A memorable concert from the Aroha Quartet: exciting Ligeti and a Beethoven masterpiece

Posted on by Steven Sedley

‘Metamorphoses’
Aroha Quartet (Haihong Liu and Konstanze Artmann – violins, Zhongxian Jin – viola, Robert Ibell – cello)

Mozart: String Quartet No. 17 in B flat K 548 ‘Hunt’
Ligeti: String Quartet No. 1 ‘Metamorphoses Nocturnes’
Beethoven: String Quartet No. 13 in B flat Op. 130

St Andrew’s on the Terrace

Tuesday 7 May 2019, 7:30 pm

With concerts by two string quartets, the New Zealand String Quartet and the Aroha Quartet within two days, the Brodsky quartet on the 20th and the Kiwa quartet on the 26th of May seems like a festival of string quartets. With so much music, it is the works that challenge that makes these concerts memorable.

The Aroha Quartet played Mozart and Beethoven, beautiful but familiar music, but it was György Ligeti’s First Quartet that stood out and made one think. The piece was written in 1953/54. Ligeti was 30 years old. He had survived the war in which he served in a Jewish labour service unit, while both his brother and father died in concentration camps. In the years after the war he studied with renowned teachers at the Budapest Music Academy, Kadosa, Veress, and in particular, Kodaly. He was making a name for himself as a composer of choral pieces and settings of folk songs. His early works were often an extension of the musical language of Bartók. But some of his pieces could not be played under the Communist regime of Hungary: too difficult, too cerebral. His First String Quartet was not performed until he fled Hungary in 1956 and settled in Vienna. He called the piece Metamorphoses; it is a transfiguration, the changes of a four note theme, G, A, G sharp, A sharp over a chromatic bass played by the cello into a series of variations like distinct segments. These segments include vigorous rhythmic sections, peasant dances with heavy stomping of boots, passages that recall Bartók’s night music, gentle, melodic, surreal There are huge dynamic contrasts, barbaric dance themes, humour, sarcasm, buzzing mosquito passages. At the end the piece returns to the four notes it started with. It is an exciting work and we should be grateful to the Aroha Quartet for introducing it to us.

Beethoven’s Quartet No. 13 in B flat is a colossal piece in six movements. It encompasses a whole world of emotions, from the noble opening Adagio followed by an energetic contrasting section, then to the simple children’s playground theme of the rollicking Presto in which voices taunt each other, there is humour, there is the courtly dance of the Andante, the jolly rhythm of the Alla danza tedesca, and ultimately the quartet culminates in the haunting Cavatina that brought tears to Beethoven’s and probably many listeners’ eyes, which is finally resolved in a light-hearted Finale. The great architecture of this work is assembled from simple, at times naïve parts. The Aroha Quartet played it with passion, with beautiful tone and meticulous clear phrasing.

The concert opened with Mozart’s ‘Hunt’ Quartet, one of the half dozen he dedicated to Haydn. Although it shares the key with the Beethoven work, it comes from a different world. Written in 1784, it reflects the last years of the ancien régime, a perceived stability in which all was orderly. It is a beautiful work and The Aroha Quartet captured its spirit.

This was a memorable concert and the Aroha Quartet are one of the great musical assets of our city.

 

 

Orchestra Wellington takes Vivaldi and Piazzolla to Upper Hutt with great success

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Classical Expressions, Upper Hutt
‘Eight Seasons’

A chamber orchestra drawn from Orchestra Wellington, conducted by concertmaster Amalia Hall

Vivaldi: Four Seasons
Piazzolla: The Four Seasons of Buenos Aires
(solo violin in both: Amalia Hall)

Expressions Arts and Entertainment Centre, Upper Hutt

Monday 6 May, 7:30 pm

This programme was presented in the Opera House, Wellington on Saturday 4 May. Even considering venues in the central city, there is probably no auditorium as well appointed as Expressions in Upper Hutt’s Arts and Entertainment Centre where I was very happy to catch them.

There were 22 musicians on the stage, perfectly accommodated both visually and acoustically.  In the place of the usual concertmaster, Amalia Hall, was Martin Riseley, associate professor and Head of Strings in Victoria University’s School of Music; Amalia conducted and took the part of solo violin. Those two, along with other section leaders, comprised the ‘Concertino’ players in the Vivaldi pieces.

Yet it was still something of a surprise to hear, right from the opening bars of the first Allegro, playing of such polish, with varied colour and expression, sounding like any of the notable baroque-style chamber orchestras that one hears on the best commercial recordings: crisp and elegant. Though one hears them often on RNZ Concert, and as ‘elevator’ music in all kinds of public places, the experience of a live performance awakened one, with surprise, to the wonderful variety between each movement: so the following Largo had a surprising chill about it, drawing attention, as well as to the soloists, the simple pairs of quavers from the ‘Ripieno’ (the rest of the orchestra) players. And there was still something cool and gently discreet about the third movement, Allegro, as if winter has hardly disappeared.

