First in the world with a normal public concert : NZSO’s record, celebrating the emergence from Covid 19 lock-down

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

New Zealand Symphony Orchestra conducted by Hamish McKeich

Soloists:
Eliza Boom – soprano; Simon O’Neill – tenor; Maisey Rika – ‘vocalist’; Horomona Horo – taonga pūoro
Singers from Voices New Zealand Chamber Choir and schools in the Wellington region

Gareth Farr: From the Depths Sound the Great Sea Gongs: I. ‘The Invocation of the Sea’
Bizet: Carmen Suite No. 1: VI. ‘Les Toréadors’; Duet of Don José and Micaëla: “Parle-moi de ma mère”; Suite No 2: VI. ‘Danse bohème’
John Psathas: Tarantismo
Maisey Rika: Tangaroa Whakamautai and Taku Mana
Puccini: La bohème: duet – “Mi chiamano Mimi”, tenor aria – “O soave fanciulla”
Verdi: Otello: tenor aria: “Niun mi tema”
Strauss: Suite from Der Rosenkavalier, Op. 59
Tomoana: Pōkarekare Ana

Michael Fowler Centre

Friday 26 June, 6:30 pm

The orchestra announced that this was the first post-pandemic concert by a professional symphony orchestra anywhere in the World in front of a full audience: the extraordinary achievement of intelligent and clear-sighted management of our response by government and people.

The programme’s content and balance was carefully thought out, with a couple of pieces by established New Zealand composers, opera arias, Māori songs and one extended orchestral work. And there was a particularly rapturous feeling in the large crowd which was obviously thrilled to be in the Michael Fowler Centre once more. It was a fine occasion for the orchestra to show its confidence in conductor Hamish McKeich. It enjoyed a sold-out house.

After some appropriate Māori ritual from the taonga pūoro player Horomono Horo, the concert proper began imaginatively with Gareth Farr’s From the Depths Sound the Great Sea Gongs. The oceanic tone-poem has become genuinely popular both on account of its musical material and through the composer’s flamboyant use of large numbers of tuned and untuned percussion. John Psathas’s Tarantismo, which ended the first half, was less remarkable and rather less familiar, but it offered the orchestra interesting emotional and technical challenges. Both works got performances that were thoroughly accomplished, spectacular and vivid.

There were three impressive singers: Tenor Simon O’Neill is a well-known international opera singer and soprano Eliza Boom; her name was unknown to me but she revealed a most attractive and polished voice. I looked in the usual places for some biographical details. Interesting: she has just gained a place with the Bavarian State Opera in Munich.  See http://elizaboom.com/biography.html .

A third voice was heard in the second half: Māori singer Maisey Rika; her contribution was a remarkably synthesis of Māori and European musical traditions.

Opera excerpts
In the first half O’Neill and Boom sang the Act I duet by Don José and Micaëla “Parle-moi de ma mère” from Carmen: initially the two voices failed to coalesce perfectly but by the time the big tune arrived, they were well matched, credible and impressive.

In the second half Eliza sang “Mi chiamano Mimi” from La bohème, her voice easily penetrating the occasional heavier orchestration; and the two then joined for the duet that follows, “O soave fanciulla”, as Mimi and Rodolfo suddenly get to know each other… . O’Neill then departed from familiar repertoire to deliver Otello’s “Niun mi tema”, his anguished outpouring after killing Desdemona, not a commonly sung stand-alone aria. It was a striking departure from the otherwise celebratory spirit of the concert to touch on jealousy and tragedy, possibly a subtle reference to the dangers of political or race-driven hatred. (Not that either Carmen or Bohème are particularly filled with joy or comedy).

Before and after the Carmen arias the orchestra played striking excerpts from the suites based on the opera. They were a delight, exhibiting the composer’s many-facetted genius; it’s rare to hear them played live, by an excellent symphony orchestra.

Maisey Rika and co
The second half was introduced by a talented, charming young Māori soprano, Maisey Rika (she was described, in pop music terminology, merely as ‘vocalist’). She was accompanied by Horomona Horo performing on taonga pūoro, uttering subtle sounds – perhaps a koauau , which suggest the deep tones of a mellow, low flute. He accompanied his singing with gestures typical in the performance of waiata. In addition, electronic sounds emerged, managed by Jeremy Mayall, with visuals projected on a screen. Maisey Rika, wearing a flowing, ruby-coloured, loose gown, a near match to the reddish robe worn by Eliza Boom, sang two items, named in the heading, above. Both were engaging, interesting and sophisticated; in a certain way, rather haunting. Her voice is warm and flexible, extensive in its range and colourings.

The blending of taonga pūoro and conventional orchestral instruments was variably successful: sometimes intriguing, sometimes a bit over-orchestrated: that was particularly the case with the second song, Taku Mana. Nevertheless, it was a striking demonstration of how to succeed, quite movingly, in grafting Māori music on to European symphonic language.

And Maisey spoke briefly, dedicating her songs “to those who had kept us safe”.

The item I’d most looked forward to (of course) was the Rosenkavalier Suite.  As well as it was played, exploiting the large orchestra that was available, the early passages somewhat unpersuasive, not particularly evocative of the marvellous delights that are to be found in the opera. But from the arrival of the waltz music one was carried away.

The concert ended with Pokarekare Ana, from members of Voices New Zealand Chamber Choir and singers from Wellington schools, the three solo voices and taonga pūoro, accompanied by electronics. The audience was invited to join – the words were conveniently at hand in the free programme. These kinds of gestures can sometimes seem out of place; but this fitted perfectly, a blending of Māori music and poetry, with sophisticated European music.

This was also the occasion to mark the departure of former Chief Executive Chris Blake and the confirmation of his successor, Peter Biggs. And it was a strong endorsement of the role of Hamish McKeich as Principal Conductor (in residence). His control and inspiration were both visible and audible.

At the end, the audience went wild: everyone on their feet, shouting and whistling like I’ve never heard before.

The orchestra has survived in excellent health, and we can look forward to an even more exciting musical year; bearing in mind however, the risks that still lurk beyond our borders; and especially, the importance of not offending the gods by proclaiming success, by exaggerating human missteps or demanding normality prematurely.

 

Moving and delightful recital of German Lieder at St Andrew’s

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

St Andrew’s lunchtime concerts

Will King (baritone) and Nicholas Kovacek (piano)

Brahms: Vier ernste Gesänge (Four serious songs)
Schubert: ‘Frühlingsglaube’; two songs from Die schöne Müllerin: ‘Am Feierabend’ and ‘Der Neugierige’; ‘Nacht und Träume’; ‘An die Musik’

St Andrew’s on The Terrace

Wednesday 24 June, 12:15 pm

Though we missed St Andrew’s lunchtime concert last week celebrating the survival of live music in public places, this was warmly encouraging with a back-to-normal audience, from two graduate students at Victoria University’s School of Music.

