Berlioz, and his “Lelio”, given their dues and more by Orchestra Wellington

Posted on by Peter Mechen

Orchestra Wellington presents:

FANTASTIC SYMPHONIES

BERLIOZ – Symphonie Fantastique Op.14
Lelio, or “A Return to Life” Op.14b

Andrew Laing (Lelio)
Declan Cudd (Horatio)
Daniel O’Connor (Captain)

Orpheus Choir of Wellington
Brent Stewart (music director)
Orchestra Wellington
Marc Taddei (conductor)

Michael Fowler Centre, Wellington

Friday, April 12th, 2019

My first reaction to the news that Orchestra Wellington was planning to give the New Zealand premiere of Hector Berlioz’s  Lelio, or “A return to life” in its properly-ordered place as a sequel to the well-known Symphonie Fantastique was a delightful amalgam of excitement, admiration, incredulity and skepticism regarding the idea. I knew the work from recordings, and it had long seemed to me of the order of something the composer obviously had to “entertain” and get out of his head before progressing onwards to “the next thing” – all more akin to a ritual of private expiation rather than material for a viable public presentation.

I didn’t, however, take into account two things, the first involving the work itself, the extraordinary capacity of Berlioz’s music for generating interest out of its sheer novelty, each part in isolation having its own fascination , but in tandem agglomerating a kind of theatrical through-line entirely of its own, and with idiosyncrasies becoming touch-points! In situ Berlioz’s sheer conviction both fused and propelled the material forwards, in ways that live musical performances often surpass recorded efforts of the same material in sheer spontaneous excitement.

Just as important was the zeal, enthusiasm and energy of the performers giving all of the above the necessary “juice” with which to “fire”. Conductor Marc Taddei was of course at the forefront of the concerted efforts of singers, instrumentalists and actors, as well as choir and orchestra members, bringing about a fruition of their efforts with inspired and unflagging direction. What I’d thought might fatally drag down any stage performance were the spoken sequences, the composer seemingly carried away by his own eloquence in thus anatomising his passions! – but here, a combination of an English translation, judicious editing and fully-committed performance brought those same sequences compellingly to life. With those patches having had their “purple” aspect removed, it suddenly seemed possible that the thing might work!

In “Lelio” the composer’s original stipulation was that the orchestra, chorus and soloists be out of sight on a stage behind a curtain, with only an actor speaking the part of Lelio in front of the curtain before the audience. The six separate pieces that made up the musical fabric of the whole are each  interspersed with a dramatic monologue, after which the curtain is lifted for the “finale”, a Fantasia on Shakespeare’s “Tempest”  for chorus and orchestra. Here, most enterprisingly, mists and atmospheric lighting created a kind of rather more naturalistic curtain for the musicians who, though visible, were most effectively shrouded in mystery. The singers, too, were able to be seen, in each case theatrically lit, with billowing mists heightening the almost Goethean atmosphere of their different evocations. Most pictorial of all was the Brigand Leader, whose swashbuckling aspect and colourful costume, complete with sword, suited his rollicking music to perfection.

The presentation didn’t go as far as following the composer’s instruction to reinforce the “awakening” idea by proceeding straight into Lelio without a break at the end of the Symphonie. Instead, during an interval the stage was reset, with a large couch as the central feature, on which the young artist was cast in a stupor, and behind which the musicians reassembled, as the mists gathered and the strange, eerie lighting was brought into play –  all sufficiently conveying the “do I wake or sleep” ambience required by the composer. As Lelio himself, actor Andrew Laing mesmerically held our attention from his first appearance as the young artist who had “dreamed” the Symphonie Fantastique’s different episodes (that we’d heard in the concert’s “first half” that evening). His monologue describing the dream’s torments gave us the essence of the original, with occasional amendments (checking his cell-phone, for example) and judicious editings supporting and colouring his full-hearted, hypnotic delivery of the words.

After this, each of the different pieces (all sung in French, except for the final chorus) followed their own spoken introductions, beginning with the setting of Goethe’s Ballad Le Pêcheur (The Fisherman) for tenor voice and piano, here beautifully and ardently delivered by Declan Cudd (from my seat I couldn’t tell which of the two wonderfully adroit pianists, Rachel Thomson or Thomas Nikora, was playing here). At one point here the music was interspersed with a poignant, dream-like remnant of the Symphonie’s “idée fixe” the melody associated with the composer’s beloved which appeared in different guises throughout the work.

Then followed  various free-ranging changes of scenario and mood – firstly a magnificent Choeur d’ombres (Chorus of the Shades), inspired by the “ghost” scene in “Hamlet”, and introduced by the brasses with lugubrious, sinister-sounding tones, the Orpheus Choir’s delivery of the words spookily evocative, certain parts reminiscent of the Prince’s invocation to the warring families at the beginning of the composer’s “Romeo and Juliet” Symphony, and everything brought into atmospheric play by the interaction of light, mist and darkness on the stage – wonderful!

The poet then castigated society in general for bringing the lofty ideals of Shakespeare into disrepute, before enjoined all artists to turn their backs on such besmirchment and  become brigands instead – introduced by a vigorous orchestral passage,  baritone Daniel O’Connor looked, sang and acted the part to perfection in the Chanson de Brigands, vigorously exchanging blandishments regarding the life of a brigand with the chorus’s male voices, and moving towards the front of the stage to great theatrical effect, to the strains of tremendously rollicking and abandoned orchestral playing!

Emotions wildly fluctuating, the young poet then imagined far-away music resembling the voice of his beloved, and sank into a reverie, as tenor Declan Cudd and his accompanying harpist Madeleine Crump joined with the orchestra to perform a Chant de bonheur (Song of bliss), the effect positively celestial, the voice again sweet and pure and the harp an ideal blissful companion. From this the poet further conjured up the idea of an Aeolian Harp strung across the branches of an oak tree besides his grave, a tree  through whose branches the wind would sound the ongoing strains of his dying happiness in the arms of his beloved – the tremulous sounds that emanated from the strings and a solo clarinet were breathtaking in their evocation of the beauteous power of the composer’s imagination!

Having thus considered his “options” the poet then announced he would embrace life, and celebrate the intoxications of music, his “faithful and pure mistress” by plunging himself into a work which he’d already planned as a sketch – a Fantasy on Shakespeare’s “The Tempest”. What followed was almost Brechtian in its theatrical manipulation, the poet suddenly becoming the self-appointed “producer” of the performance about to take place, freely dispensing advice to the musicians, chorus and orchestral players alike! Along with a few moments of engaging bombast, the work had some exquisite sequences, particularly the opening scintillations of piano duet and twinkling of winds accompanying the women’s voices, calling to Miranda (the text here in Italian rather than French). The strings then began a swirling, agitated section which conjured up a fierce storm underpinned by the timpani, then after some “Le Carnaval Romain”-like instrumental passages, the voices again called to Miranda, farewelling her from the isle, after which the orchestra exploded in a kind of ferment of agitated farewell. There was praise from the poet for the players of “Orchestra Wellington” at the end! – and then – from out of the silence came the same remnant of the Symphonie’s “idée fixe” as before – to which the poet murmured, “Again, again! – and forever…..”

Of course, these sound-reminiscences were reaching right back to the evening’s beginning, with the orchestra’s performance of the work that had started the whole process, the Symphonie Fantastique. Having not been able to resist the temptation to dive immediately into the intricacies of something unfamiliar and our of the ordinary, I now propose to make amends re the concert’s first half by declaring that the performance here of what is probably Berlioz’s famous work was no less remarkable than that of Lelio. In fact, conductor and players seemed to me to sound the work’s opening as if THIS music was the hitherto undiscovered or neglected treasure we had come to hear this evening.

Every phrase of this introductory sequence seemed to me to contain some “clue” as to what would follow, as if we were being asked to fit the pieces of some vast puzzle together, and that eventually it would cohere – the rapt concentration with which these sound-impulses were made was remarkable, with even the brief, dancing string passage catching and drawing itself back in, the detailing by the winds and the horns adding to the wonderment of each moment. I loved the horn-playing in the passage leading up to the strings’ growing excitement at the approach of the famous “idée fixe”, the long-breathed string motif Berlioz used to characterise his “beloved”. Here it was playful, capricious and tender all at once, and was received by the rest of the orchestra with joy, interest and longing – and who would not want to repeat the sequence straight away after such a reception?

