Government.

And will it reverse the shabby practice of playing single movements instead of entire works? About 80% of broadcasts of symphonies, sonatas, chamber and other multi-movement pieces are confined to single movements that leave you hanging, or longing to have heard the earlier movements. It’s very unprofessional.

Thompson must go and board cleaned out
Unless Thompson goes life will continue to be horrible for Concert staff as he will be able to continue to act, in a more obscure, less overt manner perhaps, to dumb down the channel. We must have a chief executive who understands and believes unreservedly in the importance of a classical music channel and energetically restores its essential character; someone who will recover its freedom to use its huge resources of recorded music most of which is locked in the basement.

Somehow, RNZ must be convinced that the success of public radio is not measured by its level of appeal to a particular age or any other group, in the same way as might apply to commercial radio. Very few young people listen to radio, PERIOD! And those that do occasionally, listen to commercial stations that broadcast the sort of music that RNZ plans to broadcast over its new channel.

It would be an irresponsible waste of money to set up a youth-oriented network, unless there was a clear intention to sue it to awaken interest in good music, classical music, music that has stood the test of time. It is not the job of public radio to attract any of those who do not in effect invite themselves.

RNZ’s job is comparable to that of a national library or art museum that devotes itself to storing and exhibiting and promoting works of art or literature of proven importance. Things that might not be looked at every day but which are a vital element in a civilised country. The success of such bodies is not to be measured solely by listener numbers but rather, by the responses of those whose background or long devotion to good music equips them to assess its qualities and its ability to stimulate interest in all those with any sort of curiosity about classical music. That’s not just popular music, though the best of contemporary popular music certainly finds a place.

Nevertheless, it has also been shown by a survey in the UK that the NZ Concert Program has, in terms of audience percentages, the largest listening numbers of all classical music stations in the world.

Silence and passing time makes Minister look indecisive 
It is becoming increasingly disturbing that no decisive action has yet been taken by the Minister, primarily on the need to terminate Thompson’s employment. The more time that passes, the more the Government will appear indecisive and timid, and it will also be plain for all to see that it either isn’t conscious of or doesn’t care about the implications, both domestic and international, of allowing the neglect and indifference of the previous Government to persist. This is an extremely important aspect of New Zealand’s cultural reputation.

Get to Parliament 4pm on Monday 24 February.
Here are links to relevant websites:

There is a Give a Little campaign set up to raise $10,000 to help with costs of this concert in Parliament Grounds.

https://givealittle.co.nz/cause/savernzconcert?fbclid=IwAR2ockucLc4bswu4LaTe2cyqTCkCpXOkUZ0e2IuxyCm4oKARMBSfPQjWzhQ

SOUNZ (Centre for New Zealand Music) media release on the need to keep full presentation, scheduling and recording:

https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/CU2002/S00089/the-fight-is-not-over-to-save-rnz-concert-securing-fm-frequencies-is-just-the-beginning.htm

 

Revealing background from former Concert manager

A former manager of RNZ Concert, Miles Rogers, contributed an article in The Dominion Post last week, revealing important background information that illuminates the troubles of RNZ Concert, going back many years.

RNZ Concert from the inside

As a former manager of RNZ Concert, I’m aware that this network has been progressively side-lined and marginalised.

Until the late 1990s a defined funding split operated between National and Concert – c.78% to 22%.  A decision was then taken to apply funding where “most needed” and from that point Concert began to lose ground. By 2003, there was no longer a budget to purchase broadcasting rights to the numerous recorded performances from our professional musical bodies and the various international soloists and ensembles that tour – from that time these rights have generously been given gratis. And since an internal restructuring in late 2014, this stream – a whole RNZ network – has had no direct report to the CEO and therefore no appropriate representation.

Further, the vast library of classical CDs was removed from RNZ House, Wellington in 2017.  This repository is Concert’s bread-and-butter for maintaining variety and scope in its daily schedule.  In recent times, presumably in a directive to appeal to and gain greater listenership, and in part through ever decreasing funding and staffing levels, the output has been reduced to something like a “top 500”, with popular classics often occurring every couple of days, alongside a predominance of single movements. Compounding this, continuity music programming is selected by computer, rather than by musical minds. These factors severely limit programmers’ choice and listeners’ experience. The threat of presenters now facing redundancies continues the present trend that Concert is already automated for most of weekend transmissions and was for a period on weekday evenings – ie no warm body behind the microphone at these times.

Though most listeners would value RNZ Concert for its range of classical music, Concert exists and is funded particularly for the nurturing, recording and dissemination of our musicians and composers… think NZSO, Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra, Chamber Music NZ, New Zealand String Quartet, pianists Michael Houstoun and Diedre Irons, Dames Kiri Te Kanawa and Malvina Major, Douglas Lilburn, John Psathas, – names at the peak of our indigenous talent.  Yet Concert’s work for emerging talent extends to secondary schools’ level through annual recordings of such as the NZCT Chamber Music Contest and The Big Sing.  There must surely be listeners too at Epsom Girl’s Grammar, who successfully hijacked 2019’s “Settling the Score”. Decreased funding has made such recording more and more difficult to carry out. I can only applaud the dedication of remaining staff, the lengths they go to in maintaining a professional product that still retains agreed quotas of NZ performance and composition within the overall schedule.

There’s a defined, finite audience for every music brand. That classical music has a smaller audience than popular brands should not diminish its value. RNZ Concert covers the broad range of classical, jazz, popular, film and World musics – much as then Director General, John Schroder envisaged when introducing the original YC stations c.1950. As our country’s population ages, more probably migrate from the commercial radio world for the sanity non-commercial radio affords. In truth, RNZ Concert needs a shot in the arm – increased funding – to enhance and regain its former prestige. Of RNZ’s funding from Government in Year 2018/19 totalling $43.4 million, I wonder what percentage was apportioned to RNZ Concert?  Throughout the 1980s RNZ’s technical and music staffs built a country-wide FM transmission network for fine music. To relegate this stream to much lesser quality AM transmission would be a retrograde step.

Section 175 of the Radiocommunications Act 1989: Conditions of licences relating to the FM Concert Programme and National Radio” includes the following: “that the first priority for the use of the frequency to which the licence relates shall be the broadcasting of (1) in the case of a licence that relates to the service known as the FM Concert Programme”. Does this not guarantee FM transmission for RNZ Concert?

Miles Rogers

And write to Minister of Broadcasting Kris Faafoi  (k.faafoi@ministers.govt.nz) and the Prime Minister (j.ardern@ministers.govt.nz).

Those at work, get an hour off to attend this important concert, and think about making a donation through Give-a-little to the large cost of staging a performance like this.

Send this to your friends.

Lindis Taylor

Michael Houstoun bows out triumphantly at Waikanae in the company of the Amici Ensemble

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Waikanae Music Society

Michael Houstoun and the Amici Ensemble (led by Donald Armstrong)
The Amici Ensemble: Emma Barron and Anna van der Zee (violins), Andrew Thomson (viola), Ken Ichinose (cello), Oleksandr Gunchenko (double bass), Bridget Douglas and Kirstin Eade (flutes), Douglas Mews (harpsichord)

J S Bach:
Trio sonata from The Musical Offering
Partita No 4 in D, BWV 898
Brandenburg Concerto No 4 in G, BWV 1049
Keyboard Concerto in D minor, BWV 1052

Waikanae Memorial Hall

Sunday 9 February, 2:30 pm

The first concert in the Waikanae Music Society’s 2020 season welcomed the audience with a ‘Full House’ notice at the door: meaning that around 500 filled the hall. It was a celebration of Michael Houstoun’s long career: his last concert for the society which has hosted him regularly since 1986. He played in the company of Donald Armstrong’s Amici Ensemble which has also been a major and very popular contributor to Waikanae’s concerts. It was an inspiring combination.