The last time I heard Will King was in Eternity Opera’s production of The Marriage of Figaro in 2017. Though I’d like to hear him again in opera, this recital showed him as a mature and accomplished Lieder singer, and in particular, one who could deal properly with Brahms’s sombre Four Serious Songs.

What is striking about the first of them, ‘Den es gehet dem Menschen’, is the contrast between the uniform seriousness of the voice, often in contrast with agitated, flashing piano accompaniment. It demonstrated the beautifully controlled lyrical voice over a spectacular piano part that evoked a sort of frenzy. That spirit of the second song is very different. ‘Ich wandte mich’ expresses acceptance of death through the singer’s calm delivery, with occasional appropriate gestures, to suggest that Brahms is explaining what he himself clearly finds philosophically compatible in his contemplation of death.

I find it interesting that several great composers who were confessed non-believers (Berlioz, Verdi, Brahms and Fauré) were comfortable taking thoughts from the Bible to deal with a ‘humanist’ point of view. Each composed what are among the greatest and best-known Requiems).

The third song uses words from Sirach or Ecclesiasticus (not to be confused with Ecclesiastes) one of the so-called Apocrypha or books that were removed from the Protestant Bible in recent times. The words contemplate death as felt by one in full possession of his life; and then by one who is old and weak, with nothing more to hope for: ‘O Tod, wie bitter bist du’.  It could well have been a self-portrait in Brahms’s last year, and the song and the way both singer and pianist delivered a calm and comforting performance, captured its essence.

And the last song is the famous passage from Corinthians I, 13: ‘Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels’, sung with a clear, humane feeling that would be endorsed by believers and non-believers alike. The four songs are not among Brahms’s most popular perhaps and I may have heard only one previous live performance; but they are universally admired, and need to be more performed.

Unhappily, we can no longer expect to hear music of this kind on our debased Concert Programme.

Five Schubert songs completed the programme, which was a bit shorter than is usual (regrettably). All were among Schubert’s best known and most loved. Uhland’s poem ‘Frühlingsglaube’ (Faith in Spring), gained through the reticence of both performers.

Two songs from Schubert’s wonderful settings of Wilhelm Müller’s cycle Die schöne Müllerin followed: ‘Am Feierabend’ (‘Evening rest’ or ‘After work’) set to happy, hopeful music in triple metre; but when it ends with the miller getting no sign that he is even noticed by the mill-owner’s daughter, the rhythm falters. .

And ‘Der Neugierige’ (The Inquirer), in which the miller, next, asks the brook whether the miller’s daughter loves him, there is again no response. The transition from buoyant hope to despair was deeply felt.

‘Nacht und Träume’ is the setting of a poem by Matthäus Casimir von Collin, brother of the author of the play Egmont for which Beethoven wrote the famous overture. It is one of Schubert’s later songs: deeply moving, a good example of a beautiful setting of a poem of no great distinction but which inspires a great composer to capture its calm and underlying disquiet, never revealed or explained.

And finally one of the most poignant of Schubert’s Lieder: ‘An die Musik’, a setting of a simple, touching poem by Schubert’s friend Franz von Schober. Again, it’s a quiet, intimate, restrained song, addressed as it were to a lover – ‘Music’.

This was a fine recital the honour for which music be shared by singer and accompanist. And it renewed my long-standing feeling that audiences today have too little exposure to the real treasures of classical song – especially Schubert and Schumann. I have always counted myself lucky to have been introduced to this music by two German teachers in the lower and upper 6th form who, remarkably, were music lovers in an otherwise artistically sterile institution, and we listened to and sang (after a fashion) many of the best known Lieder as well as many folk songs. Unfortunately, my German vocabulary remains rather confined to the language of those Romanic poets who inspired their composer friends.

Oh for a series of recitals, including the great cycles by Schubert and Schumann, from resident singers including, naturally, talented students, that would expose the happy few to the real thing.

 

A beautiful “Mozart hat-trick” from Orchestra Wellington

Posted on by Peter Mechen

AMALIA AND FRIENDS PLAY MOZART
Violin Concerto No, 3 in G Major K.216
Symphony No. 36 in C Major K.425

Amalia Hall (violin and director)
Members of Orchestra Wellington

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

Saturday 20th June 2020

This was the third and final of the three programmes of Mozart presented on consecutive Saturdays in June 2020 by Amalia Hall and members of Orchestra Wellington, of which ensemble she is the concertmaster. Intended to be a kind of celebration of the nation’s lifting of “lockdown” conditions originally imposed by the Government to counter the presence of the Covid-19 virus, the concerts, though still limiting audience numbers to a hundred per event brought forth an enthusiastic and appreciative response to the ensemble’s return to “live” music-making in the capital.

My Middle-C colleagues, firstly Janice Potter and then Lindis Taylor, enthusiastically wrote about the previous couple of weeks’ performances by the same musicians, sentiments I was more than happy to echo this third time round. Here, I was firstly charmed and delighted with the direction and solo playing of Amalia Hall in the third of Mozart’s delectable series of Violin Concertos, before being thoroughly invigorated by the spirited response of the Orchestra Wellington players (again directed by Hall, this time from her concertmaster’s seat) to the same composer’s “Linz” Symphony, named after the place where Mozart wrote the music – in the space of a four-day sojourn there, no less!

While enjoying the St.Andrew’s venue as a near-ideal place for chamber and solo instrumental performance I’ve always had reservations about its suitability for orchestral performance – however, as we all know, the capital’s capacity for providing such venues has been more-than-usually under siege of late with strictures involving earthquake risk involving the temporary closure of halls, theatres and churches, necessitating places such as St.Andrew’s being brought in as a welcome stopgap for the time being. Here, with a smaller-than-usual ensemble, and a professional standard of performance, my usual concerns regarding sounds over-burgeoned thru players being crammed into insufficient spaces were happily put aside.

Particularly felicitous was the Violin Concerto’s performance, here, the music’s delight engaging the eye as well as the ear – firstly came the cheering sight of the leader/soloist joining in with the work’s opening tutti, playing the first violin part, and integrating her instrument’s sound with her fellows, and then of a sudden beaming her soloist’s single line (reinforced by frequent double-stopping) upwards and outwards as an independent spirit, and clearing the orchestral sound as a bird clears the treetops! Hers was not a “big” instrumental sound on this occasion, but an intensely focused one, whose detailings were etched and drawn like fine gold, as were the accompaniments from strings and winds – not that vigour and energy were at all lacking when required, of course, with the joyousness of Mozart’s writing given full vent at appropriate moments.