The repeat allowed us to focus on something different a second time, the impulsive, grainy-textured lower strings accentuating the melody’s qualities, but maintaining an outstanding orchestral sensitivity – I thought the focus on what every instrument was doing remarkably detailed!  When we reached the oboe’s subsidiary melody I felt the focus and feeling of the strings “wandering” chromatic accompaniments brought out the music’s sinister undertow, a brief but telling antithesis of the bright nervous energies which we’d heard the instruments express so well in the movement thus far.

The big “tutti” was beautifully “voiced”, the excitement shared among the different orchestral families as the music gathered even more momentum – I felt that perhaps the accelerandi might have been just a shade less controlled and a bit more “animal” (easier said than done, of course!) – but the ending was superbly brought off, sounding just like a “prayer”!

The second movement, Un bal grew nicely from out of the swirling mists, the tune articulated beautifully and the detailing a joy – here the “idée fixe” was dovetailed in as deftly as I’ve ever heard it done, and the trumpet (cornet?) made a lovely florid impression over some of the dance’s measures, as the composer intended.

Out of the silences came the sound of a cor anglais, its rusticity emphasised by an answering companion oboe somewhere in the distance (beautifully managed!), followed by exquisitely limpid string playing. I thought the different texturings, accentuations and antiphonies of the string sounds throughout this movement stunningly realised. Conductor Marc Taddei didn’t overtly “push” the change of mood mid-movement – I wanted a shade more orchestral tumult, more “panic”, as the fierce fortissimos approached – but the moment still generated considerable impact! And the strings’ ensuing accompaniment of the clarinet solo was a divine moment, epitomising the performance’s romantic sensibility. The famous timpani responses to the despairingly unanswered cor anglais calls at the movement’s end were superbly controlled – one person in the audience, lost in admiration, NEARLY clapped, both forgivably and contrariwise under the circumstances!

Dark, menacing rumblings began the renowned Marche au supplice  (March to the Scaffold), with the bassoons playing up to their capacity for grotesquerie, the brass snarling and blaring, the strings excitable and vehement – the repeat gave us double the impact of the opening, while the climax of the piece gripped the sensibilities and wouldn’t let go until the final crash of the guillotine drowned out all traces of the “idée fixe” and its brief appearance – truly the stuff of nightmares!

If the March evoked Goya-esque imageries, the final Songe d’une nuit du sabbat (Dream of a Witches’ Sabbath) conjured up even more grotesque Hieronymus Bosch-like scenarios, the eerie, air-borne cries and squealings summonsed by harsh, whining wind-calls and subterranean rumblings, the orchestral playing gleefully giving itself over to the macabre and the fantastical! Here the “idée fixe” was transformed into a bizarre mockery of the original, galumphing accompanying rhythms reaching thundering levels before being mocked and ridiculed by the rest of the orchestra – taken up by the clarinets, the distortions become even more marked and awkward-sounding, again laughed to scorn by the rest of the band.

The bell chimes evoked great barren wastes, across which the spectral sounds drifted, answered by baleful brasses announcing the thirteenth-century “Dies Irae” chant.  Cataclysmic percussion set in motion grotesque “dance of death”-like sequences, eerily leading to scenes of total abandonment and dissolution whose aspect grew wilder and wilder, conductor Taddei finally unleashing an orchestral coda whose hair-raising impetus very nearly unhorsed us all, necessitating a wild and grimly wrought “hanging on” until the music’s tumultuous end. Pandemonium!

What more could one say except that it seemed Orchestral Wellington’s “Epic” 2019 season had begun as it obviously meant to go on – with a pair of suitably “epic” performances, that of Lelio an act of “resurrection” in more ways than one! And for Wellingtonians, faced with the further attraction of a night out with the NZSO the following evening, obviously a “bumper” weekend for orchestra enthusiasts here in the capital! In the words of Lelio himself “Encore! Encore! – et pour toujours….” indeed!

Dazzling pianist, Alessio Bax, gives sole Wellington performance at Upper Hutt

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Classical Expressions 2019, Upper Hutt
Alessio Bax – piano

Bach: solo keyboard arrangement of Alessandro Marcello’s Oboe Concerto in D minor, SD935; BWV 974
Rachmaninov: Variations on a Theme of Corelli
Dallapiccola: Quaderno musicale di Annalibera
Liszt: St. François d’Assise: La prédication aux oiseaux, S.175/1 and Après une lecture de Dante: Fanatsia quasi sonata, S 161

Expressions Arts and Entertainment Centre, Upper Hutt

Monday 8 April, 7:30 pm

Last Thursday, 4 April. RNZ Concert broadcast the usual Thursday concert from the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra. It included Sibelius’s Fifth Symphony and Grieg’s Piano Concerto. A generation and more ago it was common to be dismissive of the Grieg concerto, but the classical music world has grown up a bit since then and sensible people with cultivated but unpretentious tastes rate it among the loveliest in the repertoire.

I hadn’t heard of Alessio Bax, but it didn’t take long to be more than a little arrested by the dynamism, beauty and subtlety of his playing. He was born in Bari on Italy’s Adriatic coast, graduating from the Conservatoire there aged 14, won the Leeds Competition aged 22 and his career has followed a remarkable path, though it has not been blessed with the sort of frenzy that has followed Trifonov, Yuja Wang or Lang-Lang. The Editor of Gramophone wrote: “Alessio Bax is clearly among the most remarkable young pianists now before the public.”

He also knows how to construct a programme that is challenging, fascinating and hair-raising. The programme he has been taking around Australia and New Zealand is Italian-themed.

It opened with an unusual piece – an arrangement by Bach for solo keyboard of an oboe concerto in D minor by Alessandro Marcello. There’s the Italian element: Marcello (there were two composer brother – Benedetto and Alessandro, the former being a year younger than Bach). In the dark, and without having read the programme properly, I thought it might have been a group of three Scarlatti sonatas, and even after seeing Bach’s name attached to it, that was still not a silly guess.

There was all the bright, staccato attack, tunes that sounded Italian – more lyrical than was common north of the Alps; and there was Bax’s wonderful dexterity in his handling of the piano, with elegant, adroit decorations that had a perceptible harpsichord feeling, but which his playing turned into a perfectly genuine piano piece. Though I’m sure I’d never heard it before, the slow movement was akin to any other of Bach’s loveliest adagio or andante movements. But it was the third movement that seemed both familiar and combined the sensibilities of Bach and Scarlatti.

Rachmaninov’s La Folia
The programme was Italian themed perhaps, but Italian entirely through other eyes (or ears).  Rachmaninov wrote two sets of piano variations: first on a theme by Chopin (Op 22) and later this, on the ubiquitous ‘La folia’ late medieval tune that was used by many composers; Rachmaninov used the version by Corelli as Opus 42. Considering its importance in the composer’s catalogue it has not been much played here. The range of colours, technical and lyrical demands that Bax fulfilled effortlessly, suggested why not too many tackle it.

Rachmaninov seems to have taken the name ‘folia’ literally injecting moments of madness in certain variations, such as the Vivace and the Agitato, and elsewhere, when the plain little tune is thoroughly dismembered; they seem to break out of the pattern of sharply varied yet harmonious moods, and these Bax delivered with a sort of wild abandon.

After the Interval came the piece that the audience might have felt most dubious about: Quaderno musicale di Annalibera; for Dallapiccola was one of the Italian composers (the other conspicuous ones were Maderna, Nono, Berio) who subscribed to the 12-tone or serial technique invented by Schoenberg and promoted through the famous Darmstadt School. (My own major exposure to his music was a dozen years ago at La Scala, Milan, his one-act opera Il Prigioniero which was certainly a taxing but memorable experience).

He spoke about the piece in the most engaging and fluent way, so that his very personality and his devotion to at least some of the precepts of serialism seemed to break down any immediate knee-jerk reaction to it. The story of its inspiration – dedicated to Dallapiccola’s 8-year-old daughter, the title an echo of Bach’s Notebook (‘quaderno’) for Anna Magdalena.  Bax’s introduction certainly encouraged, predisposed one to listen seriously, unprejudiced, even sympathetically to the music. So in the end it was the tonal and dynamic variety, the commitment of his performance, filled with lyricism and liveliness, that held the attention and led one to hear some kind of serious creative imagination at work.