The programme that was devised was particularly thoughtful and appropriate, serving, somewhat incidentally perhaps, to display a range of Bach’s instrumental music not all of which is well known. One solo piano piece and Bach’s best known keyboard concerto, both featured Houstoun at the piano. Giving Houstoun time to catch his breath, the ensemble, including Douglas Mews at the harpsichord, played the Trio Sonata from The Musical Offering for flute, violin and continuo and the fourth Brandenburg Concerto.

Attention to the RNZ Concert crisis
But before they began president Germana Nicklin spoke briefly about the crisis that was upper-most in everyone’s thoughts – Radio New Zealand management’s intention to get rid of RNZ Concert, firing almost the entire staff, and giving its FM transmission network to a new programme devoted to what the management thinks are the tastes of young people, let’s say teen-agers. She invited Elizabeth Kerr to the stage, the former manager of Concert FM, as it used to be called (no longer if Thompson and Macalister have their way: it’ll be Concert AM, only some of the year and with no obtrusive human voices). And Elizabeth read a passionate message from Wilma Smith, founding first violin of the New Zealand String Quartet and later, Concertmaster of both the NZSO and the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. There was no mistaking her dismay and anger at the barbaric plans.

The Trio Sonata
But to the music at hand. The Trio Sonata played by Armstrong, flautist Bridget Douglas and cellist Ken Ichinose, with Mews with the harpsichord continuo, was one of the many varied pieces of The Musical Offering that Bach sent to Frederick the Great in 1747. It’s entitled Sonata sopr’il Soggetto Reale (‘Sonata on a Royal theme’). The trio sonata form was common enough at the time and Bach wrote a number of others, but this one is unusually technical and makes formidable play with the theme that the King had invited him to use for an elaborate fugue. In fact it matched the gravity of our situation, sombre, in a minor key, in spite of the generally happy character of the flute.

The performance set the benchmark for the concert, as all the pieces were played without the introduction of any unwritten decoration (as far as I could tell), or the imposition of any inappropriate emotional character beyond what is intrinsic to the notes on the page. And this continued to characterise the two following Allegro movements. It offered proof of their ability to sustain the serious character of the King’s theme. Bach’s seriousness pf purpose seemed to be illuminated in the extended Andante movement, spacious and thoughtful.

Keyboard Partita No 4 
Houstoun’s choice of the fourth of the challenging keyboard Partitas was a further mark of the concert’s serious yet deeply satisfying character. Each of the six partitas has three movements in common (Allemande, Courante, Sarabande and a Gigue in all but one case), along with a wide variety of other movements. No 4 is the only one that opens with an ‘Overture’ and it presented Houstoun with a formidable opportunity to express what I suppose can only be discovered in the greatest classical music. And that undoubtedly illustrates what great art can offer to those who have troubled to cultivate and familiarise themselves with the musical material that composers like Bach used to explore the depths of human experience. Nevertheless, the fugal character of the Overture’s second part avoided undue complexity and was the more rewarding for that.

Houstoun seemed to have discovered how to handle the most interesting and revelatory aspects of each subsequent movement. In some ways the second movement, Allemande, is both the longest and the most elaborate, with a subtle change of mood following pauses at the end of each paragraph. Longer pauses occur in the slow Sarabande and though it’s not a slow movement that plumbs the profundities of the Chaconne of the second violin partita, Houstoun managed to suggest a depth that made a singular impression.

The Gigue struck me as a particularly rewarding movement in Houstoun’s hands, with fugal elements and episodes for the left hand alone that led to complex polyphony.

Brandenburg Concerto No 4
All players arrived on stage to play the fourth Brandenburg concerto, with Douglas Mews again on the harpsichord, and others as named above. Each of the six Brandenburgs is different; No 4 has the character of a concerto grosso, featuring a group of three (or so) solo instruments (two flutes and Armstrong’s violin) and the balance (‘ripieno’), a small core of strings and harpsichord.

As with the Trio Sonata, the sound of the harpsichord didn’t project very well. While it was often audible in the earlier piece, among a larger number of modern instruments in the Brandenburg concerto, it failed to make much contribution. Nevertheless, the first and third movements were particularly lively and entertaining. The Andante might have been on the slow side; perhaps better described as careful and studied, ending with slow chords that introduced the last movement. The splendid fugue was particularly effective, shared interestingly among the three solo instruments. Donald Armstrong enjoyed an impressively virtuosic solo passage towards the end.

Piano Concerto in D minor 
Bach’s keyboard concerto, No 1 in D minor, really does demand performance on the piano and I felt that its choice as Houstoun’s last performance for Waikanae again demonstrated his serious and intelligent approach to this occasion and to music generally. In spite of the many great performances of the popular and spectacular piano concertos that comprise part of the symphony orchestral repertoire, Bach’s No 1 in D minor is a singular work that seems to be rarely played, though I remember clearly a performance, my first, unsurprisingly, in the old Concert Chamber of the Town Hall (it shocked me that it was replaced by a smaller space in the shape of the Ilott Theatre). It was, perhaps, in the 1950s (the pianist and the orchestral ensemble I can’t recall). Its seriousness and power impressed me then just as this performance did on Sunday.

All the instruments contributed with distinction, as they had in the Brandenburg, often playing in unison, without a great deal of fugal or contrapuntal writing. It’s widely considered a major preliminary step towards the piano concerto that emerged in the second half of the 18th century, the piano no longer just a polite member of the ensemble but a striking solo contributor. Towards the end there’s a striking dialogue between piano and cello and a virtuosic cadenza.

As with the performances of the three previous works, the most striking characteristic was the sense of integrity and honesty with which all players handled the music: no straining for ‘Romantic’ colours and emotions: just the notes in the score played with honesty and faithfulness.

This was a distinguished and momentous concert in which every aspect had been carefully studied and prepared. I hope that Michael Houstoun will be able to reflect on the occasion with as much gratitude and pleasure as the audience which, at the end, rose in its entirety to its feet.

 

Save Radio NZ Concert: sign a petition and write letters

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

We gather there are several petitions out there that seek to protect Radio New Zealand Concert, its integrity, even its survival to all intents and purposes.

Here is the one that’s recommended:

https://secure.avaaz.org/en/community_petitions/paul_thompson_and_willy_macalister_at_radio_new_ze_keep_rnz_concert_on_fm_and_retain_their_presenters/

This of course covers the bare bones of the issue.

Of even more importance is the writing of letters that deal trenchantly with other associated issues.

It needs to be asked how it comes about that the positions of chief executive and the head of music of RNZ  have been filled by people with no evident experience in public broadcasting, and with no knowledge of one of the most important art forms that underpins civilisation: the great music that has stood the test of time and which ranks alongside other great art – literature, painting, sculpture, architecture…

And as I asked in the earlier post, who has been responsible for appointing a board, none of whose members seem remotely interested in or qualified to manage the presentation, promotion and dissemination of great music.

The more letters that reach the Prime Minister (as Minister of Arts, Culture and Heritage) and Kris Faafoi (Minister of Broadcasting), the better. Faafoi claims that we, the public, don’t want him to be interfering in the administration of RNZ!). Really? If he doesn’t concern himself with this, the most serious crisis to have arisen since the threat in the 1980s to have advertising on Concert FM, just what does he do to earn his stipend in the portfolio?