Something of the work’s extraordinary range of colour owed a great deal to its unusual scoring, Mozart substituting two flutes in the slow movement for the pair of oboes that had so characterfully contributed to the first-movement’s textures. Along with the violin’s “floating” line, the whole of the movement took on a kind of airborne quality, the muted strings enhancing the flutes’ suggestion of something not quite of this world. Equally remarkable was Hall’s playing of the cadenza, the lines bedecked with echoes and resonances, counter-voices and harmonies, all creating a remarkable multi-layered manifestation of sublimity

Contrasting with such rarefied beauties was the rumbustious, back-to-earth finale which “bounced” its way engagingly around and about, circumventing a couple of quirky contrasting episodes, before  briefly reappearing, and somewhat insouciantly bidding us farewell with a gentle, un-upholstered statement from the winds! Earlier, I had pricked up my ears at hearing Amalia Hall play what I call a “turn” at the end of each of her phrases after the opening tutti, instead of the “accustomed” trill – the first recording I ever owned of this work was David Oistrakh’s, who also played a “turn” (for want of the correct term, as I’m not a “proper” musician!) and it was nice to be “returned” to the memory of that, for me, so-o-o formative performance of this music after hearing “most” other violinists playing (a tad inconsequentially?) a trill….. either would have been a delight in such a context of fruitfulness as was ours in St.Andrew’s that afternoon….

More was to come, of course, if somewhat different in character to the concerto – a symphony, no less, one which Mozart wrote in the space of four days while sojourning at the city of Linz, the name by which the work has been known ever since. I still have the renowned conductor Bruno Walter’s once-popular “rehearsal recording” of this symphony somewhere on my shelves, and therefore can no longer hear the work’s opening without also hearing Walter’s voice exhorting his players to “come off” the note at the end of each measure at the beginning – “Bahm! – OFF! Ba-bahm! – OFF! Ba-bahm! – OFF!” – and so on! Happily the ghost of that memory wasn’t evoked on this occasion, partly because Amelia Hall’s tempi were quicker and the sounds more resonant – and partly because I was too taken by her slightly elevated “podium seat” which enabled her to more visibly perform the function of “leader” and “conductor” of the orchestra at the same time!

Hall and her players brought out the work’s definite “festive”quality at the beginning with those “Bruno Walter” notes, but also made good the sequences imbued with strains of melancholy (yearning lines from both strings and wind during that same introduction, set against the opening call to attention) and also touches of humour (some droll, quasi-furtive passages predating Leoporello’s music in the yet-to-be-written opera “Don Giovanni”) contrasting with the more assertive “joie de vivre” that drove the music forward. I enjoyed, too, the bringing out of those sinuous lines in the development which wreathed up and over the music, casting a new light on what had transpired, and making us listen afresh to the recapitulation, attended at the conclusion by those “lines of experience”.

The poise and grace of the slow movement’s opening fell gratefully on the ear, with drums and brass making splendid counterweighting points to the lyricism – I thought the different lines “swam” a bit in relation to each other in places, the rhythms a tad soft-edged at some of the different voices’ exchange-points, though one could conclude that the performance in general eschewed a kind of vertical precision as an end in itself and favoured singing lines instead. (I was merely looking for something to criticise, I must confess!) A swift Minuet with a lively “kick” made a gorgeous “rustic impression – or aft the very least, the illusion of gentility being “rusticated”, to pleasing effect! The trio’s seamless flow allowed the oboe a magical couple of moments, nicely taken.

At the outset the finale was a real “scamperer”, the first “sotto voce” phrase brimming with expectation, if the tiniest bit frayed at the edges the first time round – though I liked the phrase ends here being played for all they were worth right to their full length, instead of being given what sounds to my ears a self-conscious, somewhat “mannered” tapering off at the ends by ensembles purporting to be “authentic”. I loved the performance’s energy and sense of fun in the exposition, and the cut and thrust of the more “sturm und drang” parts of the development – Hall got a terrific response from her players throughout, the strings working hard, the winds and brass rock-steady for the most part, apart from a few bars where they lagged fractionally behind the strings (albeit together!), everything building up most satisfyingly to a grandstand finish, the heavyweights (brass and timpani) ringing out with the joy of it all, to great and well-deserved acclaim.

 

 

 

Orchestra Wellington’s second concert featuring Mozart violin concertos and city-named symphonies

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Orchestra Wellington
Conductor and violin soloist: Amalia Hall

Mozart: Violin Concerto No 4 in D, K 218
Mozart: Symphony No 38 in D, K 504, “Prague”

St Andrews on The Terrace

Saturday 13 June 2020, 4 pm

This second programme in Orchestra Wellington’s ‘recovery’ series of concerts at St Andrew’s continued with the twin themes: the last three of the five violin concertos written in 1775 when Mozart was 19 {if we don’t count the dubious violin concerto “No 7 (K 271a/271i)”}; and the three symphonies that bear place names.

Now in the pandemic’s ‘alert level 1’, this was a full house, if we don’t count the gallery which was not open.

The acoustic of St Andrew’s has given me problems in the past, when amateur or student orchestras have not calmed exuberant brass and percussion players. But here, an excellent professional orchestra guided by a gifted professional musician as both conductor and soloist found the right dynamic levels.

If there was anything to notice it was the balance in the concerto between strings and the limited wind instruments (two oboes and two horns); and the contrast between the delicacy of Amalia Hall’s solo violin playing and the fairly robust body of orchestral string players. But it’s a matter of taste, whether or not closer dynamic affinities between violin and orchestra might have been rewarding.

As was the unvarying habit in the 18th century, Mozart left no cadenzas for his violin concertos, as the virtuoso soloist was usually pleased to compose his own, thus drawing attention to his genius as both composer and performer. Amalia played cadenzas, not too extended, in each movement. Several violinists have published cadenzas for the Mozart concertos, usually roughly in sympathy with Mozart’s period and style. I don’t know whose versions she played, but they were not uncharacteristic of the period and reminded us that she is a world-class violinist.

The symphony in this concert was the latest of the three. ‘Paris’ was written in 1778, ‘Linz’ in 1783 and ‘Prague’ in 1786/87. It was written 18 months before the three last, great symphonies, after The Marriage of Figaro which had a great success in Prague in December 1786, and was perhaps the occasion for Mozart’s visit when the Prague symphony may have been performed. Don Giovanni was premiered in Prague under the composer later in 1787 and that was the subject of a famous German novella, Mozart auf der Reise nach Prag (‘Mozart on the journey to Prague’) by the poet Eduard Mörike.

There are more dramatic contrasts in style, in instrumentation, in sheer musical genius between a 19-year-old’s violin concerto and a mature 30-year old’s symphony.