Two great Liszt pieces
One could find references in Liszt’s music to quite a number of countries other than his native Hungary, but Italy became important to him quite early: for example the Second year, Italy, of his Années de pèlerinage, from which the ‘Dante sonata’ is taken. The two ‘legends’ of 1863 depict two Francises: St Francis of Assisi and St Francis of Paola (his was Liszt’s saint’s name). An opportunity for glittering, joyous story-telling, the saint’s voice contrasted starkly with that of the birds.

Bax linked the two by launching into the ‘Dante Sonata’ without pause, evading any applause. Rather than attempting to depict any of the legendary or classical figures in the great epic, Liszt’s narrative work is largely a description of paradise and hell, contrasting silvery peacefulness and chaotic vengeance. But while the general impression is of a violent narrative dominated by hell, Bax takes every proper opportunity to reveal the intimate, gentle character of many passages. If he’d orchestrated it, the Dante Sonata would have been called a symphonic poem and it strains the resources and the limitations of the most resilient Steinway, which in this case responded impressively.  The piece contains some of Liszt’s most dramatic, ferocious music, which served as a splendid vehicle for Bax’s virtuosity, and his gift of injecting genuine emotional power into this great music.

It was wonderful to hear such exciting, compelling and poetic performances of these two marvellous piano works.

Reflections on musical management in New Zealand 
Given the ways in which the most important arts are so often denigrated and deprived of necessary funding and support, it is disappointing that a musician of Bax’s stature has not been engaged to play more concerts around the country. A great credit to Upper Hutt, but a serious oversight that, for example, Chamber Music New Zealand failed to engage him for half a dozen concerts.

The other issue that such a concert highlighted was Upper Hutt’s support of music and other arts in their excellent Arts and Entertainment Centre, in contrast to their neglect by local authorities elsewhere in Greater Wellington: for example the struggling local chamber music society in Lower Hutt, virtually ignored by the city authorities.

Much greater collaborative relationships should be cultivated among all New Zealand classical music organisations.

The Children – redefining well-being as responsibility, at Circa Theatre

Posted on by Peter Mechen

Circa Theatre presents:
THE CHILDREN – by Lucy Kirkwood

Directed by Susan Wilson

Catherine Downes (Rose)
Carmel McGlone (Hazel)
Peter Hambleton (Robin)

Set Design – John Hodgkins
Lighting – Marcus McShane
Sound – Oliver Devlin
Costumes – Sheila Horton

Circa Theatre, I Taranaki St., Wellington

Tuesday 2nd April, 2019

Enigmas abound in this award-winning 2016 play by British playwright Lucy Kirkwood, here presented by Wellington’s Circa Theatre, and brought to everyday life by art-that-conceals-art performances from the three actors, Catherine Downes, Carmel McGlone and Peter Hambleton, in tandem with similarly naturalistic, almost self-effacing direction from Susan Wilson – a worthy New Zealand premiere production.

Firstly, the play’s title leads one to expect that the subject, theme, story, etc., will feature, if not directly, eponymously younger people than those we encountered right throughout the evening’s presentation. Yes, during the action we were told a good deal about the eldest child of two of the characters, Hazel (Carmel McGlone) married to Robin (Peter Hambleton), though very little about the other three children. But it turns out that this child, Lauren, is less of a flesh-and-blood dramatic character than a representative factor in the issue that the play almost teasingly and certainly intriguing takes its time to reveal. The “children” of the play’s title eventually materialise, but not in the shape or form or context we might expect.

Then there’s the context of the whole thing – set on England’s Eastern Coast, the character’s interactions are played out in the wake (we are told, and made startlingly aware of by a couple of disturbing “extrusions” of human fluid) of some kind of nearby nuclear accident (Kirkwood’s play was written as a reaction to the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster, caused by an earthquake and an accompanying tsunami). For the three characters, the “accident” mentioned in the play effectively changed their career-paths as nuclear phycisists, as it destroyed the power plant where all three of them were working – Hazel and Robin have (for various reasons) stayed in the neighbouring area, while Rose (Catherine Downes) went to live and work in the USA). For some reason, they’re now back together.

Finally – in broad brush-stroke terms – there’s an air of long-suppressed and barely-disguised acrimony generated by the reunitement of the threesome and their portrayed interactions – here the writer plays with our expectations and sensibilities most intriguingly, imparting to each of the characters a resonant “identification-with” set of quotients in the situation, both inherited and further enlarged. Has Rose returned merely to re-ignite an affair with Robin? Has the bond between Hazel and Robin been gradually undermined by various life-events to the point of vulnerability for both? Just what is it that motivates this ground-shift on Rose’s part?

All of this evolved in a slow-burning sort of way, despite the “surprise punctuation” of Rose’s bleeding nose, seen right at the play’s beginning, but then seemingly forgotten, as the characters circled around and in and out of each other’s worlds.  Rose curiously seemed familiar with the locations of things in the house – a footstool found unhesitatingly under a chair and the drinking glasses in the right cupboard – and Hazel appeared increasingly disconcerted by Rose’s presence and pronouncements, in particular the latter’s provocative “wanting to lick a man” confession going down less than enthusiastically with her companion!)

With the arrival of Robin, Hazel’s husband, home from his work on the farm, the tensions tautened, with Robin heartily proposing he open the parsnip wine by way of celebrating Rose’s arrival, and then sending Hazel to answer the ringing ‘phone, during which time he lost little time in making “advances” to the visitor, which were gently repulsed – was this, then, the “nub” of the drama, a commonplace marital betrayal revealed for what it was?  Hazel’s revelation to us that she figured Rose HAD been in the house before, and that she knew of Robin’s and Rose’s affair seemed then to gradually but effectively deflate that particular scenario. So, where did things go from this point?

Adroitly, Kirkwood then introduced an idea whose message runs counter to the last forty years’ worth of mainstream thinking, and to the last hundred years of frantic industrialisation before that – the idea of a generation of people demonstrating responsibility, by doing something to clean up the environmental messes they themselves had created, rather than leaving future generations to do so. In answer to Robin’s half-serious remark to Rose, “So you haven’t come to seduce me?” the latter wryly replied, “No, you haven’t aged very well” – before telling him that she had returned to go back and work at the power station, and that it was her responsibility – she needed to come back and try to “clean up the mess”- not leave it to younger people who have families and their lives still to live.

What resulted from this statement and Rose’s subsequent invitation to both Robin and Hazel to “join her” in her mission formed the “near-divine-comedy” which followed – in an interview I watched AFTER seeing the play Kirkwood made it clear that she wasn’t interested in creating a theatrical scenario featuring younger people ACCUSING their elders of creating environmental chaos and leaving it for others after them to clean up – she sought instead the idea of demonstrating responsibility and awareness in a world where individuals often feel powerless – like children, in fact – which the playwright stressed was the gist of the play’s title, the fact that the characters themselves are the children, in the state of what it is to be a child in their powerlessness.

What they all do in the face of Rose’s proposal is individually and collectively run a gamut of emotion and subsequent action and interaction that “work out” their stances, expectations and fears – this “working out” includes physical confrontation (more blood), scenes of recrimination, sequences of music and dance, and even yoga routines, all mirroring either stances, enlargements of consciousness or shifting of attitudes, come what might from it all. It has something of the ancient  idea of “in death there is life” about it all, perhaps the “children” within each of these extremely flawed individuals finding themselves again and in their own unique versions of selflessness achieving their true purpose.

No praise for each of the performers can be too high – they inhabited, in fact, burgeoned within their respective roles, drawing us into identifications with this and that aspect of their characters with surprising sympathy and lasting resonance. These “everyperson” qualities were reinforced by costume choices that fitted each character like a glove, and supported by set designs which underlined the strictures of their situation. Both sound and lighting effects brought potent reminders of these same territories, transporting our sensibilities to “other realms” as surely and as resoundingly as anything I’ve recently seen at Circa. Director Susan Wilson, along with everybody else involved with this production, would surely have been well pleased with both its intrinsic impact and its reception.