Bear in mind the knife-edge situation of the Government as we approach the election: the threat to abandon support for the Labour Party which I’ve heard expressed by a number of people in recent days, should cause the Government pause for thought, if nothing else does.

 

RNZ Chief plans to destroy RNZ Concert

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Crisis in our intellectual and cultural life!

We reproduce below a report on Stuff website about the unbelievably barbaric plans of Radio New Zealand to sack all RNZ Concert staff, broadcast music without presenters, either live or recorded, transmit on only AM radio which is virtually defunct in New Zealand and throughout the world.

We know no country in the western world that does not have a classical music broadcaster of the kind New Zealand has had since 1950.

We find it extraordinary that a State-owned enterprise appears to be free to act in this way without the sanction of the relevant controlling body or the Minister.

There were warning signals last year with a report that there were plans to shift half of RNZ staff to Auckland.

That was hard to understand when it’s the State that should be leading the way in encouraging the dispersal of employment and the demand for housing to other parts of the country, from a city that seems unable to cater for the results of uncontrolled population growth.

And the ‘popularisation’ of the presentation in recent months, the incessant use of  ‘trailers’, encouraging presenters to exploit their personalities, and to ‘gush’ over what’s about to be played was prescient. It was a warning that management believed its listeners were either children or people without their own feelings about music, their long-cultivated tastes and generally a knowledge of classical music, just as of major literature and the visual arts.

We must wonder how someone so lacking in an understanding of the importance of maintaining fundamental elements of civilised life and culture. could have been appointed to a position in charge of the the nation’s public radio.

Is there any hope that RNZ’s board will reject this absurdity? Not likely, as there’s no one on the board with any sign of an interest in classical music, or indeed in any of the major arts.

When there were moves in the 1980s to undermine through commercial advertising, what was then the Concert Programme, it led to the formation of Friends of the Concert Programme. There were some 50,000 adherents and they stopped it. Unfortunately the record of those members has been lost.

We need to create immediately a new Friends of RNZ Concert, to raise the roof to show the strength of opinion about these unbelievable plans.

The report on Stuff: 

RNZ says new ‘youth oriented’ music brand will lift whole radio industry

Tom Pullar-Strecker 16:20, Feb 05 2020

RNZ has brushed off concerns that a radical overhaul of its music services will take it into a turf-fight with the country’s commercial radio stations.

The state-owned broadcaster began consulting staff on Wednesday on a proposal that would see it make 18 redundancies and axe almost all jobs at RNZ Concert.

It plans to create 17 new jobs at a new youth-oriented music channel based in Auckland that it plans to launch during the second half of this year.

But sources suggested that only a few existing staff were being given the opportunity to transfer.

“There will be a whole lot of new jobs doing some quite new things,” chief executive Paul Thompson said.

RNZ chief executive Paul Thompson says there will be different views on its new music strategy but it needs to connect with younger audiences.

Public Service Association national secretary Glenn Barclay said RNZ staff were “shocked and upset”.

“They knew change was coming, but nobody expected it would be this far reaching or aggressive in terms of timeframes.”

Concert FM had been part of New Zealand households for generations, and its “skilled and hardworking staff” did exemplary work every day, he said.

“PSA members will meet in the days ahead to discuss this proposal with colleagues, and they will decide on an appropriate response.”

RNZ head of music Willy Macalister said RNZ’s new music service would feature a higher proportion of New Zealand music and “talk content” than commercial radio stations.

But it would also play international hits in order to provide “something that is palatable to a broader audience”, he said.

RNZ’s support of the Rhythm and Vines music festival points to the direction it expects its new music service to take.

“You can’t ‘niche yourself’ out of relevance.”

The new commercial-free service, which has yet to be named, will be carried on FM and made available online, both in a streaming format and “on demand”.

RNZ Concert would lose its FM slot and all its presenters, but would broadcast classical music around the clock on AM, online and on Sky.

Staff whose jobs were on the line have criticised the moves as a step towards replacing RNZ’s music division with “Spotify”, sources said.

But Thompson said it needed to create the new brand and that decision had been signed off by its board.

“While RNZ is doing really well, we just don’t have enough connection with younger New Zealanders.

“The bit we are working with staff on is the impact of the new strategy on them.”

Commercial radio broadcasters NZME and MediaWorks are understood to have had discussions with the Radio Broadcasters Association about RNZ’s new direction.

Its chief executive Jana Rangooni gave a guarded response to RNZ’s plans.

“If the public service media principle of delivering content to New Zealand audiences that are not currently catered for is applied to RNZ’s youth music strategy, this could deliver benefits for all sectors of our industry and for New Zealanders,” she said.

But she said the association would have “serious concerns” if a taxpayer-funded broadcaster launched products and platforms that targeted audiences “already well served by commercial radio broadcasters”.

“We note that there are already many networks operating in New Zealand that service youth music audiences,” she said.

“While it’s true RNZ is non-commercial, the networks it operates with taxpayer funding compete for audiences which has an impact on New Zealand’s commercial networks.”

Macalister downplayed that concern saying a lot of thought had gone into avoiding a clash.

“A rising tide will float all boats. We are going to be offering something that is different.

“There is a section of the audience that is not consuming radio at the moment and we really do hope we can appeal to them.”

That would involve the new service supporting more “grass roots” music, emerging artists and live performances, he said.

Commercial radio businesses might “talk a bit loud at the start, but I think everybody will be okay and we will all get along”, he said.

Thompson said it would be “pointless” for RNZ to launch a service that replicated what the commercial market already did well, and said it would aim to offer any new content it created to other broadcasters.

“We have this strategy of ‘radical sharing’ because that is how we are growing our impact.”

RNZ would do “all it could” to support existing staff through the consultations, Thompson said.

But he said changes of the kind RNZ was considering were “always really difficult”.

“Of course there are going to be different views and opinions of this,” he said.

 

Big audience for the first NZSO Shed series avoiding the mainstream classics

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Shed Series: Symmetries

New Zealand Symphony Orchestra conducted by Hamish McKeich

Brahms: Hungarian Dances No 1 and 3 (orchestrated by the composer)
Lissa Meridan: Tuning the head of a pin
Mozart: Divertimento No 11 in D, K 251 – Rondo
Birtwistle: Bach Measures from eight Chorale Preludes from the Orgelbüchlein:
Russell Peck: Drastic Measures, II. Allegro
John Adams: Fearful Symmetries

Shed 6, Wellington Waterfront

Friday 31 January, 7:30 pm

The idea of using the first of its Shed concerts to open the NZSO’s 2020 series proved a winner, as there was a bigger audience than I’ve seen at these before and the result was an endorsement of the idea of a less than formal affair to attract a different audience. Everyone I spoke to agreed that it had attracted people you wouldn’t see in the Michael Fowler Centre which has – mistakenly of course – the reputation of hosting forbidding, heavy-weight music.

It followed the same pattern as other Shed concerts: a mixture of light classical pieces, easy to grasp, some as the composer wrote them, some as a composer of today had arranged or transformed them. No ‘pop’ music but music influenced by jazz and pop styles, as well as a couple of contemporary pieces by a New Zealander and others.

Two of Brahms’s Hungarian Dances put the audience at rest, played in a genial manner, without too much finesse, but plenty of energy and rhythm.