The orchestra did it proud, in part because Mozart had access to flutes, bassoons and trumpets, and timpani too, as well as the oboes and horns used in the concertos. Appropriate baroque timpani were used, lighter and crisper than the timpani normally in use today.

Amalia Hall conducted discreetly from her slightly elevated concertmaster’s seat, and the effects were an idiomatic, well integrated performance: both decently bold and light spirited. Her skilled management was evident right from the contemplative opening Adagio introduction, and on through the Allegro with warm strings and timpani; and particularly in the fugal passages in the quite substantial first movement. The second movement acted as both a thoughtful slow movement and also perhaps suggested, in slowish triple time, the normal but here non-existent minuet, third movement,

It’s a symphony that handles many of the emotional elements of the last symphonies, and they were sensitively captured.  Hall’s guidance in the last movement, marked Presto, was indeed that: brisk and robust, reminding us that we have a fine Wellington orchestra, all our own. St Andrew’s provided a fine venue in a crisis environment for a smaller orchestra and more limited audience. We’ll soon be able to hear it at full symphonic scale (here there were about 35 players) in a more generous acoustic with all the luxuries of a modern concert hall.

Orchestra Wellington restores live music to the city with Mozart at St Andrews

Posted on by admin

Orchestra Wellington
Conductor and violin soloist: Amalia Hall

Mozart: Violin Concerto No 5 in A, K 219

Mozart: Symphony No 31 in D, K 297, “Paris”

St Andrews on The Terrace

Saturday 6 June 2020,  1 pm

This was the first of three concerts entitled “Amalia and Friends” featuring three violin concerti and three symphonies by Mozart:  “Paris”, “Prague” and “Linz”.

After nearly three months of lockdown without live music, this first outing for Orchestra Wellington was an almost festive occasion for its Wellington audience.  Over the past weeks the NZSO has invited us in to individual members’ homes for cameo performances in the “engage@home Play Our Part”, and there has been a multitude of Youtube creations mainly referring to Covid Lockdown situations, but we’ve been starved of live music performances.

With a limited capacity in St Andrews the available tickets “sold out” very quickly and many keen supporters of the orchestra missed out.  Although there was a limit of one hundred in the audience, there were few signs of separation for physical distancing, as many in the audience came in groups and would naturally be comfortable sitting together.  It was a “free” concert but the audience was encouraged to make a koha as names were checked off at the door.

The violin concerto is the last of the five that Mozart wrote while still a teenager and has earned the nickname “Turkish” from the lively dance-like middle section of the final movement.  The orchestra for this work has a reduced string section and only oboes and horns in the wind section.

Amalia made her appearance in an elegant black velvet dress slightly off the shoulder and welcomed the audience.  She then stepped back amongst the strings and directed the orchestra just as Mozart would have done.  But the difference here was that she played with the tutti sections until her solo began.  The first movement is labelled Allegro Aperto – aperto meaning literally “open” – it is thought that Mozart intended this movement to be played more broadly than the “allegro” would suggest.  This was certainly the impression I had with the opening section, assertive yet graceful, followed by a complete change of mood and tempo with the adagio introduction of the soloist.  When she took up the solo she stepped forward, unobtrusively turning pages on her ipad with a foot pedal.

The second movement opened as did the first with an orchestral tutti before the entrance of the soloist. With many modulations this movement seems to be somewhat sombre in mood, which is in great contrast to the Rondo, whose middle section launches into a vigorous dance-like rhythm which has earned the entire work the nickname “Turkish”.  With it’s radical leaps and percussive bass techniques it probably sounded very exotic to Mozart’s audiences.

Each movement features a cadenza, the last two written by Amalia herself.  She has an engaging presence and her performance showed great rapport with this style and in particular she handled the pianissimo passages with faultless delicacy and control.  One member of the audience later told me “her violin sang”.

The “Paris” Symphony was written a few years later when Mozart was, as you might expect, in Paris. It seems he didn’t have a very high opinion of the Parisians and hoped to please the audience with “simple” music and several repeated sections.  It seems he succeeded as the work was greeted enthusiastically at the time, as it was on this occasion.  It was here that he found that he had a much larger orchestra to work with and for the first time used clarinets (and flutes, trumpets, horns, bassoons and timpani).

Perhaps it was because I’d heard nothing but recorded music for nearly three months, or perhaps because I usually hear this orchestra from the far reaches of the Michael Fowler Centre, but in these more intimate surroundings, the orchestra sounded more vibrant with more clarity and more precision than I’ve experienced previously.  What a pity it is that it would not be economic to put on more concerts in similar venues.

 

 

A comprehensive update on the Concert FM crisis; courtesy New Zealand Opera News

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

The following is an article from the February-March issue of New Zealand Opera News

The Plight and Future of RNZ Concert

A report and comment on what were the proposed changes to this important Public Service Radio Broadcast Medium

RNZ Concert to be Gutted
On 5 February 2020 this announcement hit the headlines immediately before the Waitangi Day Holiday period on 6 February 2020. This announcement was not signalled in advance and we believe was not sanctioned by the Broadcasting Minister, Kris Faafoi who was blindsided by RNZ CEO Paul Thompson’s announcement, as discussions and decisions were pending about the way forward for public service broadcasting’s planned merging of Radio New Zealand and TVNZ to form a new public broadcasting entity.

We believe that this was possibly a determined political stance by Thompson, although we hesitate to suggest that it might have been a ploy, to angle for increased funding from government, although the resultant outrage was possibly not expected by RNZ Management.

Out with Classical; in with “youth platform”
In the biggest overhaul of its music services in years, Radio New Zealand (RNZ) is planning to cut back its classical music station RNZ Concert and replace it on their FM radio frequency with music for a younger audience as part of a new multimedia music brand. Mediawatch asks RNZ Chief Executive (CEO) Paul Thompson and music content director Willy Macalister to explain the move.

The broadcaster was proposing to remove RNZ Concert from its FM frequencies and transform it into an automated non-stop music station which will stream online and play on AM radio.

It was to be replaced on FM by a service aimed at a younger, more diverse audience as part of a new multimedia “music brand”. RNZ Concert would be taken of FM radio on May 29 and the youth platform would be phased in ahead of its full launch on August 28. RNZ’s music staff were informed about the proposed changes on 5 February 2020 in an emotional, occasionally heated meeting with the RNZ music content director Willy Macalister, head of radio and music David Allan, and chief executive Paul Thompson.

According to documents for staff, the move would eliminate 17 jobs at RNZ Music, including all RNZ Concert presenter roles, from late March. Those would be replaced with 13 jobs at the new youth platform, while four remain in the downsized RNZ Concert service and RNZ Music in Wellington.

The documents for staff say the proposed changes are aimed at securing new audiences for RNZ. While its listenership is predominantly Pākehā and skewed towards older people, the new music brand would target people aged 18 to 34, including Māori and Pasifka audiences, the proposal says.