After each of the Vivaldi pieces, the orchestra played the equivalent Piazzolla concerto (don’t think he called them concerti). All their very different characteristics were fully to be expected. Nevertheless, I can imagine some might have felt they broke up the integrity of Vivaldi’s pieces; though I did not: we are so used to hearing snatches of them in all sorts of situations.

Piazzolla’s Spring conveyed an attractive feeling of lingering cold and increasing stretches of warm weather. Both Vivaldi and Piazzolla employed the solo violin in flamboyant passages which Amalia Hall delivered spectacularly. In Autumn, Brenton Veitch’s cello also enjoyed an extended and meditative episode, later mirrored in another similar solo by Amalia. The colour was generally darker in Winter, and again there was another soulful solo from Amalia, this time with all the cellos. The harpsichord also had attractive passages in this season and double basses were prominent in some of the Piazzollo pieces.

In some ways Piazzolla created a richer more complex picture than Vivaldi, having the freedom to use musical styles of 350 years more complexity (they were written in the 1960s). Even though one could argue that both composers shared a common Latinesque origin, the Argentinian, tango influence removed Piazzolla’s entirely from any useful comparison. One of the oddities was the occasional reference to tunes from Vivaldi: the work of an arrangement commissioned by Gidon Kremer from Leonid Desyatnikov. The insertions were brief, quite cleverly blended, and momentarily drew a smile; nor did they spoil the nature of Piazzolla’s very different composition; Piazzolla seems to be a composer who musicians commonly make free with, arranged for almost any instrumental combinations.

One is never quite sure about the appropriate response to some of Piazzolla’s gestures: the frequent glissandi (perhaps whip-lashes, is a better description), scratchings below the bridge.

Though in the past I have not warmed particularly to Piazzolla, this live performance from an excellent, thoroughly rehearsed ensemble, was both interesting and enjoyable and significantly altered my feelings about the composer. And the linking of the two composers’ descriptions of the seasons was an interesting approach.

This enterprising concert was a complete vindication of the collaboration between Orchestra Wellington, and the Upper Hutt Music Society and the Entertainment Centre.

A large and enthusiastic audience filled the auditorium.

New Zealand String Quartet produce joyousness and profundity for Wellington Chamber Music

Posted on by Steven Sedley

Wellington Chamber Music
New Zealand String Quartet

Beethoven: String Quartet in A Op. 18 No 5
Jack Body: Bai sanxian (2009)
Shostakovich: String Quartet No. 10 in A flat  
Brahms: String Quartet in A minor Op. 51

St. Andrews on The Terrace

Sunday 5 May, 3 pm

A concert by the NZ String Quartet is always an event to look forward to. This is the quartet’s 32nd season, and over the years they have gained an international reputation. In this concert they covered a broad period of the musical development of the string quartet.

In 1798 Beethoven was a budding piano virtuoso, who had moved to Vienna and was gradually making a name for himself as a composer. He lived in the shadow Haydn. Like Haydn, he published his first set of quartets, Op. 18, as a set of a half dozen. No. 5, in A major, is playful, with a touch of humour and Haydn-like surprises, a graceful dance movement and an extended set of variations that explore the potential of a simple theme. This piece received an energetic sparkling reading, but for this listener at least, some of the charm, the light touch was missing.

Jack Body’s Bai sanxian was something entirely different. The music of Asian cultures is a recurring theme of Jack Body’s work. He deliberately and provocatively stepped outside the main stream of Western music. This short piece comes from a collection of transcriptions and arrangements of music from some of the Chinese minority nationalities of Yunnan province in South-West China. The string quartet imitates the Chinese traditional instruments, the first violin and cello plucking their instruments while the second violin and the viola carry the melodic line. The music challenges the listener to explore unfamiliar musical traditions, to listen carefully and perhaps ask questions about the universal nature of music.

Shostakovich is a controversial composer. William Walton described him as the ‘greatest composer of the 20th century’, while Pierre Boulez dismissed him as ‘the second or even third pressing of Mahler’. There is certainly a special Shostakovich sound and a Shostakovich perception of what music is about. He is the Holy Fool, who witnesses all the terrible as well as all the joyous things around him. The overall character of the 10th String Quartet is dark, in some places sinister and fearful. It opens with a four note motive played by the solo violin, then the other instruments join in one at a time. An unanswered question hangs over the movement. This is followed by a furious second movement played fortissimo. At one moment the viola and plays on the bridge of her instrument to create the effect of a sinister Mephistophelean laughter. The Adagio is a mournful passacaglia that gradually turns darker. The final movement breaks away from the mournful character of the earlier movements and is jaunty and carefree at the beginning, but then returns to the melancholic air of the whole piece. Life was tough in Shostakovich’s Russia, but he implies that there is light amidst the gloom, life must carry on.