Tuning the head of a pin
Though Lissa Meriden graduated from Auckland University she spent a few years as leader of the Sonic Arts Progamme at Victoria University from 2000, and is now based in Paris. Tuning the head of a pin was written in 2002, but according to McKeich it had not been performed here. As well as the usual chamber orchestra, it demands a huge and fascinating range of percussion. Such scoring sometimes seems merely a way of showing off a composer’s versatility without making the music more interesting or exciting. But I soon found myself more than a little absorbed by a sense evolution, in which the musical ideas did actually make use of exotic instrumental sounds inevitable. The spectacular scoring slowly played itself out and strings and winds introduced some comfortably diatonic sounds. Strong, highly varied rhythms continued but an agreeable character sustained it, holding the attention and I found myself rather delighted by the whole composition. Not least, it made clear that its successful performance demanded a versatile and well resourced orchestra.

Mozart Divertimento
The fifth movement from Mozart’s Divertimento in D, K 251 followed: a nice illustration of one of the clearest classical forms – the Rondo. It happily involved charming tunes that would, I hope, have been enjoyed by a not especially knowledgeable audience, though that is a dangerous observation as I had the feeling that many of the audience were musically very aware if not erudite. It was an excellent piece to end the first bracket.

Birtwistle on Bach
The second set of pieces, after the first interval as the orchestra moved to the south end of the space, opened with the arrangements by Harrison Birtwistle of five of Bach’s 45 Chorale Preludes (variously, between BWV 599 and 639). They were orchestrated with an eye (ear) to the unusual, perhaps even the eccentric. But in spite of such a first impression, one maintains an open mind and I found myself oddly intrigued by them; which is not to say I thought Bach emerged very intact or prominent at times. But that’s irrelevant as there would be little point in a major composer devoting time to such an exercise if the original work was still very audible and he hadn’t contributed something significant.

It was another opportunity for the reduced NZSO to exibit its brilliant versatility with unusual scoring.

Drastic Measures
A saxophone quartet (soprano, alto, tenor and baritone) then appeared on a low platform in the middle of the shed, to play the second movement, Allegro, of Drastic Measures, a jazz-style piece by Russell Peck. Spiky, witty, immediately attractive, and played with panache, it struck me as a particularly successful case of cross fertilisation by a fertile composer, at home with jazz but not tempted into hyper-intellectual, avant-garde idioms. It ended with a sudden calm and a gentle smile. I was drawn to explore Peck’s music on YouTube and was even more attracted to the first movement of the piece, Cantabile e molto rubato.

After a second interval the orchestra returned to the north end. I hadn’t fully grasped McKeich’s first rather sketchy programme announcements, and it took a few moments to realise that here were the last three of Birtwistle’s eight Chorale Preludes. Having had an hour to acclimatise to the earlier pieces I found this second group kind-of familiar. Each piece expressed a distinct idea or emotion and I suspect someone who studied the words of the chorales themselves, would be able to recognise their musical interpretation.

Adams’s Fearful Symmetries
Then came the piece that was probably most looked-forward-to: John Adams’s Fearful Symmetries.  (Do you notice the fashion for music titles using two-word, abstract notions?) It arrests the listener from the first moment, though I confess that I’d never heard it before. But I recognised close relatives such as Adams’s Chairman Dances and Reich’s Three Movements. It’s driven by an incessant, heavy rhythmic pulse, that easily conjures the sounds of high speed trains such as exists in a YouTube recording of the Reich music, perhaps with the wonderful throb of a steam locomotive. Though there are long stretches with little variation, the changes are actually very marked over its 25 minutes and it holds the listener transfixed. Like most minimalist music, the changes, a single chordal shift or the arrival of different instrument, though no instrument had special attention. Those subtle changes of timbre and dynamics removed any risk of tedium, and the acoustic, lighting and general atmosphere suited the performance admirably.

If I’ve had reservations about programmes of earlier Shed concerts, and can think of many delightful dance-like pieces I’d prefer to the Brahms dances, this scored very high and might have proven the Shed project beyond doubt.

Poulenc’s “La Vox Humaine” given a stunning performance

Posted on by Peter Mechen

Francis POULENC – The Human Voice (“La voix humaine”)
Words by Jean Cocteau (English translation by Johana Arnold and Barbara Paterson)

Barbara Paterson (soprano)
Gabriela Glapska (piano)

Tabitha Arthur (director)
Meredith Dooley (costumier)
Isadora Lao (lighting designer and operator)

{Suite} Gallery, 241 Cuba St., Te Aro, Wellington

Friday 31st January 2020

As we took our seats in the confined spaces of Cuba St.’s Suite gallery, pianist Gabriela Glapska was playing the music of Satie, beautifully coalescing the sounds of the composer’s Gymnopedies, the dance figurations wrought by the pianist almost as “held” as if depicted on a Grecian urn and the tones as “imagined” as they were real – “heard melodies are sweet, but…..” – here, time seemed to be slowed down, every note taking on a suspenseful, becalmed feeling, so much so that I thought Debussy’s Clair de lune which followed broke the spell that had been created (perhaps one of the Gnossiennes may have carried us further along, and into the ensuing silence more appropriately) …………. however, after the piano fell silent I was drawn into  the breathless poise of the stage setting’s opening, with singer Barbara Paterson (as “Elle”, the show’s only on-stage performer) having entered, the character tremulously waiting for what must have been a prearranged telephone call, the silences deliciously redolent with expectation and anxiety, impatience and foreboding.

Our viewing space’s angular intimacy was augmented by asymmetrically-placed ladders and a structural pillar for a centrepiece to boot, besides the art displayed on the gallery walls, Megan Archer’s depictions of what looked like entwined, almost convoluted limbs in various “clinches” underpinning the claustrophobia of the surroundings. The lighting seemed at first impersonal a la a hotel suite or utilitarian meeting-space, but as the interactive play between Elle and her telephone began to take shape, the hues and intensities of the lights responded to certain influences, reflecting the passing of time, the changing of the day and Elle’s state of mind as she struggled to make sense of her interaction with the person (her ex-lover) who had called her.

This was the scenario for a performance of Francis Poulenc’s setting of fellow-countryman Jean Cocteau’s monodrama, La vox humaine, the opera following the original play after a gap of 30 years. In each case a woman is onstage alone throughout, speaking on a telephone with her “ex” from whom she has not long parted. Poulenc worked with the role’s creator, soprano Denise Duval, in adapting Jean Cocteau’s work to operatic form, the composer reducing the original to a more malleable length, and writing for an orchestra as the accompaniment, and, in fact stating at one point that “the work should bathe in the greatest orchestral sensuality”. Duval was the composer’s favourite singer, and the pair seemed ideally matched to tackle what Poulenc described as “a musical confession” – in fact the composer was to describe later how the pair wept together “page-by-page, bar-by-bar” in what he called “a diary of our suffering” – both composer and singer had recently undergone emotional crises, obviously bringing their experiences to bear on these outpourings. Despite Poulenc’s remark concerning orchestral sensuality (I have listened to several performances with orchestral accompaniment) I thought Gabriela Glapska’s piano-playing here beautifully abstracted the colour in the orchestral score and gave us an immediacy of interaction between Elle and her “ex” whose direct quality had a definite and focused impact of their own – and singer and piano could and did, in those intimate spaces of Cuba St’s Suite venue, run a gamut of radiant, searing, euphoric and despairing emotion which made a proper foil for the myriads of more lyrical and intimate moments.