“RNZ has strong audiences but they skew older. We are thinking five and ten years ahead. We need to start to connect with younger New Zealanders,” RNZ chief executive Paul Thompson told Mediawatch. He said RNZ Concert’s classical music focus has prevented RNZ from fulfilling its Charter’s requirement to broadcast a range of music and performances.

“We are expanding our services off our current resources. There are some tough choices in that but this is a really good story of RNZ getting to more New Zealanders,” he said.

But it’s not a good story for those accustomed to a repertoire of classical music on FM radio for many years. AM transmission is sub-optimal for live concerts and it would be interrupted when Parliament sessions are broadcast on the AM network.

‘Consume’ your classics off ‘Freeview’, says Macalister
“It is still available on Freeview and listening to RNZ Concert is mostly in the home so the ability to consume it in stereo is still there,” said Willy Macalister. The scaled-back Concert will offer recorded music round the clock, but few of the RNZ Concert programmes currently on air will be made after the new music brand is established.

“We are in consultation over that but are going to pull back on some of it,” said Macalister. “We will continue to record and air concerts and support orchestras where we can,” said Paul Thompson. Mediawatch understands the new youth platform would have a playlist spanning multiple musical genres with a heavy focus on New Zealand music. It would be active on social media.

“Genre is no longer relevant to the audience,” the proposal document says. “We intend to be a broad proposition for everyone … but it’s got to have relevance for 18 – 35 year old audience,” Macalister told Mediawatch. “One of the things that streaming services have taught us is that when you look at the top playlists, they’re not necessarily talking about genres of music. They’re talking about emotional state and activities. We’re not the only country that has this kind of brand. Australia, the UK and other countries have vibrant radio returning profits.”

“We’re not chasing dollars. We are commercial-free, and we will play more New Zealand music than any commercial format would sustain” said Paul Thompson, adding that the new RNZ Music would feature news content tailored to the younger audience it hopes to attract.

This all began in 2015
RNZ has been looking at drawing younger audiences with music since 2015 when an internal review concluded its “approach to the delivery of music content remains in a time warp.” A year later – with little fanfare – the ‘RNZ Music’ brand was launched as part of a strategy to bring in new listeners.

At the time, Thompson told Mediawatch he wasn’t interested in duplicating commercial broadcasting on the air or online. “Why would we provide anything the commercial broadcasters are quite happily doing?” he said. “I hope what we do will pull in more people – especially online – but I don’t see it as a massive New Zealand Opera News 34 audience growth initiative,” he said in 2015.

The station also launched youth-focused digital platform The Wireless – which had some music content – in 2014. But the Wireless was closed down and folded into the rest of rnz.co.nz in 2018. “That didn’t have the broadcast component in it and that’s what will make this proposal far more effective,” said Paul Thompson.

Editorial Comment:
It was the arrogance of CEO Thompson, Macalister and Allan in totally misunderstanding the strong audience support for RNZ Concert, combined with the complicit full support of the Board, as stated by Board chair Dr Jim Mather and the total ineptitude in their handing of this issue that really disappointed and angered faithful listeners.

It beggars belief that they were ignorant of how RNZ Concert listeners would respond to this sacrilege in dismantling an iconic treasure, a taonga, of an artist entity, and they did so, scathingly and swiftly and with real passion. Critical comments about the RNZ management’s handling of the announcement of their proposed plans, that would decimate RNZ Concert and actions came thick and fast from previous Prime Minster, Helen Clark, Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, ministers, ex-ministers, parliamentarians, of all stripes to high profile performers for example, such as Dame Kiri Te Kanawa and outraged listeners of all ages including from the so-called “18 – 34 years old young demographic” alike.

Clearly the CEO and Chairman of the Board hadn’t anticipated such a powerful reaction, and initially foolishly attempted to defend their actions, complaining about funding levels. To alienate the demographic of their listeners arguably including the most highly qualified intellectuals, and not expect pushback seems folly by Thompson and his managers.

All of that added to the ire of listeners as numerous letters to the editor published in newspapers attest along with petitions attracting thousands of signatures and a #Save RNZ Concert campaign was launched. Thankfully in appeasement, eventually a change-of-heart back-down from Thompson emerged with the plan shelved as proposed for now, with a reprieve for those threatened presenter and music staff positions.

Thompson finally is in discussion possibilities and options with the music staff, but why wasn’t careful and informed discussion held before this, and why should the music staff be presented with the challenge?

Where are the so-called management staff in all of this?
Willy’s previous experience and position at George FM prior to this suggests that the implied “youth platform” was intended as a replacement for RNZ Concert all along, not a coexisting of both genres. So why is one genre to be sacrificed for another, alienating the known 173,000 RNZ Concert Listeners?

And with little or no interest in classical music and the proper future of RNZ Concert how could or would he understand or have knowledge in what he was doing.
Why was he appointed to this position in the first place?

Tacit in this messy fiasco is a mostly silent board, February – March 2020 35 apart from unconvincing and unsatisfactory words from the Chair Dr Jim Mather.

There is so much that is unsatisfactory in this badly managed and organised proposed plan that for any proper lasting resolution there really needs to be a complete cleanout of all of that management team and board for anyone to have any confidence in them, or that they will do the job properly. Where was the proper governance and control that we should and would expect from highly paid people such as these?

Faafoi’s major quandary
The Broadcasting Minister, Kris Faafoi now has a major quandary to resolve, if he can, and the RNZ Management needs to be swept clean and a new and different set of qualified board members and management needs to be put in place. Surely that can happen?

We await with huge interest and hope that a sensible resolution will emerge with RNZ Concert and its talented, expert presenters and music staff essentially remain intact, while any “youth platform” is carefully and thoughtfully considered for Radio New Zealand, now offered a separate FM bandwidth, option so that they can co-exist, on an FM broadcast bandwidth, and most listeners to RNZ Concert can be satisfied with what is on offer.

But the fate of Concert FM is still far from being resolved. Coinciding with the 87th birthday of the original radio station that morphed into the current day RNZ Concert, a large rally with a variety of music, orchestral players, massed choir and opera chorus, and individual speakers addressing the crowd, presented, the musical pieces on the steps and the grass outside of Parliament.

A determined and strong throng of a few thousand made their thoughts on the future of RNZ Concert very obvious, egged on by the exuberant MCs, Linda & Jools Topp, and actor, Wellington Paranormal’s Karen O’Leary.

Hopes inspired by Grant Robertson
Associate Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage, Grant Robertson impressed with his eloquent, honest, genuine and impassioned support for public broadcasting and the future of RNZ Concert with a message to CEO Paul Thompson as to what he expected. Speaking to the crowd, he said.. “… the only proposals government were interested in were ones that built on the strengths of Concert FM (sic).”