(Until 27th April 2019)

Soloists steal the show with Mozart’s K.364 at Wellington Chamber Orchestra’s inspiring concert

Posted on by Steven Sedley

Wellington Chamber Orchestra presents:

MENDELSSOHN – Overture “Ruy Blas” Op.95
MOZART – Sinfonia Concertante in E-flat Major for violin, viola and orchestra K.364
BRAHMS – Symphony No. 1 in C Minor Op.68

Soloists: Monique Lapins (violin) and Gillian Ansell (viola)
Conductor: Rachel Hyde
Wellington Chamber Orchestra

St.Andrew’s on The Terrace Church
Wellington

Sunday, 7 April, 2:30 pm

Being part of an orchestra of some 60 players is a wonderfully uplifting experience for an amateur or semi-professional musician. You get carried away with the flow of the music, you are part of a large team with a common purpose. You do your best, you put your heart and soul into the music. You don’t set out to compete with the great symphony orchestras, you do it for your own love of music and you perform for your family, your friends, and those who make a point of supporting your endeavours. St. Andrews, where the audience is close to the orchestra and can feel part of the action is just the right venue for such a concert.

 

The highlight of this occasion was Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante with the soloists, Monique Lapins, violin, and Gillian Ansell, viola, the two middle voices of the NZ String Quartet. It was a rare opportunity to hear these well-known musicians step out from their ensemble and show their skills as soloists. This is a major work with great depth, at times with reminders of the dramatic moments of the operas. The two string instruments, the soprano and the alto, engage in a dialogue above the symphonic foundation of the orchestra. The two soloists played with deep understanding, bouncing melodic passages off each other, with a twinkle in their eyes reflecting Mozart’s humour, but also with with passion when that was called for in the slow movement. Elegance is the word that springs to mind to describe their performance. Their playing lifted the playing of the whole orchestra.

 

Brahms’s First Symphony is a challenge for any orchestra, and to their great credit the Wellington Chamber Orchestra did it justice. They produced a lovely tone that captured Brahms’s rich chords, with fine wind playing and rich string sounds. Rachel Hyde conducted it at a controlled, restrained, spacious tempo that let the powerful melodies soar. It was a great experience for players and listeners alike.

 

The Mendelssohn overture set the mood for the concert. Unfortunately the acoustics of the church did not favour the orchestra. The sound of the wind and brass reverberated and overwhelmed the strings and the subtlety and the lyricism of the work was somewhat lost. This is the downside of a venue at which the audience feels almost part of the orchestra. With all that however, this was a most enjoyable concert.

 

 

Cantoris, with Thomas Nikora, brings life to Faure, and Rutter to life

Posted on by Peter Mechen

GABRIEL FAURE – Requiem Op.48
Cantique de Jean Racine Op.11

JOHN RUTTER – Gloria (1974)

Soloists : Erica Leahy, soprano / Morgan King ,bass-baritone  (Faure)  – Shirleen Oh, soprano / Viv Hurnen, mezzo-soprano / Ruth Sharman, alto (Rutter)
Cantoris Choir
Thomas Nikora (Musical Director)
Jonathan Berkahn (piano and organ)

Wesley Church, Taranaki St.,
WELLINGTON

Saturday 6th April 2019

Gabriel Faure’s Requiem, with its relatively intimate, and gentle, largely non-confrontational utterances receives frequent church performance by non-professional choirs in a version with organ accompaniment (there are various other versions extant of the work, two of which are scored with varying orchestral forces, details of which are too impossibly convoluted to even comment on). I’m mentioning this circumstance because I frequently go away from such performances feeling “short-changed” as to the vital contribution of the “instrumental” parts to the work’s overall effect. In short, I usually find organ-only accompaniments of this music somewhat pallid and unduly reverential, but which, I’m happy to say, wasn’t the case in this latest Cantoris performance of the work.

Here, from the beginning, we were made aware of the organ being a real “player” in realising the music’s expressive capacities, rather than being relegated to a dutiful accompanying role. Organist Jonathan Berkahn’s first, attention-grabbing chord made us prick up our ears at the start, establishing from the outset a kind of vital ebb-and-flow between voices and instrument, even if the player’s tones were momentarily (and uncharacteristically) too loud in places during the opening Introit, during the men’s “et lux perpetua luceat eis” (perpetual light shine upon them), blunting the contrast of the REAL outburst at the end of that section. That moment was, thankfully, the exception rather than the rule – and I was able to enjoy almost unreservedly the many different instrumental ‘terracings” of dynamics and colourings of the tones and textures brought out by Berkahn right throughout the rest of the work.

The choir’s tonal resources were beautifully “shepherded” throughout the Requiem’s course by musical director Thomas Nikora, with the individual voices often clearly audible, though always “complemented” by other voice- strands. And the voices often surprised with their capacities to give more and more, as in the repeated prayer “O Domine, Jesu Christe…” (O Lord, Jesus Christ) in the Offertorium (Faure, incidentally, adding an “O” to the original prayer’s beginning), its repetitions gaining telling weight and increasing urgency each time, the basses beautifully reinforcing the third supplication.

The bass-baritone, Morgan King, continued the supplications with his “Hostias et preces” (We offer unto Thee), true and solid, with the accompanying organ timbres here sounding so “reedy” and right. A slight hesitation marked the singer’s “Fac eas, Domine” (Allow them, O Lord), but apart from a touch of strain in his difficult ascent, he held his line steadfastedly. And what celestial outpourings from the choir at the return of “O Domine”, the sopranos making up for some slight obtrusiveness at their first entries, with some sweetly-realised “Amens”.

After a touch of “Ready, steady, go!” the Sanctus began, the organ notes rippling beautifully and the exchanges between sopranos and tenors accurate and sweet in their tuning, despite the few voice-numbers  – again, at the Hosannas, the sopranos soared truly and sweetly, while the organ mustered its resources to augment the mighty vocal declamations of “Hosanna in excelsis!” – I still wanted more organ “grunt” with the triumphant  horn-call, but otherwise the instrument was a worthy foil for the voices, who were giving it heaps! All most satisfying – one felt that one had certainly been in a “Hosanna” by the end!

The famous “Pie Jesu” (Merciful Jesus) solo was here delivered affectingly and truly by soprano Erica Leahy, the words slightly “covered”, and the organ here and there a wee bit over bearing – but the notes were truly and sweetly floated and held for our pleasure and wonderment, everything most easefully directed by Nikora. After this I thought his “Agnus Dei” (Lamb of God) a wee bit brisk – though perhaps he was wanting to re-activate movement after the “heavenly stasis” of the “Pie Jesu”. The tenors did sterling work, here, holding their line truly, the organ, though momentarily “jumping the gun” with the registrations for the choir’s anguished repetitions of “Agnus Dei”, certainly conveying in tandem with the voices the turmoil of the human soul in begging forgiveness for “the sins of the world”.

The sopranos kept their “held” note beautifully as the music began the slow chromatic harmonic descent at “Lux aeterna luceat eis” (whose motions always remind me of Wagner’s depiction of Wotan’s kissing his daughter Brunnhilde’s eyes shut towards the end of Act Three of “Die Walkure”) – we heard beautiful organ colourings of the textures as the music sank resignedly then rose again in supplication – very dramatic! A great outburst from the organ, and the Requiem’s opening made its reappearance, the voices confident and full-toned, the cries of “Luceat eis” making a heartfelt contrast with he serenity of the organ postlude.

“Libera me” (Deliver me) opened with baritone Morgan King’s strong, focused voice, conveying the foreboding of the text with  great feeling, the choir’s tremulous responses at “Tremens factus” (With fear and trembling) leading to a tremendous outburst of fear and anguish with “Dies illa, dies irae” (That day, the day of anger), building their tones excitingly, and then just as effectively “hollowing” their voices when reprising the “Libera Me”, the organ contributing a suitably bell-tolling backdrop to the choir’s unison, and the baritone reliably completing the echoing supplication. Finally came the “In Paradisum” (the words lifted from  the “Order of Burial” by the composer) – a quickish tempi set by Nikora resulted in the textures bubbling rather than floating, but the effect was just as magical and celestial. I thought the sopranos “carried the day” here with their pure, angelic voices, aided by the lower-toned support of the rest of the choir, and concluding with their murmured replies of “Requiem” at the work’s end.

A popular “coupling” for the Requiem on recordings has always been the comparatively brief but mellifluous Cantique de Jean Racine, given here as a kind of first-half “epilogue” to the larger work. Written much earlier (1864-65), Faure named the piece after the famous writer, who, in 1688 had written a text in French paraphrasing the original Ambrosian-style Latin Hymn Consors paterni luminis (O Light of Light), the young composer’s efforts winning him a prize at the school he was currently attending in Paris. Like the Requiem, the Cantique exists in different versions, having been arranged with various instrumental acompaniments by the composer, including orchestral forces – here a piano joined forces with the organ to complement the voices.