Though the opera was given in English on this occasion, I’m going to briefly revert to the work’s original language in describing this performance by singer and pianist as a veritable tour de force! (incidentally, this was a translation made, and previously performed, by an American soprano, Johana Arnold, who is in fact the mother of THIS performance’s “Elle”!) The opening “charged” silences during which Barbara Paterson compellingly held our attention while waiting for her telephone to ring were nothing short of riveting, her aspect conveying to us both her vulnerability and her determination, with movements affecting a measure of command and confidence but all too readily revealing tension and uncertainty when put under pressure, responding with bird-like rapidity to the telephone’s ringing and various unwanted external interruptions.  Both her face and form displayed remarkable aspects of grace and fluidity throughout (such as her almost coquettish teasing of her “ex” in places, as if either forgetting or choosing to ignore their actual disfunctionality) when contrasted with her rapid, almost furtive reactions to moments of shock or conflict, often succeeded by sequences of deflation and despair as if she suddenly felt drained of energy and will. Incidentally, I was pleased there was a “proper” telephone, and thought the interactions of the singer with the medium totally in keeping with telephonic use at the time – the interruptions of the singer’s conversation with her “ex” by somebody using a “party line”, though outside present-day telephonic experience, are nevertheless significant here, as they underline and indeed symbolise the overall breakdown of the relationship and its presently fraught concourse.

Always Paterson’s movements and expressions synchronised beautifully with both the words and the unheard voices of the people who talked with her, the telephone operator at the very beginning, the party-line neighbour, and, of course, her “ex”, whose status as such we didn’t really “pick up” on until that lump-in-the-throat moment where Elle plaintively responded to a request from him for a “bag” of what she called “your letters and mine” with the submissive words “You can send for it when you like”, conveying the “hurt” of the request all the more poignantly with the phrase “I had no idea you wanted them so quickly” , and of course when contrasted with the playful sensuality and kittenish aspect that entered her description for him (all a fabrication) of what she was wearing at that time.

The singer’s own arresting looks and engaging stage personality couldn’t help but sharpen the focus of our conjecture generated by her character’s relationship’s obvious dissolution – and throughout all of the possible scenarios were adroitly “brushed into” the opera’s action by the production, momentarily reflecting the attitudes and behaviours of both characters and as quickly superseded by other possibilities. Volatilities were suggested on both sides, with Elle in places abruptly and passionately responding to both her own realisations of her conflicted state and her ex’s “anger” in places as a result of things she had said, her more agitated irruptions sometimes ending in tears.  She’s shown as a romantic dreamer, whether by nature or by artifice or both – at one point the mood created by some exquisite pianissimo singing was broken by her own realisation that she was in a dream of denial, while the world pursued its own course, leaving her stranded. Her attempts to preserve the vestiges of an old intimacy was given a wonderful sensuality in places, no more so when she used the piano as if it were her lover’s body, stretching out upon it at one point as if reimagining her words “when we were in bed and I had my head in that small place against your chest”, making the intrusion of the loud music from the ‘phone all the more symptomatic. The subsequent “confession” to him that “what is really hard to bear is the second night, and the third….” is the most enduring impression of all, the mood evoked by singer and pianist readily bringing pathos as we empathise with her predicament, the empty despair of “and getting up and going out, and to go – where?” unequivocally laying all of our emotions bare…….

Very great credit to all concerned regarding this production, the performers’ sterling efforts backed up steadfastedly by Tabitha Arthur’s fluid, naturalistic and unobtrusive direction and Isadora Lao’s sensitively-wrought illuminations. Such finely-crafted and deeply-committed presentations deserve the widest possible currency, as well as the heartfelt thanks of those of us fortunate enough to enjoy what was, for this audience member, a profoundly moving experience

Further performances –
NZ Academy of Fine Arts, 1 Queens Wharf, Wellington
27 – 29 February 2020
6pm
BUY TICKETS

 

Third volume of Richard Farrell piano recordings a fascinating collection of till-now unreleased treasures

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Richard Farrell recordings for Atoll
Volume 3

CD 1: Tchaikovsky: Piano Concerto No 1; Beethoven: Piano Concerto No 4 with the National Orchestra of the NZBS, conducted by Andersen Tyrer (1948)
CD 2: Schumann: Piano Quartet in E flat.  Richard Farrell Piano Quartet (Radio Suisse, Zurich, 1956)
Liszt: Transcriptions/reminiscences and original pieces
Bach: Prelude and Fugue in F  minor
De Falla: Ritual Fire Dance
CD 3: William Alwyn: Fantasy Waltzes (BBC 1957)

Monday 16 December 2019

The third volume of recordings of piano performances by Richard Farrell (1926 – 1958) has appeared, nine years after the first volume. Apart from a couple of small pieces, none have been commercially released though Peter Mechen (who was the assistant producer and undertook research) reminds me that the Tchaikovsky concerto was played by the then Concert Programme in the 1980s and the Liszt recital was broadcast as part of a programme marking the 25th anniversary of Farrell’s death in 1983 as well as sporadically since.

The highlights here are the two piano concertos from the one-year-old National Orchestra in 1948, conducted by Andersen Tyrer (who certain local critics were pleased to routinely excoriate); Schumann’s Piano Quartet and Fantasy Waltzes by William Alwyn.

This final instalment, which consists of three CDs, has been slow emerging since it contains mainly music that has not appeared on commercial recordings (as was the case of the earlier volumes), and its unearthing has been a painstaking and sometimes complex process. The sources have been mainly radio networks: the New Zealand Broadcasting Service (as it was then), the BBC and Swiss Radio. In the light of the all-too-common practice by broadcasters of deleting music thought at the time to be unimportant, it is surprising and significant that these recordings have at last been publicly released.

It’s amazing they even survived!

The first two volumes
The first two-CD volume contained a number of Grieg’s piano works including the Piano Concerto and his Ballade in G minor, selections from the Popular Norwegian Melodies and Lyric Pieces; Brahms’s four Ballades, Op 10, and  several other pieces including the Waltzes of Op 39.

Volume 2 contained Rachmaninov’s Variations on a Theme of Corelli and six of his Preludes; a number of pieces by Chopin including the first Scherzo; Brahms’s Variations on a Theme by Handel and some of the Op 119 piano pieces, Liszt’s ‘reminiscences’, ‘paraphrases’ etc on popular pieces by other composers, including the quartet from Rigoletto and Schumann’s Widmung (which reappear now in Volume 3) and other smaller works: Schumann’s Arabesque and pieces by Mendelssohn, Debussy and De Falla.

Tchaikovsky No 1 and Beethoven No 4
The first disc in Volume 3 contains the two piano concertos, recorded in the Auckland Town Hall by the NZBS in 1948, just a year after the National Orchestra’s first performance. There is nothing disgraceful about the performance or the recording: it showed a 22-year-old Farrell somewhat inclined to overdramatise the music (if that could conceivably be a fault with this concerto!), occasionally disregarding the orchestra, but compared with the not uncommon tendency for soloists to be a little at odds, tempo-wise and in dynamics, with an orchestra, the flaws are very inconsequential. What is much more interesting is to have (for New Zealanders at any rate) this evidence of the very youthful orchestra and a comparably young, though already internationally acclaimed pianist. Tchaikovsky offers the pianist a commanding start and Farrell responds with unbridled ardour. His playing is typically impetuous, allowing little space between phrases, but these are well contrasted with the thoughtfulness and sensitivity in quiet passages. The frequent bravura passages are, nevertheless, not just breath-taking but conspicuously in tune with the music, for example in the episode leading to the peroration at the end of the first movement.