Given the strength of the argument delivered with such intensity and passion by Robertson, Thompson would be foolish not to accommodate the sentiments and feelings of the vociferous crowd, the minister’s and government stance. The celebratory nature of the colourful, tuneful event was capped off by the singing of “Happy Birthday” and the shared cutting of the cake, by the youngest supporter at 2 years old and the oldest supporter at 89 years old!

We do feel hopeful and heartened by the response of all present and similar gatherings of support elsewhere and in the letters to the editors and editorials and look forward to a satisfying conclusion to this self-generated messy debacle created by the Board, the CEO and his management team at Radio New Zealand.

Originally published in the February – March 2020 issue of New Zealand Opera News; published here with permission from New Zealand Opera News Editor Garth Wilshere, it remains the intellectual property of the editor. 

The composer of Kopernikus, Claude Vivier: interview with conductor Vladimir Jurowski

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Why Quebec composer Claude Vivier was ahead of his time

In the absence of real concerts that Middle C can review, why not publish things of musical interest that might in small part make up for the deprivations we all suffer at present? 

Here is an article that appeared in 2018 in the Montreal Globe and Mail that might interest those who saw Claude Vivier’s opera, Kopernikus, at the recent festival in Wellington. I came across a reference to Vivier in the French magazine, Opéra Magazine: a concert performance of Vivier’s Hiérophanie, scheduled for performance at the Paris Philharmonie (the city’s brilliant new concert hall) in September last.

See Middle C review at https://middle-c.org/2020/03/festival-stages-remarkable-eccentric-opera-by-canadian-claude-vivier/)

In seeking information about Hiérophanie, I found this interview/article. 

Article by Catherine Kustanczy

Special to The Globe and Mail

Published April 13, 2018

This article was published more than 1 year ago. Some information in it may no longer be current.

Many things can be said about the music of Claude Vivier, but one thing is certain: No one who hears it is quite the same afterward. Vivier, who would have turned 70 on April 14th, is a unique figure in music. Orphaned as a baby, he attended Catholic boarding school and later the Conservatoire de musique du Québec à Montréal, before studying composition with Karlheinz Stockhausen in Cologne. A boisterous figure known for his distinct laugh and an omnipresent sheepskin coat, Vivier’s works, largely biographical, were, as British musicologist Bob Gilmore has written, a way of “confronting loneliness, darkness, terror; of negotiating a relationship with God; of voicing an insatiable longing for acceptance and for love.”

His music combines voice, rhythm and instrumental textures, in French, German, and even imaginary languages. Glaubst du an die Unsterblichkeit der Seele (Do you believe in the immortality of the soul), his final, unfinished work, concerns a narrator (named Claude) meeting a young man and being fatally stabbed; Vivier would perish in this exact way on March 8, 1983.

An interview with conductor Vladimir Jurowski: his views about Vivier

There have been numerous tributes to Vivier over the past year, with Canadian outlets Soundstreams, Against the Grain Theatre and Esprit Orchestra (the latter being long-time supporters) presenting work. But if the old Canadian trope holds true about foreign recognition being a litmus test for success, then Vivier passes, with flying colors.

One notable tribute unfolded in Berlin in late February. Presented by contemporary classical group ensemble unitedberlin (who have previously explored Vivier’s work), the concert saw Russian conductor and artistic adviser Vladimir Jurowski exercising his music talents and theatrical instincts with equal zeal, particularly during Hiérophanie (1970-71), in which he played a stern priest/judge, directing members of the ensemble through shouts, shuffles and prostrations, in a performance faithful to Vivier’s animated instructions.

Days later, Jurowski led the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester (Radio Symphony Orchestra) Berlin, where he is chief conductor and artistic director, in a harrowing performance of works by Berg, Shostakovich and contemporary Australian composer Brett Dean, whose operatic adaptation of Hamlet was given its world premiere at the Glyndebourne opera festival last summer, with Jurowski on the podium.

As well as being principal conductor of the London Philharmonic, he holds a directorship in Moscow and keeps a busy schedule of dates across Europe. Building creative programs, especially ones featuring 20th-century work, is his specialty, and in the case of Vivier, he notes that “the further away we’re getting from him physically, the more important he becomes spiritually and artistically.”

In 2021, Jurowski begins duties as general music director of the Bavarian State Opera and has indicated that Munich audiences can anticipate lesser-known works alongside opera hits. Will that include Vivier’s 1980 opera Kopernikus? Only Jurowski knows for sure.

Why Vivier in 2018?

He was, in many ways, ahead of his time, and he was beyond time and space. Some people who were very much in their time, like [Karlheinz] Stockhausen or [Pierre] Boulez, made their time, made it an epoch – an era – and in some of their aspects, remain timeless, but in other aspects sound extremely dated. For instance, Stockhausen, who Vivier studied with, a lot of his work sounds incredibly dated today. Vivier, because he was creating his style from scratch, precreated something which came into full effect only after he departed. So now, of course, we can only imagine what he could have developed had he lived any longer.

When did you first hear the work of Vivier?

My personal route was via [French composer] Gérard Grisey . I discovered his last piece, which he also tragically left unfinished, because he died – Four Songs for Crossing the Threshold – and that piece was, in its initial stages, connected to Vivier’s death. So Grisey was trying to pay tribute to his friend, and they were near-contemporaries. I somehow instinctively felt that in the case of Vivier, we have one of those rare, highly romantic cases where the life of a composer and the work of a composer become one thing. In my head, Vivier is sitting up there with people like Gustav Mahler and Pyotr Tchaikovsky and Franz Schubert, those people for whom an artistic expression became an existentialist act which could be life-changing, life-saving or life-annihilating. So without having any facts at hand to prove the case, I am convinced, more than I am convinced about anything else, that Vivier had initiated and planned and nearly, could say, staged, his departure.

You think so?

I’m convinced. Having composed this imaginary death, he felt he had to oblige his own artistic imagination, and go. It’s like one of the traditional Japanese beliefs, that if you cannot change the world and strongly dislike it, you’re supposed to leave the world to its karma and leave. For someone like Vivier, who’d been strongly connected to all sorts of Oriental spiritual beliefs and practices, that was the most natural thing to do. The unnatural aspect of course is the form of death.

So his passing was his final artistic act?

That’s exactly what I feel about it.

What’s it been like to be so involved with a work that demands more as a conductor?

I think that’s to do with me generally being some kind of, I call it bat syndrome, a bat in the sense of it being an animal which has left the world of mammals but hasn’t quite reached the world of birds. I am flying between the worlds.

So you don’t want to be a traditional conductor?