I thought the performance quite lovely, the piece’s long-breathed melodies and gradually-accumulated waves of sound admirably voiced by all sections of the choir, the undulating textures supporting some impassioned moments alongside ever-resonating transparent textures, beautifully-floated soprano voices working in tandem with the deeper sounds of the remaining singers. I thought the singers’ chording towards the piece’s end especially rich and satisfying.

John Rutter’s Gloria I didn’t know before this concert, and I found it an invigorating and rewarding experience. I loved the massively-conceived, almost “Twentieth-Century-Fox” introduction to the work, unreservedly conveying the sense of something grand and mighty about to be visited on all present! The opening words, of course, spoke for themselves in this respect  “Gloria in Excelsis Deo!” (Glory to God in the Highest), the following “Et in terra pax” (And peace on earth) more suitably earthbound, humbler in expression…..both the sopranos and tenors throughout this first part of the music had markedly exposed entries into the “fray”, and each group did so well, everybody true-voiced and keeping their line under Thomas Nikora’s watchful direction, the altos coping especially well with their more angular version of what the sopranos had sung previously, at “Propter magnam gloriam tuam” (We give You thanks for Your boundless glory).  The return of the opening “Gloria” brought out what I thought a Walton-like vigour in the writing, more than a bit “jazzy” here and there – and concluding the first part of the work with a flourish!

Rutter structured the setting in three separate movements each with a specific character – after the joyous energies of the first movement, the second part “Domine Deus” (Lord God), marked andante, saluted the Almighty in calm, gently-expressed birdsong tones from the organ at the outset, almost voluntary-like in its direct lyrical appeal, while serving also as an ambient counterpoint to the voices’ devotional utterances, the men beginning and then joined by the women, in “Domine Deus Rex caelestis” (Lord God, King of Heaven). The movement progressed from quiet simple adoration to joyous acclaim supplication as the music proceeded, the organ moving through its “chorale” in tandem with the avian figurations – a lovely, atmospheric effect. Beginning with a second, and then a third “Domine Deus” which led to the words “Agnus Dei, Filius Patris” (“Lamb of God, Son of the Father”), the voices built the intensities inexorably towards a most joyous acclaim, contrasting the mood vividly and tellingly with the following rapt, withdrawn tones of “Qui tollis peccata mundi” (Who takest away the sins of the world). Shirleen Oh’s clear, steady soprano made a telling effect at “Miserere nobis” (Have mercy on us), as did the solo voices of mezzo Viv Hurnen and alto Ruth Sharman in duet, a few moments later, with “Suscipe deprecationem nostram” (Receive our prayer), adding to the raptness of the ambience.

Even more Walton-like was the third movement’s punchy opening, syncopated and jazzy, piano and organ rollicking along with the voices through the various “Quoniams” as the music drove irresistibly forwards, the music’s angularities setting the different strands tingling with excitement the whole while. The “Amens” began to build towards the inevitable climax, the singers sounding part-purposeful, part free-spirited, kept focused by their music director’s unflagging energy and the organ’s mighty presence! In what seemed like no time at all the “Amens” had crested the hilltop and proclaimed victory, to the delight of the organ and piano, everybody then breaking into a reprise of the “Gloria”, the atmosphere festive and almost crazy in its effervescent joy, the performance’s energies enabling the music to properly catch fire and leave both musicians and audience exhaustedly happy at the end!

 

 

 

 

Exhilarating piano duet delight at St Andrew’s lunchtime concert

Posted on by Steven Sedley

The Blue Danube and Duo Enharmonics

Duo Enharmonics – Nicole Chao and Beth Chen (Piano music for 4 hands)

St. Andrews on the Terrace

Wednesday 3 April, 12:15 pm

Some years ago both Nicole Chao and Beth Chen studied with Thomas Hecht at the New Zealand School of Music. They formed a piano duo partnership and have been close friends ever since. They went overseas, studied further, came back, and carried on playing together.

Four hands playing on one keyboard is a very difficult form of chamber music. There is no contrast, no different tone colour or timbre to separate or contrast the voices. The two pianists have to think and play like one. Such unanimity was evident in this concert. It started with Debussy’s charming, well known Petite Suite, though better known in its orchestral version. It is a playful piece and was played with lovely sonority and clear phrasing.

Then came the huge, taxing, four-hand version of the first movement of Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring. I imagined the two friends, very accomplished pianists, getting together and saying ‘Let’s have some fun’. ‘What can we play to test the limits of the piano?’ and they opted for The Rite of Spring. The one piano, four hands, has to capture the vast kaleidoscopic range of a large orchestra, with its full tonal and colour range. The music moves from powerful, loud, fast passages to contrasting gentle, lyric melodies. Nicole Chao and Beth Chen played with forceful energy, and captured the magic of the ballet.

This challenging work left the audience with a sense of exhilaration. But that was not all. The concert was capped with Greg Anderson’s arrangement of the Blue Danube Waltz. Forget a gentle cruise down the Danube, or twirling to the tune of a gentle waltz in some crystal illuminated ballroom. Greg Anderson completely deconstructed the well known work of Johann Strauss. He embraced Heavy Metal, popular American music, and a whole range of contemporary sounds with rhythmic echos of old Vienna.

It was great fun. Let’s have more of this, let’s hear this talented pair again.

 

Art-to-music realisations, a royal farewelling, and interplanetary evocations – all in an evening’s work for the NZSO

Posted on by Peter Mechen

The New Zealand Symphony Orchestra presents:
THE PLANETS

ANNA CLYNE (b.1980) – Abstractions II, III, IV

HECTOR BERLIOZ – La Mort de Cléopâtre (The Death of Cleopatra) Hob.36

GUSTAV HOLST – Symphonic Suite – The Planets Op.32

Susan Graham (mezzo-soprano)
Voices New Zealand Chamber Choir

New Zealand Symphony Orchestra
Edo de Waart (conductor)

Michael Fowler Centre, Wellington

Saturday 30th March 2019

Tonight’s concert began with a sobering reminder of the tragedy that had shaken the whole of the country just over a fortnight previously, audience and musicians alike standing for a minute’s silence in remembrance of the incident’s victims, conductor Edo de Waart eschewing his “maestro’s entrance” on this occasion, and accompanying his concertmaster, Vesa–Matti Leppänen onto the concert platform, to stand with the other performers. As this was the first “home ground” concert given by the orchestra since the incident in Christchurch, the gesture seemed more than fitting, and was suitably moving.

Without further ado, conductor and orchestra prepared to embark on the concert’s opening item, one of three pieces written by British composer Anna Clyne under the collective title Abstractions, and belonging to a larger set of five – we were to hear the second, third and fourth pieces of the set. I read with interest Edo de Waart’s account of his previous interaction with the composer’s music, which obviously made a lasting impression, and of his delight in giving with the orchestra the New Zealand premiere of the three pieces.

The sleeve-note writer drew an interesting comparison between these three pieces, each inspired by a specific work of 21st century art, and Musorgsky’s well-known work “Pictures from an Exhibition”, contending that Clyne’s approach to the art-works was more a realisation of the “feeling” each of the images gives, as opposed to what the writer regarded as the more literal depictions of the Russian composer. Of course, “literal” and “abstract” aren’t absolutes, and will mean different things to different people, in Musorgsky’s music as in Anna Clyne’s work.

The first piece, Abstractions II, was subtitled Auguries after an artwork of the same name by Julie Mehretu, a huge, 10-panel sequence, meant to be “read” from left to right. Beginning with fast-moving “shards” of sound, swirling and passing overhead and becoming themselves an accompaniment for an impassioned theme, the piece resounded with irruptions, punctuations and “tumbledown” episodes, very “filmic” to my ears, at once visual and visceral, not least the abrupt, whip-beaten conclusion.

By contrast, Abstraction III, appropriately named Seascape, after a photograph by Hiroshi Sugimoto, featured winds and percussion drifting, murmuring and oscillating, a very French-sounding orchestral palette, joined by a pedal-point-like lower string rumble, giving an oceanic depth to the array. Gorgeously-wrought textures wafted from winds’ and strings’ interminglings, adding to the “living stasis” of the textures and tones, a bassoon drowsily but deftly presiding over the music’s “dying fall”.