The deficiencies of the recording are perhaps more evident in the meditative second movement where one might have difficulty distinguishing the various woodwinds. I don’t know the size of the string sections in the early orchestra, but the third movement certainly reveals a thinness.

A more successful blending of soloist and orchestra exists in the Beethoven concerto where Farrell clearly responds to the more ‘classical’ character of the earlier work; in fact, I was impressed by the clarity and well-judged high spirits of the Finale, which I found myself thoroughly enjoying.

Schumann Piano Quartet
The recording of the Schumann Piano Quartet by the short-lived Richard Farrell Piano Quartet is very interesting. This recording for Swiss Radio is the only known, surviving recording by the group. The story of the discovery of its existence, the result of the concurrence of people and memories, is nearly as remarkable as the performance itself, which is the only example of Farrell as a consummate chamber musician.

The group was put together by a former member of the Adolph Busch Quartet, cellist Paul Grümmer, in Switzerland in 1956. Remarkably, two of the quartet’s members, violist Eduard Melkus and cellist Ottomar Borwitsky were aged about 90 when this issue was being prepared. They contributed memories of Farrell printed in the CD booklet: interesting, revelatory and amusing.

One might listen to this recording of Schumann’s piano quartet and, given the rarity of permanent piano quartet ensembles, hear the sounds characteristic of string quartets of the era, such as the Budapest or Borodin, the Fine Arts or Amadeus quartets (not to mention the Busch Quartet itself, one of the most famous of all). The sound is partly attributable no doubt to contemporary recording characteristics and quality, and not to be denigrated. So the recording is a treasure; microphones are quite close and the feeling of immediacy, intimacy is enhanced, which would make anything less than perfect articulation and intonation very conspicuous. The opening is warmly meditative, in sharp contrast to the sudden arrival of the Allegro of the first movement revealing admirable ensemble in which no instrument is dominant at any stage; that is no doubt a tribute in part to the engineer almost as much as to the players.

The rest of the second CD is taken by a selection of fairly popular piano pieces: several Liszt transcriptions/reminiscences, the 6th Hungarian Rhapsody and the Canzonetta del Salvator Rosa from the Years of Pilgrimage II – Italy.  Excellent performances, at times almost too perfect.

Alwyn: Fantasy Waltzes
The third disc is devoted to a real rarity: a set of eleven pieces, Fantasy Waltzes, dedicated to Farrell by British composer William Alwyn. They too were discovered somewhat by chance, traced through the William Alwyn Foundation and the William Alwyn Archive in the Cambridge University Library and recorded by the BBC in 1957. I’d never come across this suite of pieces and a first hearing didn’t make much impression: music of the era – the 1950s – that was not dictated by the strictures of the avant-garde, of serialism; but which did at first seem a bit lightweight, feathery, lacking melodic character: somewhat akin to Brahms’s Liebeslieder Walzer. But on second and later hearings its charming, unpretentious nature has taken root, as the various styles of waltzes are explored, melodies became more appealing and occasional cross-references start to emerge, all creating a more complex and interesting set of pieces.

Exploration of references on the Internet have led me to explore Alwyn’s other music – five symphonies and other orchestral music, four operas, much chamber and piano music as well as around seventy film scores (the NZSO under James Robertson played his second symphony in 1956 in Wellington and Auckland).

You will find an account of the Fantasy Waltzes, inter alia, on a website about a Chandos CD by pianist Julian Milford, in a series devoted to Alwyn; it mentions an earlier recording by John Ogdon, but not, naturally enough, the original dedicatee and first performer, Farrell.

Here is a quote from a review on the website: http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2000/july00/alwyn.htm

“The Fantasy-Waltzes date from 1956-7, inspired by a visit to Grieg’s lakeside home. Almost certainly Alwyn’s best known piano music, this is a dazzling showcase, a work of constant invention which runs the gamut of moods and styles, yet is always unmistakably Alwyn. The pieces do stand alone, even though some end in disconcertingly flippant ways, but become more than the sum of the parts when heard as part of the complete structure. This is a kaleidoscope, a sustained and thoroughly enjoyable work with all the drama, colour and atmosphere one expects from Alwyn. Underneath it all is a smile, the warmth of a romantic who also knew how to have fun, both facets woven together in the spectacular twists and turns of the closing Presto.”

I feel very much the same way about them. The most comprehensive account of the pieces is on the website: http://landofllostcontent.blogspot.com/2019/07/william-alwyn-1905-85-fantasy-waltzes.html

That article lists five recorded performances of the Fantasy Waltzes that were released, which did not of course include Farrell’s which remained in the archive. But it seems to be the only website to mention Farrell and it notes that he had played several of the waltzes in New Zealand before this recording was made (2 June 1957).

All of which confirm one’s impression of their being a rather significant part of the composer’s output that is nowadays rather neglected.

So Volume 3, a very miscellaneous collection of previously unpublished recordings of Farrell’s playing, not only deserves to be better known, but in their different ways reveal performances that are very interesting in themselves: A glimpse of the early NZSO, a fine performance of Schumann’s lovely piano quartet, a group of popular piano pieces that were better known in the 1950s than they are today, as a result of promoters’ avoidance of piano recitals, and the discovery of a group of charming and imaginative pieces by the neglected William Alwyn.

At least one of these diverse aspects should be enough to attract a wide range of music lovers.

This third volume of Farrell CDs can be purchased from Marbecks in Auckland: see their website.

Large audience for a delightful concert by Camerata chamber orchestra

Posted on by Steven Sedley

Haydn in the Church

Camerata chamber orchestra
Concertmaster:  Anne Loeser
Soloists: Robert Orr and Anne Loeser

Corelli: Concerto grosso in G minor Op. 6 No. 8 (Christmas Concerto)
J. S. Bach: Concerto for Oboe and Violin in D minor after BMW 1060
Haydn: Symphony No. 10 in C, Hob. 1:10

St Peter’s Church, Willis Street

Thursday 12 December 2019, 6 pm  

Camerata’s vision is to ‘perform high quality joyful chamber music accessible alike to newcomers and classical aficionados’. The small chamber orchestra includes members of Wellington’s professional orchestras as well as students and graduates of the NZ School of Music. It is a very accomplished ensemble.

Corelli: Christmas Concerto
Anne Loeser and Ursula Evans violins, Robert Ibell, cello

This is probably Corelli’s most popular work, often featured in anthologies of Christmas music. It is now hard to appreciate how revolutionary such music was in its time, a purely instrumental piece not written to compliment or accompany vocal music but to showcase purely instrumental and above all, string music. One is taken by the sheer beauty of the sound of strings on top of a bass continuo. It is not difficult or challenging music, it is just gorgeous. The work is made up of six short movements that alternate between fast and slow. They are built on contrasting repeated phrases, miniatures of devotional music. The playing requires a light touch and precision. It culminates in the beautiful Pastorale.

This is one of the 12 Concerti Grossi commissioned by Cardinal Pietro Ottoboni, a notable patron of arts, and was performed, very likely, in 1690 at one of the Cardinal’s Monday “academies”,  his concerts. The commission was a mark of Corelli’s success and recognition. He was acknowledged as the finest  violinist of his generation. Corelli’s music and musical form had a great influence on younger and later composers, Vivaldi, Handel, Bach and others.