No, it’s boring. There’s a whole new generation, people like Teodor Currentzis – he also goes over borders stylistically – we are very different, but still I think it’s a genuine interest for not just one direction in the music. For me, the predominant points of my artistic being are symphonic music, early music, contemporary music and music theatre. And sometimes I’m even allowed to combine all of them in one.

 

A piano recital that disabused one of certain beliefs and expectations

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

St Andrew’s Lunch Time Concert

Ursula Gabriele Gschwendtner (composer and pianist)
Works: A selection of pieces from her three albums

St Andrew’s on The Terrace

Friday 20 March 2020, 7:30 pm

The audience at this diverting little concert at St Andrew’s was not large, as alarm at the spread of Covid-19 has become more intense. The happy few were interestingly entertained, at what could well be a very rare event for some time.

Ursula Gabriele Gschwendtner has lived in New Zealand since 1996 and calls herself “a classical pianist, a composer and a clown”. The first two talents were conspicuous on Friday, but her liveliness and fluency in her second language did not make the third unimaginable.

She spoke briefly about her musical activities and the nature of each of the 12 pieces she played in the church’s acoustic without amplification, made some of what she said indistinct. She responded to my request for more. Her twelve pieces were: Setting Her Face, Herzblut, Waltz, Closure, A Stroll. Raindrop Travelling, Neale, A Wrestling Song, Reflections, Journey, Day Dream and And This is Me. On sale was one of her three CD albums: In Between which contained six of those pieces.

The first piece, Setting her Free, dating from 2012, is about her mother’s decline into dementia (she died only last year), and typifies the subjects that give rise to her compositions. She confesses that they are mainly born from emotional pain. “The piano seems to become a vehicle to express and transform my inner turmoil”, she says; “life situations and broken heart stories inspired most of my music”. She plays with a light touch, with frequent short pauses at phrase endings; melodic and rhythmic notions change clearly and even though there is a superficial simplicity, with elementary left hand motifs the tunes change and so do rhythms and keys.

I began by seeking hints of the piano music of well-known piano composers, but soon realised that missed the point; it was essentially the product of minimalist music, perhaps post-minimalist, and as I played the CD to one of my sons, he said, “Max Richter”: right on! (you’ll remember his Infra in the Glass/Richter concert from the NZSO in the Festival). But rather distant from the minimalism of Glass and Reich.

The second piece, Herzblut, also arose during her years of grief: rather than a “bleeding heart”, it refers to putting your heart and soul into something. She calls it a very intense piece, though to me it seemed, rather, disturbing, with shifting tonalities over a repetitive left hand. But she stopped any seeking in that direction, saying, “I have no clue of what key signature and time signature I am in. and in fact I am not interested.”

Waltz was certainly in the normal rhythm, but was unexpected in its rejection of any hint of Vienna. It seemed to be a little more taxing than that, but more importantly, unconventional in its hesitancy and its mock forthright character: don’t think of Strauss, or Chopin, or Ravel.

If not all the pieces evoked their alleged subject very strongly, A Stroll did. Changes of scenery, a walking pace, pauses here and there as if she stopped to look at a view or pick a flower.

I didn’t know what to expect with A Wrestling Song: can you think of another composer who aimed to depict in song, violent physical activities, the antithesis of music? There was some muscle flexing and some compelling rhythmic patterns, but nothing that suggested the dramatized, pretended violence of that absurd activity.

Neale was a mutual attraction, perhaps a love, made impossible by circumstances, but which left her with a strong impression. It speaks of a sense of unfulfillment perhaps relief.

Gabriele thinks Journey is one of her best pieces, partly influenced by her experience playing marimba music from Zimbabwe. After a couple of minutes the right and left hand take different rhythmical patterns for a short time. It’s enigmatic, carefully studied, hypnotic: a journey that was undertaken by some sort of compulsion rather than just a casual trip.

Day Dream begins as in a dream but quickly seems to lose that character as a lively quite characterful tune takes charge and the dream seems to be diluted in the full light of day.

The last piece was autobiographical: And this is me. It reflects aspects of her nature, and she enumerates them: the emotionally heavy one, the clown, the quirky one, the mad one.

Little of her music made great technical demands and I found that refreshing. I’d noted that this sounded the most challenging of her pieces, and she confirmed that feeling, confessing that. “This piece is my non-perfection”.

Her recital interested me very much. Unlike most music performance in which great importance rests on technical perfection: virtuosity for its own sake in many cases. Here was a pianist who clearly had things to say, but for whom an impressive technique and years of practical and academic achievement were irrelevant. I was glad to have had some deep-rooted attitudes and beliefs effectively questioned, and to have enjoyed the experience greatly.

 

Music’s response to Covid-19 – from the United States

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

From Opera America

Opera America, the organisation that shares information about and advocates for opera in the United States has posted the following list of companies and artists that can be accessed on line: 

“See our COVID-19 Resource Hub for a list of performances that have been canceled or postponed.

The following companies and artists are offering performances that can be streamed online:

  • Against the Grain Theatre is offering its complete La bohème on YouTube. Watch >>
  • The Dallas Opera, in collaboration with baritone Lucas Meachem and pianist Irina Meachem, presented a recital of excerpts from Don Carlo on March 16. Watch >>
  • Florentine Opera Company will be offering digital performances to ticket-holders of its Tragedy of Carmen (March 13–21). Learn more >>
  • LA Opera will be presenting an LAO at Home recital series, benefiting the Artist Relief Tree, on its Facebook page starting today. Watch >>
  • The Metropolitan Opera will be offering live streams of its Live in HD series every night at 7:30 p.m. ET, and videos will remain active for 20 hours. Watch >>
  • New York Festival of Song and its emerging artists presented a live-streamed concert, “The Art of Pleasure,” at Caramoor on March 15, and the video will be available through tomorrow. Watch >>
  • Opera Philadelphia is offering an audio webcast of Missy Mazzoli and Royce Vavrek’s Breaking the Waves. Listen >>
  • Joyce DiDonato and Piotr Beczała performed live-streamed excerpts from Werther, now available on YouTube. Watch >>

 

Musical voyages to distant places – Jenny Wollerman with the New Zealand String Quartet

Posted on by Calvin Scott

Secrets of Sea and Space – a New Zealand Festival concert

Arnold Schönberg – String Quartet No. 2 (1908)
Alban Berg – Lyric Suite (1926)
Ross Harris – The Abiding Tides (2010)

The New Zealand String Quartet with soprano Jenny Wollerman

Saint Mary of the Angels, Boulcott Street, Wellington

Tuesday 10th March 2020

On Tuesday evening a very large congregation of music-followers assembled in the church of Saint Mary of the Angels to ascend into the stars and probe the depths of the sea. Saint Mary herself – in her capacity as Stella Maris (star of the sea) – seemed a well-suited hostess and patron for such an endeavour. Many young people were also present (noted here for the benefit of Radio New Zealand’s senior management). The concert, a highlight of the New Zealand Festival, offered us an opportunity to expand our listening horizons and engage with some rarely performed works that all combine, in some way, a vocal line with the established genre of the string quartet. The New Zealand String Quartet, together with soprano Jenny Wollerman, presented this concert with great energy, strength, and concentration, leading the listener through the intricate musical design of the works and contouring the musical gestures that make up their striking originality and expressiveness. The group’s approach to performance succeeded in drawing out the dark sonorities and sensuality of works that otherwise have a reputation for their cerebral rigour and association with prickly theoretical terms such as “dodecaphonic”, “atonal”, or “serialism”. Sometimes, however, in louder and intense passages, the performers’ efforts to make the music’s complex interwoven lines more transparent were compromised by the resonant acoustics of the church.