Abstraction IV  was River, from a lithograph by Elsworth Kelly,  the sounds tempestuous, off-beat and scintillating with movement, running strings set against tremulous and irruptive percussion, then held in thrall to quieter, calmer, more circumspect forces until the pent-up energies broke out once again, burgeoning into a maelstrom-like climax. Its resonances were gradually “wrapped around” by wind-chords, absorbing and becalming all impulse. I thought it attractive, evocative orchestral writing.

A good deal of interest in the concert centred on the appearance of well-known American mezzo-soprano Susan Graham, performing Hector Berlioz’s dramatic scene La Mort de Cléopâtre (The Death of Cleopatra). The singer’s “bio” as per programme suggested that she is currently revisiting her “signature interpretations” of this and three other great French “song cycles” (which Cléopâtre is not in any case, being a “dramatic cantata” – in fact, of the four works mentioned, it’s only the other one by Berlioz (“Les nuits d’été”) that can be called a “cycle” of any kind).

Beautifully though she essayed the vocal part, and gorgeously though the NZSO and Edo de Waart accompanied her, I thought our appreciation of both the work and her performance was hampered by the absence of any translation of the text either in the programme or displayed in the hall. It meant that non-French speakers could only generalise as to the significance of any variation or contrast in emphasis, colour or mood the singer’s music presented to us.

Without any such detailings I thought the subtleties of Graham’s performance might have registered with people less readily, especially as, to my ears, she eschewed any extremes of emotional response to the text, and in doing so, sounding somewhat less overtly involved than did the others I’d heard on various recordings I’d been playing (by way of giving this seldom-locally-performed work more of a current listening context).

Had we the translation to follow, I’m certain that Graham’s beautifully-sung, but rather “contained” emotional responses might have had more of a specific impact – true, she delineated certain overall moods in the writing with discernable shifts of emotion (a lovely softening of her tone when recalling past glories – augmented by lovely wind-playing) – and various “irruptions” of emotion registered elsewhere in the music’s unfolding, with appropriate contrasting  emphases in the vocal line – but I couldn’t help longing for in places a sharper, more colourful and varied character from the music.

What particularly attracts me to Berlioz are his music’s capacities to glint, babble, effervesce, snarl, bite, shout, brood and rage! And while this was, on the surface of things, a dignified lament by a Queen, this particular ruler was also known as the “Serpent of the Nile” – so whatever dignity and royal containment the singer conjured up probably needed to be seasoned with at least a few viperish gestures and not merely at the cantata’s end! Speaking of such things, I should add, in all fairness, the unfortunate Queen’s last few moments were here movingly and breath-catchingly done by singer, conductor and players.

Holst’s “The Planets” made for more familiar listening, beginning with the imposing, attention-grabbing movement “Mars, the Bringer of War”. I thought de Waart‘s tempo for the main body of the piece was excellently judged, the relentless 5/4 rhythms neither too fast and frenetic, nor too slow and ponderous. Despite a misjudged percussive stroke at the piece’s end, the players delivered the detailings of the music with fantastic elan and brilliance. It all made for the greatest possible contrast with the cool, chaste strains of “Venus”, cast by Holst as a “Bringer of peace” instead of as the more conventional “Goddess of Love”, the playing (the horn repeatedly showing the way with its gorgeously pure-voiced upward phrase) exquisitely sounded by strings and winds in tandem with the twinkling celeste, if in places I felt it a fraction driven by the conductor, rather than “allowed” to unfold.

Though I felt that “Mercury” could have been a shade fleeter of foot, its steady, natural pace seemed to allow everything in the music to “happen” precisely and meticulously – I simply thought in places that its “Winged Messenger” aspect sounded just a tad too earthbound, the whirling triplets more methodical than impulsive, and thus losing some of that “incredible lightness of being” quality, though the timpani solo at the end sounded suitably energised, as did the playful interactions between celeste and winds which break off into nothingness.

Jupiter, however, I thought an entirely successful “Bringer of Jollity”, right from its energised ascending opening, the brasses summonsing, in Milton-like musical terms “Laughter holding both his sides”, with the tuba merrily counterpointing the principal “dancing” theme, and the great ¾ “jovial” melody here richly and syncopatedly decorated by the horns. The well-known central tune, appropriated for diverse uses since its composition, was begun as it went on, nobly and grandly, free from bombast and mawkishness, de Waart keeping it moving and letting it expand in an entirely natural way.

As befits their relative remoteness in the solar system, the final three planets always seemed to me to have drawn the most enigmatic and mysterious music from the composer. “Saturn” was Holst’s favourite from all accounts, possibly due to the music’s apparent identification with an all-too-inevitable condition of human frailty – old age. Though the composer himself was barely forty years old at the time of its composition, he seemed more than usually aware of the passing of time’s deleterious effects on both body and spirit, and the process of having to come to terms with such happenings – one might guess that he had “personalised” this movement like none of the others in the suite.

All of these profundities were beautifully and sensitively brought out by the performance, the music’s very opening seemingly “effortful” and almost haunted by spectral feelings of impending gloom, the orchestral detailings casting disturbing shadows over the winds’ opening, halting footsteps. As the piece continued, the forebodings grew from piteous strings and remorseless brasses, the advancing footsteps becoming leviathan-like and augmented by baleful shouts and spectral bells – until, at the tumult’s height the noises subsided, and from the despairing wastes kindled a softer note from the harps, which slowly spread through the orchestral forces, magically transforming the ambiences to the realms of comfort and resignation.

All through the work Holst had employed contrast as one of the hallmarks of the music’s journeyings – and nowhere was this more startlingly employed than with the beginning of “Uranus the Magician” which followed. The upper brass gave the opening four-note motif all they had, shattering the uneasy peace of the previous item’s epilogue, and stimulating a note-for-note response from the heavier brass and then the timpani. What followed had equal parts of humour and menace, the galumphing “Sorcerer’s Apprentice”-like rhythms both entertaining and mesmerising one’s sensibilities, the detailing from all sections of the orchestra breathtaking in both its unanimity and precision, the magician’s final dance and self-annihilating gestures featuring some of the evening’s most exciting playing, with the music’s sudden, shocking designation of the “void” leaving us in the audience both stunned and breathless.

From the silences came sounds as mere pinpricks of light, fixing themselves in the firmament, all the while gradually and dimly giving substance to a mysterious shape, the planet Neptune – at the time of Holst’s composing of this music the farthest, most remote of the planets from the Earth. Such unearthly sounds, gorgeously realised by the winds, at once realising the planet’s “mystic” quality and its mesmeric fascination, the celeste’s sound of a piece with the vertiginous oscillations of the other instruments, the strings instigating great rolling cascades of nothingness and pushing our sensibilities’ boundaries ever further with each measure……at which point the voices, barely audible, began, or, rather were simply “registered” – an eerie, timeless effect that I’d not ever heard so well achieved – the women of the Voices New Zealand Chamber Choir sounded like distant angels paying us no attention whatsoever, merely being “overheard” – extraordinary! The programme’s notewriter quoted the composer’s daughter Imogen Holst as describing how, as the work’s premiere, the voices grew “fainter and fainter until the imagination knew no difference between sound and silence”.

Cathedral organ in major series of important French works: Widor’s second organ symphony

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

The Widor Project at Saint Paul’s Cathedral  

Michael Stewart – organ

Charles-Marie Widor: Symphony No 2, Op 13 no 2

Wellington Cathedral of Saint Paul

Friday 29 March, 12:45 pm

I missed the first, on 1 March, of this year-long series of recitals by the two organists at the Cathedral of Saint Paul.  These ‘symphonies’ are not well known in New Zealand, and perhaps in most Anglophone countries, apart from the last movement, Toccata, of the fifth symphony. But according to the authoritative Wikipedia the organ symphonies are among his better known works.

They represent Widor’s early style.

Widor’s first four symphonies, all published under one opus number – 13, are regarded as suites rather than symphonies, the prescription for which remained fairly strictly defined in spite of Berlioz’s revolt in 1830 with the Symphonie fantastique. Widor himself called them ‘collections’.

The second organ symphony has six movements; they were not given dance names as were suites in the early 18th century. Nevertheless, the second symphony, with its prevailing rhapsodic feeling, hardly seems, at first hearing, to conform to the shape of a symphony, each movement of which usually has a very distinct character and always feels a part of a whole, rather than a stand-alone piece (clearly RNZ Concert sees it differently with their timid programming almost all day, of single movements, for fear of scaring philistine listeners).