Bach: Concerto for Oboe and Violin
Robert Orr, oboe and Anne Loeser, violin

Perhaps it doesn’t matter whether the original version of this concerto, transcribed from Bach’s Concerto for Two Harpsichords in C minor was lost or never existed, this arrangement of the keyboard parts that correspond to the individual range of the oboe and violin parts is one of Bach’s most attractive instrumental pieces. In the 1970s Nikolaus Harnoncourt transposed the concerto one tone up to D minor and this is the arrangement that was played. From the very opening bars of the work, the lively sound of the oboe lifts the music. Robert Orr, principal oboist of the NZSO is an exquisite musician who engages instantly with audience and orchestra alike. There was a lovely interplay between violin and oboe, though it was hard for the violin not to be overwhelmed by the penetrating sound of the oboe. The final movement was just exuberant joyous music. It was wonderful to hear this work.

Haydn: Symphony No. 10
Haydn was in his mid 20s when Count Morzin engaged him as music director and chamber composer for his orchestra of about 16 musicians, a steady job for a young man who until then had  lived precariously as an occasional violinist and music teacher. Haydn wrote some 17 symphonies while in the employ of Count Morzin for the Count’s weekly entertainments. These were expected to be light works, easy to listen to, nothing challenging, nothing to cloud the mood of the guests. Haydn learned composition by studying the works of Carl Philip Emanuel Bach, with help from the Italian composer and singing teacher, Nicola Porpora for whom he worked as an accompanist. Thus his first symphonies were based on tradition. But they, as evident in No. 10 that we heard, had signs of the future Haydn. This was refreshingly different from the previous works in the concert, revealing a sense of humour, and, particularly in the last movement, a suggestion of an earthy, peasant dance. The horn, oboe and bassoon that joined the orchestra added a richer variety of tone.

The concert was a delightful journey from Corelli though Bach to early Haydn. It was all thoroughly enjoyable music, ideal for anyone approaching classical music with some trepidation. The gratifyingly large audience appreciated it all and was rewarded with a repeat of the Pastorale movement of the Christmas Concerto, this time with the addition of winds, adding a richness to the work.

 

Wellington Chamber Orchestra succeeds with Šinkovec Burstin in Grieg piano concerto, and other Nordic classics

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Wellington Chamber Orchestra conducted by Samuel Burstin with Ana Šinkovec Burstin (piano)

Nielsen: Helios Overture, Op 17
Grieg: Piano concerto in A, Op 16
Sibelius: Symphony No 5 in E flat, Op 82

Andrew’s on The Terrace

Sunday 8 December, 2:30 pm

In my review of Jian Liu’s performance two years ago of Grieg’s Piano Concerto I remarked that I was mystified that it continued to be considered a popular, even hackneyed work when, for many years, it’s been so little performed. That lovely performance with Jian Liu may have prompted the Wellington Chamber Orchestra to take a look at it. If so they served themselves and Edvard Grieg very well.

Helios 
Nielsen’s Helios Overture is a relative rarity too, perhaps more understandably, though I remember the surprise I felt when I first hear it perhaps 30 years ago, that such an engaging and imaginative piece had eluded me so long. My last record of hearing it live was in 2007 from the NZSO.  I don’t think I’ve heard it from RNZ Concert for a long time and given the current limited range of music played, I don’t expect it.

There’s no problem with Sibelius of course, though it would be nice to hear the 4th or 6th instead of the ubiquitous 2 or 5 or perhaps 7.

The Helios Overture is a concert overture – not evidence of an unperformed opera. Helios was a small-time god in the ancient Greek cosmos. I was a minute late arriving and it had reached the beginning of the enchanting ‘dawn’ theme, first from strings, then woodwinds, depicting the sun rising over the Aegean (a bit difficult as Athens faces south-west across the Saronic Gulf; however, the sun rises from the sea in other parts of Attika peninsula). Nevertheless, Burstin was successful in drawing evocative sounds from the orchestra, the four horns acquitting themselves well, but no better than the perhaps less prominent playing from trumpets and trombones and the woodwinds. Nielsen didn’t seek to create a visual impression, and though I can’t say that I experienced anything approaching a Mediterranean sunrise, the nature of the themes and their orchestration certainly generated an emotional response that one might compare with looking out to sea from Cape Sounion; deeply nostalgic and enchanting – but then I’ve long been a lover of Nielsen, as well as Greece (how about Nielsen as featured composer for Orchestra Wellington in 2021; six symphonies and all?).

Grieg Piano Concerto 
This second hearing of the Grieg concerto in two years hasn’t dulled my affection for it. In spite of a somewhat too emphatic opening (which I should try to refrain from likening to the thunderous cataclysm of early that morning), it quickly settled into a well-balanced performance. The pianist, Ana Šinkovec Burstin, was born in Slovenia and is a recent arrival in New Zealand after a varied musical career in Europe and the United States in the past decade. Though there were moments in the first and last movements where I felt her playing was a little guileless, overall, and especially in the Adagio slow movement, she captured Grieg’s happy mingling of innocent charm and bravura, sensitively, exploiting that unexpected subsiding to silence in the middle of the Finale, creating as magical an effect as I’ve ever experienced. It highlighted the sudden revival of the music’s abandoned, folk-dance character through to the end, under the generally splendid partnership between piano and orchestra.

Sibelius 5 
The presence of the most popular of Sibelius’s symphonies was undoubtedly as good an explanation for the big audience as the concerto might have been. In the past the WCO’s percussion and brass have tended to sound unruly in the generous though recalcitrant acoustic of St Andrew’s; this time, perhaps my position at the back of the gallery calmed things. The result, in any case, was attractive. Though competing themes sometimes risk confusing harmonies, here was clarity, and carefully paced crescendi were always under control, producing the effect that the composer clearly sought. Strings whispered secretively with the support of bassoons, and rich brass choruses expanded to achieve impressive climaxes; flutes and oboes varied the colours nicely.  The first movement ends with an exciting crescendo which the orchestra managed rather splendidly (according to what I scribbled in my note-book).

The Andante Mosso (second movement) uses a lot of pizzicato strings and the playing was fine. Against underlying support of a lovely wind chorale, strings handled the very typically Sibelius episode of throbbing strings carefully, even movingly.

After the peaceful, pastoral Andante the finale opened with lively throbbing strings, and undulating horns created a near-professional impression. The movement is enriched with a deeply moving melody that arrives later, created mainly by horns. The orchestral sound was fairly dense, moving between hushed passages; then slowly evolving crescendi led by flutes and clarinet and eventually, quite elegant brass harmonies.

By the end, there was a very satisfying feeling of a convincing interpretation through a carefully studied pulse that had evolved through the repetition of the almost hypnotic theme, till those last widely spaced chords that always come as a slight surprise.

This was a particularly successful and enjoyable concert, with some of the most beautiful classics from three Nordic countries; perhaps a tribute in particular to conductor Burstin, it has consolidated my respect for the orchestra.

Lightning, thunder and Orpheus Choir’s and the NZSO’s “Messiah” – never a dull moment!

Posted on by Peter Mechen

HANDEL – Messiah HWV 56 (complete)

Celeste Lazarenko (soprano)
Anna Pierard (mezzo-soprano)
Andrew Goodwin (tenor)
Hadleigh Adams (bass)
Orpheus Choir of Wellington (director Brent Stewart)
New Zealand Symphony Orchestra
Graham Abbott (conductor)

Michael Fowler Centre, Wellington

Saturday, 7th December, 2019

There would probably have been a number of people at this “Messiah” performance, both performers and audience members, who had shared something of my own experience a couple of hours before the concert’s starting-time, of the onslaught of an unexpectedly vicious single lightning strike during a storm over the Mt.Victoria area of the city, one whose particular impact on the house I was inside could have been likened to that of a blow from a gigantic iron-clad fist. Perhaps it was rather more in sheer visceral accord with parts of Mahler’s “Resurrection” Symphony which both the choir and orchestra took part in several weeks ago! – still, the “force of nature” aspect to my mind tied in well with some of the more elemental parts of Handel’s score, put across here by the musical forces assembled with properly-focused strength and conviction.