The final work in the programme was Brahms’s Second String Quartet, Op. 51, No. 2. Beethoven’s colossal final quartets weighed heavily on Brahms. How could one write a string quartet that could follow up these works. He had a number of attempts at writing a string quartet and destroyed all of these, until at the age of 40 he published, after numerous revisions, two works with which he was satisfied. Brahms worked in the idiom he inherited and used the language of German folk music, but he deconstructed these haunting themes, broke them up, turned them into deep, meaningful conversations between the four instruments. There is light and joyousness in the second movement and grace in the third, Minuetto, but Brahms never abandons himself to a rollicking good time. In the last movement he revisits the Hungarian czardas that provided many happy themes for his music, but notwithstanding all the jollity, the music is subdued. This was a profound performance.

It was a very satisfying afternoon of music, enjoyed by a large and knowledgeable audience. The quartet’s many years of playing together was reflected in their seamless, smooth playing. May they keep this up for many more years and enrich Wellington’s musical life.

 

Still “waiting”, with time ticking away for humanity – “Waiting for Godot” at Circa Theatre, Wellington

Posted on by Peter Mechen

WAITING FOR OURSELVES?
Circa Theatre presents: “Waiting for Godot” by Samuel Beckett

CAST:  Estragon  –  Jeff Kingsford-Brown
Vladimir  – Andrew Foster
Pozzo  –  Peter Hambleton
Lucky  –  Jack Buchanan
Boy  –  Alex Buyck

Director  –  Ross Jolly
Set Designer –  Andrew Foster
Lighting Designer  –  Marcus McShane
Costume Designer   –  Sheila Horton

Circa Theatre,
I Taranaki St, Wellington

Saturday, 4th May 2019

(until 1st June 2019)

It’s interesting that my first, completely “out of the blue” experience of “Waiting for Godot” was provided some time during the mid-1960s, by a group of actors who called themselves “The Southern Comedy Players”, a foursome if I remember, who frequently toured the country’s secondary schools, and fortunately for me, had our school in Palmerston North “on their list”. The group performed excerpts from various plays, presenting a wide range, including classics (Goldsmith – “She Stoops to Conquer”), New Zealand works (Mason – “The Pohutukawa Tree”), and twentieth-century works (Beckett – “Waiting for Godot”).

I saw this group perform in their “school visits” context at least twice, and perhaps even three times over those years – but the trio of presentations mentioned above are the ones that have stuck in my memory. The name of the troupe “The Southern Comedy Players”, and the droll, whimsical humour of what I remember of the “Waiting for Godot” excerpt on that occasion indelibly etched in my brain the idea that Samuel Beckett’s play was indeed a kind of bizarre, bare-bones comedy. I would imagine that the performance on that occasion would have shared many of the qualities I enjoyed in Circa Theatre’s new production, most strikingly of all, a laconic, home-grown, “she’ll be right” way with the engaging characterisations of the two major protagonists, Estragon and Vladimir.

In fact my initial reaction here to the personas and interactions of each of these characters was a kind of “Hang on a minute, mate/One of Us” familiarity, as if both Vladimir and Estragon had wandered out of the pages of the Sam Cash novels by Barry Crump, the “everyman” characters fitted out both visually and vocally with a rugged, old-fashioned Kiwi context, however skin-deep. I somehow “knew” them of old, and reflected as the play’s essential inactions mirrored, refracted and regurgitated throughout how those archetypal Kiwi blokes had, in Beckett’s hands, become emasculated by the enactment of what seemed like a never-ending ritual of “waiting for Godot”.

Whomever Godot is or was, we in the audience never found out – the “waiting” consisted instead of a variety of discussions, mostly between Estragon and Vladimir, interrupted by encounters in each of the two Acts with a man and his servant, and also with a boy, the latter telling them on each of his appearances that Godot could not come “today” but would come “tomorrow” instead. We were left at the very end with the omnipresence of the play’s “theme” of essential inaction brought about by the “waiting”, when both men agreed to leave – but neither moved!

So, like figures performing a slow dance, the two characters pirouetted painstakingly through the play’s two Acts, one for each day, displaying with both word and action what seemed like endless preoccupation with minutae, every so often punctuating their exchanges with resonances that promised much but led to little (Vladimir’s Biblical reference to the two thieves crucified with Christ, for instance, or the inconsistencies between the four Gospel accounts regarding the thieves’ presence). Uncertainties abounded – the place, the time, the objects, the circumstances – everything mentioned was unconfirmed, made more nebulous than it was before being mentioned – For example, what day was it? Saturday? – Or Sunday? Or Monday? Or Friday!? Was the tree where they were to meet Godot really a tree? Or a bush? – perhaps a shrub? Were they here yesterday? What did they do, yesterday? Did they recognise the place? Did it make any difference?