The name Praeludium circulare, of the first movement, certainly confirmed the impression of a rhapsodic piece whose musical ideas kept returning, with changing keys, fluid and rather beautiful. The following movements generally refrained from imposing much vivid melody on the listener, and words like wispy, insubstantial, ethereal came to mind and certainly seemed to support the name Pastorale: moderato of the second movement. And its prevailing character was reflected in the use of flute and similar registrations, on the upper manuals (the new digital organ has four manuals).

The third movement, Andante, with more use of diapason stops, and more distinct rhythms, with hands moving constantly between manuals seemed more elaborately structured. But it still bore little relationship with a symphony in the German mould. The fourth movement, entitled Salve Regina: Allegro, used a hymn-like tune, perhaps the original Gregorian chant setting of Salve Regina, perhaps a later setting by Palestrina or Lassus –I don’t know. But as it advanced the music became more dense and emphatic, ending with a prolonged chord.

The fifth movement offer a test discriminating between Adagio and Andante; the shift was fairly subtle, though I imagine that familiarity makes the shift sound dramatic. In a blind-fold test, the Finale would not have been hard to identify, with rhythms that got refined and emboldened over the years to evolve into the Toccata of the fifth symphony: this Finale was busy and boisterous.

This recital was advertised as the first major recital series for the new ‘Viscount Regent Classic digital organ which, though sounding every inch a real pipe organ, thrilling to the unruly acoustic of the Cathedral, will not cause the church to question the need to spend money on repairing and restoring the fine old hybrid pipe organ that can sound just a bit more thrilling and authentic (though don’t make me take a blind-fold test).

However, this celebration of Widor is very much worth the journey: the kind of organ music that is more related to the French music of the period (1870s onward), than to the organ music (or any music) of other countries at the time.

The next recital will be Friday 5 April when Richard Apperley will play the third symphony. And see Middle C’s Coming Events for the remaining seven performances, ending in November.

Youthful and visionary Schubert from Helene Pohl and Jian Liu

Posted on by Peter Mechen

Te Kōkī New Zealand School of Music presents:

Helene Pohl (violin) and Jian Liu (piano)

SCHUBERT – Sonata for Violin and Piano in G Minor D.408
Fantasie in C Major for Violin and Piano D.934

Adam Concert Room,
Te Kōkī New Zealand School of Music
Victoria University of Wellington

Friday 29 March 2019

Within a fortnight of the NZ String Quartet’s inspirational presentation at the NZ School of Music’s Adam Concert Room of two major works from the string quartet repertoire, we were, at another lunchtime concert, able to enjoy for a second time, on this occasion, the artistry of one of the Quartet’s players – the group’s leader, Helene Pohl, performing in tandem with the much-acclaimed Jian Liu, who’s currently the Head of Piano Studies at the School. Of course, the NZSQ has been the quartet-in-residence at the School of Music in Wellington since 1991 – so we’ve lately been relishing the fruits of some of the performing talents among the School’s remarkable line-up of current tutors.

The programme chosen by this concert’s performers captured something I thought both rare and vital – consisting of two works for violin and piano by Franz Schubert (1797-1828), it managed to highlight aspects of the best of both the youthful and mature composer’s efforts, beginning with a Sonata in G Minor D.408, which, along with two other works, was written between March 1816 and August 1817. The three weren’t published until 1836, eight years after the composer’s death, and were styled as “Sonatinas”, despite Schubert’s autograph scores referring to them as “Sonatas”.

They’re works which have been largely regarded as “apprentice” efforts by posterity, as the diminutive “Sonatina” title implies, coming down to us with judgements such as “(they) breathe an intimate atmosphere, requiring no virtuoso bravura from their performers”, and “these are violin sonatas of the older, Mozartian type, with the violin playing a subordinate role to that of the pianoforte”. However, in Pohl’s and Liu’s hands, the G Minor work came across as rather more interesting than either of those descriptions might have suggested.

Nothing like an angular unison to grab the attention at the start! – the piano made something poetic from the utterance, the violin then continuing the line, the music’s mood almost naively changing to one of cheerful insouciance, Pohl’s violin somewhat garrulously “running” with the piano’s strolling gait before Liu deliciously “leaned” into a more march-like sequence, inspiring a wayfarer’s song-like response from the violin.

A minor-key lament by the violin began the central development, but the mood seemed delightfully ambivalent as major, then minor sequences unceremoniously pushed one another out of the way throughout, the invention here sharply-etched and tautly-woven by both players. What gave the discourse increased strength and gravitas was the decision by the musicians to play all the repeats, with the resulting amalgam of absorbing reinforcement and variation that such a course enables – even at this stage of proceedings I thought it considerably enhanced the work’s potential for depth of feeling and detailing, and especially when delivered with such committed focus as here.

A sweet, beguiling melody on the violin, gorgeous in effect, opened the slow movement, the piano answering with a chirpier phrase, which was then reinforced by deeper, viola-like tones from the stringed instrument, husky and characterful. I loved the touches of “misterioso” in the development, freely modulating, and here being “breathed” so enthrallingly by the duo. With the repeat came the recapitulation’s “second’ return, here brought sweetly to mind by the players like an old friend or fond memory.

Despite the players’ advocacy the Menuetto did seem “lighter” in content, though the lovely, flowing Trio subject made for a heart-warming contrast to the somewhat rumbustious opening – certainly the repeats helped give the music greater substance, however illusionary! The finale brought a touch of flowing minor-key melody before vigorously “majoring” – Pohl and Liu “went with” the music’s changeable character so sharply and directly, veering from the Schubertian to the Mozartean in a trice, and back again (Schubert’s homage to the “tried and true”, perhaps….)

The development was a brief call-to-arms, more for show than with any “action” in mind, and the recapitulation brought the silveriest of tones from Pohl’s violin – so enchanting! Again the repeats seemed to bolster the music’s confidence in itself, so that we were freshly amazed by Schubert’s invention rather than inclined to relegate the music to “also-ran” status. Helped by Pohl’s and Liu’s intensities the music on this occasion was made to punch well above its normal weight, for our excitement and satisfaction.

Having plunged with her pianist straight into the earlier work at the concert’s beginning, Pohl then “introduced” the second half’ for us. Fascinatingly, she talked about the Sonata we’d just heard in relation to the great Fantasie in C Major (about to be played), reflecting for us on the “change” in Schubert’s music over the duration between the two, and offering some thoughts on these differences.

I thought her mentioning, firstly, the influence of Beethoven’s music, and then the effects of Schubert’s worsening health at this time, made for telling ideas to ponder – I hadn’t considered as strongly her third “factor’ which she outlined just as convincingly – the rise in instrumental virtuosity at this time, led by the example of  violinist Nicolo Paganini, said to be in league with the forces of darkness(!).

Schubert wrote the Fantasie, his last work for violin and piano, in December 1827, for one Josef Slavik, whom the composer described at some stage as ‘a second Paganini” and accordingly produced a work bristling with virtuoso difficulties, as much, it ought to be said, for the pianist as for the violinist. After the work’s premiere, in Vienna in January 1828, a critic reported that the work did not widely please as was hoped: – “The Fantasie occupied rather too much of the time a Viennese is prepared to devote to the pleasures of the mind. The hall emptied gradually, and the writer confesses that he too is unable to say anything about the conclusion of this piece.”

Nowadays, the Fantasie is regarded as a masterwork, bold in its conception, brilliant in its execution and heartfelt in its emotional content. What obviously confused the Viennese was the work’s length and its out-of-the-ordinary structure – it’s basically a bringing-together of contrasted episodes around a Schubert song with a number of variations – the song is Schubert’s popular setting of Friedrich Rückert’s Sei mir gegrüsst! (‘I greet you!’). Violinist and pianist played a measure of the song for us, after which Pohl briefly outlined for us the structure of the complete work – and then we were off!