This was Graham Abbott’s third Wellington appearance as conductor of a “Messiah” (previously in 2012 and 2016), and, as in his two previous outings, featured a “complete” performance of the work, the projected length of such an experience countered, as before, by the conductor’s more-than-usually quick tempi. Even so, the “2 hrs” duration suggested by the evening’s programme booklet seemed firstly alarming, and then, as good sense prevailed, unlikely! As it was, the performance by my reckoning took at least half-an-hour longer, but, thanks to the compelling quality of both singing and playing, kept our interest throughout.

Besides the conductor, and, of course, Brent Stewart’s Orpheus Choir, other “old friends” included the soprano, Celeste Lazarenko, last here in 2017, and mezzo-soprano Anna Pierard, who sang the alto part with the conductor here in 2012. New chums were the two male soloists, both, I thought, making a splendid job of their music, handling the more technical aspects of their parts with great aplomb and bringing distinctive character to the words and their meanings.

The orchestra began proceedings, the band a tightly-knit, chamber-sized ensemble, reflecting the conductor’s desire to keep to the kind of sound he imagined the composer would have heard, the playing throughout confident, supple and spontaneous-sounding, able to surprise with an emphasis or phrasing even in a work as oft-heard as this one, and otherwise delivering all the anticipated “moments” with a fresh distinction. Though it seems odious to “single out” players, one couldn’t help but register the skills of trumpeter Michael KIrgan (resplendently note-perfect throughout “The trumpet shall sound”), and with his partner Mark Carter, adding lustre to both the “Glory to God” sequences of Part One, and the magnificence of the concluding sections of both “Halleluiah” and the final choruses. Unfailingly steadfast, too, was the continuo of harpsichordist Douglas Mews and organist Jonathan Berkahn, while the string and wind lines were a delight to register in both their complementing and counterpointing of Handel’s choral writing.

The first voice we heard was that of tenor Andrew Goodwin, who, in his opening ”Comfort ye” solo encompassed solace, comfort, hope and strength by getting his words to “speak” as well as make music (the word “cry”, for example). His tones had plenty of forthright “ring” and accompanying resonance, enabling him to beautifully “shape” his coloratura passages. In Part Two of the work, Goodwin related superbly with the chorus via his declamatory “All they that see Him” and the following incisive and mocking “He trusted in God”, the tenor’s reply full of pathos, and then carrying this intensity through to the insistent, more defiant,  “Thou shalt break them”, which tingled and stung with focused energy. Goodwin also teamed up tellingly with mezzo Anna Pierard for “O death, where is thy sting” the two fitting their lines together to exhilarating effect!

Although her “big moment” was undoubtedly the aria “He was despised”, whose slower, more meditative sections mezzo Anna Pierard delivered with breath-catching presence and feeling, she also coped as well as any I’ve heard with writing that was often low for the voice while requiring some “heft”, as with the “refiner’s fire” sections of “But who may abide”. Her voice gained in presence to arresting effect when the vocal line rose, as at the ending of “Oh thou that tellest”, and throughout “Then shall the eyes of the blind” – and her hand-in-glove teamwork with the tenor throughout “O Death” already noted, was a joy.

Of course the soprano’s entry is exquisitely timed by Handel for maximum effect at “There were shepherds”, and Celeste Lazarenko didn’t disappoint, a fractional “bump” during one of her “Rejoice Greatly” runs aside. But I thought she really came into her own later with “I know that my Redeemer liveth”, which was beautifully shaped and inflected throughout, movingly so in places, not the least of which was the raptness of “the first fruits of them that sleep”. Then, she further enchanted with her “If God be for us”, floating her lines so sweetly, and confidently essaying the coloratura, with  both her ease and energy giving such pleasure and delight!

I can’t recall ever before hearing Palmerston North-born Hadleigh Adams sing, and thought his performance terrific! As if he, as well, had been assailed by that late afternoon‘s thunderbolt from the skies, he proceeded to bring out something of the same drama in “Thus Saith the Lord”, with a terrific cosmic “shake” and powerful upper notes, before delivering his message of the Lord’s “coming” with true theatrical presence. Dramatic, too, was his “haunted” tone at the beginning of “For, behold”, though he didn’t make as much of the crescendo at “the Lord shall rise upon thee” as I wea expecting – nevertheless, his was a properly visceral “The people that walked in darkness”, throwing his voice up and over great archways of tone throughout. Both in “Why do the nations” and “Behold I tell you a mystery” his storytelling gifts came out strongly, carrying us along with his energies and descriptive detailings – a most engaging performance!

Thus, too, was the Orpheus Choir’s contribution to the proceedings, beginning with a truly resplendent “And the glory of the Lord”, though one which then made the sopranos’ momentary ensemble “hiccup” at the beginning of “And He shall purify” all the more unexpected! Things were fortunately restored with “For unto us” apart from a tendency for the tenors to hurry slightly with their running figurations – and thereafter it all grew in stature and magnificence right to the end. The sequence which truly caught up my responses was that beginning with “Surely He hath borne our griefs”, the sheer attack of both voices and instruments most arresting, followed by an amazingly contrasted “And with his stripes”, taken more slowly and intensely that usual, to be followed by “All we like sheep” the burst of energy awakening us from our reverie of having been “healed”, and the dovetailings between the voices themselves and the orchestra so very delicious to experience!

The response of the audience both to the conclusion of the “Halleluia” chorus and the final “Amen” was overwhelming, though I was sorry that the previously-mentioned work of the solo trumpeter, Michael Kirgan, didn’t seem to be specifically acknowledged at the end (or perhaps I missed that bit of the proceedings!). But all in all, very great credit to conductor Graham Abbott for his overall direction, as well as to the Orpheus’s director, Brent Stewart for the truly sonorous preparation of his forces for the concert.

In the wake of yet another expertly-delivered performance of “Messiah” sounded for us “as Handel would have heard it”, I was interested to be reminded, in another reviewer’s report of the concert, of the Mozart version of Messiah, performed here in 2013 (https://middle-c.org/2013/06/mozart-s-take-on-handel-warmth-more-than-refiners-fire/)  – but I’ve also been thinking equally of late about the “Messiahs” that many of us would have grown up with in the 1950s and 60s, and wondering what people would think of a “retrospective” presentation of the work (in other words, “one for old times’ sakes”).

Two famous interpreters of the work from these (and earlier) times were Sir Malcolm Sargent (with his famed Huddersfield Chorus of about five thousand people! – or so it seemed!) and SIr Thomas Beecham with his equally outlandish but splendiferous re-orchestrations which (despite his estate’s claims to the contrary after his death) he had commissioned from another musical knight, Sir Eugene Goossens). My inclination would go towards the Beecham/Goossens version with its splendid array of nineteenth-century instruments accompanying the singers (“Handel would have loved it!” declared the ever imperturbable Sir Thomas!) The authenticists will throw their hands up in horror – but my feeling is that the rest of us will love it too! And what hearing it will probably do is enhance our appreciation of “period-practice” music-making even more. What might the NZSO and Orpheus forces think of THAT prospect, I wonder?