Arnold Schönberg’s ground-breaking second string quartet was first performed in Vienna in December 1908, provoking a riot that was even reported in New York newspapers as “an uproar such as no concert hall in the Austrian capital ever before had known”. The poems Litany (Litanei) and Rapture (Entrückung) that feature in the quartet’s third and fourth movements are taken from a cycle of poems by Stefan George who at the time was a distinctly contemporary voice in German poetry, thought of by his contemporaries as a kind of prophet and priest for whom poetry was a disciplined, performing art with a particular incantatory power. The quartet’s opening two instrumental movements were presented with great command and attention to detail, the players as a group clearly articulating Schönberg’s extended harmonic language, bold rhythmic gestures and making the most of the second movement’s reference to the old and sarcastic Viennese folksong “My dear Augustin, all is lost!” Jenny Wollerman then joined the quartet for the third and fourth movements. George’s poem Litany replicates the church liturgy consisting of a line of nine or ten syllables with a break between the fifth and the sixth (for example: Sacta Maria / ora pro nobis; Tief ist die Trauer / die mich umdüstert). The church setting for the concert contributed to the effect too: what better place to hear a litany than in a Catholic church! The climax of the movement occurs in the Litany’s last imploring phrase “ease me of passion!” (“nimm mir die Liebe!”) which is portrayed very strikingly in the music by a precipitously scary downward leap in the vocal part of over two octaves. Jenny Wollerman performed this leap with great athletic prowess. The ‘secrets of space’, from which the concert took its title, then became apparent as the fourth movement began with its very quiet, weightless rising figures in the violins that eerily adumbrate a new atmosphere. Lift off occurred gently with the entry of the soprano voice: “I sense the air of another planet”, she sings, announcing the quartet’s entry into an ‘extraterrestrial’ tonality-free soundscape. The visions of Stefan George’s poem Rapture correspond to the way the music liberates itself from the gravitational pull of any tonal centre. Jenny Wollerman sang George’s verses with marvellously ecstatic intensity: “I am dissolving into sound” (ich löse mich in tönen) she exclaimed, triggering a collective frisson in the audience. Perhaps in this moment, we were no longer concert-goers, but a grouping of devotees, converts, and disciples, sitting there mesmerised as she described her ascension, higher and higher into new ethereal  realms into which she was then completely and rapturously absorbed as “a spark of the holy fire” and as “a resonance of the holy voice.” After lifting poetry and music to new heights of “rapture”, Schönberg concludes the movement and the quartet (somewhat bizarrely) with a prosaic F-sharp major chord. Despite this offending major chord, the applause was, as to be expected, wild and as rapturous as ever.

Alban Berg’s Lyric Suite has been described as a “latent opera” in six acts, arranged in a fan-like formation that unfolds in a dramatic crescendo. Before playing the work, members of the quartet introduced the latent opera’s cast of characters and the general gist of its story (typical operatic themes of an impossible romance, unstilled longing, obsession, torment and despair). In the 1970s an American musicologist discovered a hidden vocal line in the composer’s draft of the work’s final movement – Largo desolato, finding it to be a setting of Stefan George’s German translation of Charles Baudelaire’s De profundis clamavi, the poet’s own dark version of Psalm 130. The six movements outline a psychographic curve of singularly powerful and contrasting emotional states. The New Zealand String Quartet masterfully showed how the Lyric Suite captures and expresses Berg’s intensification of moods in so many different ways: by the lasciviously descending harmonic progressions in the Andante amoroso for example; the grotesque scuffling in the Allegro misterioso; and the frenzied angular gestures of the Presto delirando. Jenny Wollerman joined the quartet for the Largo desolato to sing the secret libretto of the latent opera’s final act. Here the voice and the quartet convincingly conveyed the opera’s main protagonist’s (that is, the composer’s) sense of hopelessness, renunciation and desolation.

Ross Harris’s work The Abiding Tides is comprised of eight settings of poems by Vincent O’Sullivan mainly about ships sinking at sea. Although the work was introduced to the audience as relating specifically to the sinking of the RMS Titanic in the Northern Atlantic in 1912, the themes of sea voyage and shipwreck resonate very strongly much closer to home: 2,300 vessels have met their demise in New Zealand waters since the 1790s. Our forebears too all risked long voyages across vast oceans in canoes and sailing ships and burials at sea were frequent. O’Sullivan’s poems do not share the emphasis of Stefan George’s verses on form and metre, drawing more on qualities of prose poetry and the use of metaphors and imagery. The music is programmatic, following and reflecting the sentiments, images and (often very bleak) narratives of the poems. The quartet, with Jenny Wollerman at the helm, navigated the settings excellently, again capturing and conveying the mood of each. With the instrumental interludes between each setting the overall effect of the work was one of an extended rhapsody, floating, sinking, looking up at the moon and the sky (sometimes from beneath the water), watching the way light glitters on the ocean’s surface, or gazing at the ever present horizon. Harris covers a range of idioms in these settings from free canonic forms, waltz and Webernesque textures. It was very helpful as a listener to have the printed words: the acoustic of the church made it difficult at times to hear the sung words clearly. The work’s final text setting “Nox perpetua”, echoing Schönberg’s Litanei and Berg’s De profundis, was almost like a liturgical chant about the impenetrable darkness at the ocean floor.  It reminded me of the final images in Jane Campion’s celebrated 1993 New Zealand film The Piano where she cites the lines of Scottish poet Thomas Hood: “There is a silence where hath been no sound, / There is a silence where no sound may be, / In the cold grave – under the deep deep sea.”

The silence at the end was banished by continuous, loud and enthusiastic applause from an enraptured audience. On leaving the church, some audience members commented on the church’s bare wooden pews and how dreadfully uncomfortable they are. Uncomfortable pews are usually a specialist feature of Protestant churches, I thought, but even they often have upholstery nowadays: Beata Virgo Maria, audi verba mea.