The piano began, with tremolandi that gurgled and bubbled as an oscillating sea of sensations, above which the solo violin soared sweetly and surely, the piano momentarily dancing before resuming its tremulous inclinations. A brief but intense violin cadenza-like flourish (not as clean as the player might have wished, on this occasion, but the poise never faltered), and Pohl and Liu began a delightfully-inflected Hungarian-like dance sequence in canonic form, the music varying its delivery after  several measures, becoming trenchant in places and releasing surges of exhilarating”heart-in-mouth” energy – the momentary strains placed on each player by what seemed like fiendishly insistent figurations merely added to the excitement and tension of the performance, the return of the dance bringing momentary relief before the music’s elemental surgings again took charge, great lurches of emphasis engendered by the writing and met with full-blooded involvement from both instruments. Gradually the piano led the way towards the music’s elevated central sequences, a brief and resonant pause leading to the opening strains of the song Sei mir gegrüsst! 

First piano and then violin gave their voices entirely to song, Liu investing his two augmented sections of the melody with tremendous, almost orchestral, weight and emphasis, contrasting with the violin’s sweetness when it returned each time. A first variation was polonaise-like in rhythm, engagingly chunky, and almost rough-hewn, rather than suave and well-tempered, while a second produced cascading piano notes and string pizzicati, both instruments varying their figurations with impromptu-like flourishes, the violin reverting to arco for each measure’s concluding phrase!

A third variation seemed even more hair-raising, the violinist rushing excitingly through her vertiginous fingerwork, and the pianist’s fingers maniacally dancing atop the instrument’s keys. Pohl and Liu seemed to play all the music’s repeats in this work as well, further intensifying and enriching the range and potential delights of the territories, and creating an ethos of magnificent, give-it-all-you’ve-got playing! Variation Four seemed then to turn the music on its heels and point it back towards the way it had begun, firstly the piano and then the violin arching the music gently but surely away from the song’s A-flat major and back towards the opening C Major.

This time the piano tremolandi colluded with the violin’s ever-intensifying, unwardly-pushing lines towards what I’ve always thought of as an orgasmic release-point, a massively-affirming dance of life, carrying the music’s continually-burgeoning energies towards a near nirvana of fulfilment with the ecstatic return of Sei mir gegrüsst! (again, exquisitely silvery violin tones joining in with the piano’s pearl-like purity). It could have been left there by the composer – but having “bought into” the realm of virtuoso excitement, the music, almost instinctively, seemed to unleash the “coiled spring” of pent-up virtuosity allied to musical brilliance, a concluding cataclysm of joyous-sounding energies completing the triumph! What a work and what a performance!

Poetry and music co-habit most successfully at St Andrew’s lunchtime concert

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

St Andrew’s lunchtime concerts
Ingrid Prosser and Colin Decio – a programme featuring piano and poetry
Debussy: La cathédrale engloutie (No 10 of Preludes, book 1)
Tennyson: Poem: The Lady of Shalott
Rachmaninov: Preludes, Op 23, Nos 4 & 5
Ingrid Prosser: Poem: Jehanne la Pucelle
Ravel: Miroirs, No 4 – Alborada del gracioso

St Andrews Church, 30 The Terrace

Wednesday 27 March, 12:15 pm

The world of music has almost totally overwhelmed the world of poetry. That’s not to say that there has ever been a large, ravenous audience for poetry, particularly over the past couple of centuries. There are probably few people today who have poetry anthologies and even volumes of poetry by the likes of Wordsworth, Keats, Tennyson, Kipling, on their shelves; fewer than those with a piano in the house. Most of the population under the age of about 60 have hardly been exposed in school to the huge treasury of poetry in English, let alone in other languages. The time when my own generation heard their teachers and even their parents quoting bits of poetry or reading poems to their pupils or their own children, seems like a completely foreign, vanished era.

The choice of poems and music here was not random. Debussy’s sunken cathedral was an inspired piece to set alongside one of Tennyson’s best-known poems.

La cathédrale engloutie is inspired by a Breton legend about an ancient city, Ys (also the subject of an opera by Lalo, Le roi d’Ys; inter alia, Roberto Alagna sings an aria from it on his CD ‘French arias’), built on reclaimed land surrounded by dykes; there is a gate in the dyke that can be opened at low tide and the king’s daughter steals the key and opens the gate, causing the city to be flooded: thus the cathedral is submerged. On clear mornings the cathedral can be seen, its carillon bells heard. Both the Ys legend and Tennyson’s elusive elaboration of an episode from the Arthurian legends can be seen as products of an overheated Romantic imagination, dealing with the perils of transgressing an unarticulated separation of the real world from that of the creative imagination.

Colin Decio’s playing sounded immediately authoritative with its heavy modal chords, though there was little mystery or other-worldliness. He captured the atmosphere of engulfing waters sensitively with evocative bass notes and a sense of ancient legend.

The Lady of Shallot
Ingrid Prosser picked up the mystical thread of water as an agent of the supernatural, with Tennyson’s Lady of Shallot. It’s a story with its slender origin in Arthurian legend, about Lancelot and the Lady of Shallot, who dies love-stricken, from a mysterious curse, the result of the conflict between the isolated artist and the physical world beyond the isolated island where she lives alone, weaving her magic web.  Hugely popular in its day, it inspired painters like Holman Hunt and Waterhouse whose reproductions are everywhere, including my childhood home, where poem and painting were closely connected.

So the poem had a curious impact for me, as I hadn’t heard it read aloud since my father’s bedside reading (typically of his generation, Tennyson had special meaning for him, and I have his well-thumbed volume, dating from his first year at university, with his initials gold-embossed on the front of the leather binding). There was a good deal more darkness and rhetorical character in his reading than with Prosser’s lighter tone that let the narrative speak clearly. Tennyson’s strict rhythmic and rhyming patterns (four rhymes in short successive lines) are singular and it was a delight to hear it and for light to shine through its strange, enigmatic story, symbolic, ahead of the symbolist movement proper later in the 19th century.

Rachmaninov and Ravel
Colin Decio returned to play two Rachmaninov preludes: the D major and the G minor, from Op 23; the first warm and lyrical that has something of a ‘ballade’ character about it, and the second in the very familiar marching style with its contrasted contemplative section. They were intelligently and musically played – not immaculately perhaps, but with affection and a keen ear to the sometimes unruly acoustic in the church. And his third offering was Ravel’s Alborada del gracioso, more often heard in its brilliant orchestral version: sudden dynamic shifts, even from one note to the next, again with a middle section that imposed a calm on the impulsive frenzy of the outer parts. Slightly marred by slips but a splendid performance nevertheless.

I tried to find narrative or emotional links between these piano pieces and the poem that lay between them, but nothing other than a common military quality in the G minor prelude and Joan of Arc’s story came to mind.

Prosser’s ‘Jehanne la pucelle’
Ingrid Prosser’s narrative poem was inspired by a journey in a part of France: the estuary of the Somme which has a connection with the march of Joan of Arc, ‘Jehanne la pucelle’, to her trial and execution by the English in Rouen. It had the character of a dramatic poem touching on many aspects of Anglo-French history and the ridiculous monarchical conflict, the Hundred Years War.

Just brief background: That war had its origin in the Norman invasion of England (William the Conqueror), which implied English rule over parts of France and tempted the English to extend their rule to the entire country. Joan of Arc entered the scene to revive French determination to rid the country of the English, whose ambitions to conquer more of France, had been re-inspired by Henry V’s victory at Agincourt, in 1415. After Henry V died in 1422, it looked as if the English could prevail, until the emergence of Joan which led to decisive French victory at the siege of Orléans in 1429. But in 1430 she was captured by the Burgundians, English allies, and handed to the English at Rouen which the English had held. There, in 1431, she was tried and burned at the stake. English strength in France then fell apart, and a more centralised France with a professional army soon became the most powerful force in Europe. For the English, defeat on the Continent led indirectly to the Wars of the Roses.

Poetry has changed since the late nineteenth century: regular rhythms and multiple rhymes are unimportant, which leaves poems dependent on the play of ideas and evocative imagery and symbols and suggestive references. Though the details of the story of Joan’s emergence, reviving French determination to regain control of their country, are only known sketchily to most, Ingrid Prosser’s weaving  the names of saints and places into a framework of words and imagery, and events, created a persuasive emotional and even pictorial story. And the spirited, histrionic manner of her delivery held the attention.

There are many styles of poetic recitation, and some with their roots in elocution lessons, imagined ‘English’ theatrical speech and private school education, are today intolerable. Prosser’s style was both poetic and narrative in a natural way and she held audience attention through her mixture of naturalness and conviction.

I hope that this successful recital will inspire further poetic undertakings of similar kinds.