These two “chapters” of dysfunctional connectivity between co-dependent characters were similarly interrupted by two ”arrivals”, firstly by a kind of master-servant pair roped together, respectively Pozzo and Lucky; and then by a boy bring the news of Godot’s “postponement” of the promised rendezvous with Estragon and Vladimir. Of the master-servant combination, Pozzo’s portly, well-heeled figure presented a stark contrast with that of Lucky, who, though dressed more as a carnival-performer-cum punk-rocker complete with bleached-blonde hair, appeared to be his slave. Pozzo’s cruel and disdainful treatment of Lucky, tethered at the end of a rope, made for directly uncomfortable watching, as did Lucky’s almost shell-shocked obedience of Pozzo’s every curtly-delivered command. The former’s sickening obsequiousness was allayed for a few spectacularly-delivered moments of maniacal speech and dance, outpourings of controlled energy which justly earned the actor a round of impulsive applause from an agog audience!

The reappearance of these two in the Second Act reversed their situations, with Pozzo having gone blind and Lucky guiding him while taking refuge in dumbness, Pozzo’s previous overbearing manner now replaced with humility and some insight (in the play as a whole there are a handful of parallels of this kind –  the vagabonds’ reflections on “nothing to be done”, Estragon’s thoughts of madness, and Pozzo’s blindness – with Shakespeare’s King Lear). In stark contrast to all of this  was the fresh-faced, straightforwardly-spoken boy messenger from the enigmatic Godot, a ray of equable sunshine on each of his appearances, when compared to the idiosyncratic tramps, Estregon and Vladimir, and the almost hallucinatory pairing of Pozzo and Lucky. How Beckett was able to imbue his work with so distinct an “everyman” quality via characters of such idiosyncrasy and grotesquerie is one of the miracles wrought by both a playwright’s skills and the theatre’s transforming power of suspended (and, here, metaphoric) belief.

All of this was realised for us with a directness of presentation in its sight, sound and general physicality which brooked no interference with whatever messages we in the audience chose to receive. Designer Andrew Foster put us in the action’s space, with everything clearly and mercilessly-focused – not especially rugged, but satisfyingly bleak, and in what seemed like the middle of nowhere, a tree and a block of concrete-like material forward of a suggested pathway running along the upstage. In tandem with Marcus McShane’s unambiguous, implacably advancing “day’s journey into night” lighting, the scenario unerringly conveyed a feeling of the characters’ utter helplessness against and subjection to endless cycles of time, the action of each act framed beautifully by sombre string-quartet-like music and an ambiguously striking half-sentinel, half-spectre presence of a moon.

I’ve already commented on Estragon’s and Vladimir’s engagingly familiar kind of “down-under vagabond” garb, Sheila Horton’s costumes for the pair for me hitting the spot, with Vladimir, as befitted his more philosophical and pro-active speech, somewhat more organised appearance-wise than his more bedraggled companion. Pozzo and Lucky couldn’t have been more of a contrast, the former most nattily attired, formality enlivened with colourfully psychedelic shoes, and the latter part-punk, part-gothic in his garb and coiffure – each, nevertheless, lost in their respectively-stated worlds of self-expression, and even in their visual assurance as helpless as were the two vagabonds in their “live-and-sleep-rough” garb. A hat-play sequence between the characters allowed Beckett scope for certain vaudeville goings-on, as well as symbolising certain aspects of each individual’s identity (in the first productions everybody wore bowler hats – a standard vaudeville prop, incidentally, though nowadays, as here, directors tend to opt for discernably different headgear). Lucky’s hat was important to him for thinking, Pozzo’s for social status, and Vladimir’s as a source of knowledge – only Estragon seemed “liberated” from whatever talismanic potential possessed by his headgear, putting his trust instead in his boots.

Unfortunately I never saw director Ross Jolly’s previous (and legendary) production of “Godot” in Wellington twenty years before. Without directly knowing what his earlier approach was, I’m wondering whether he’d decided to more consistently “lighten” the interactions, ambience and textures of the whole this time round – for the simple reason that I was expecting something more deeply disturbing, more extreme at each of the spectrum’s ends, the humour more manic, the desperation blacker and more cutting. It would be in line with a “distillation of response” over that time involving a more insoucient touch, a freer use of humour – though all of this is pure conjecture on my part. However it all was, nothing here was superfluous or wasted or lacking in motivation or conviction in the results achieved by his direction and the audience’s outward responses to them.

In fact his actors seemed here to relish the freedoms of light and space and warmth at the work’s beginning, with both Jeff Kingsford-Brown as Estragon and Andrew Foster as Vladimir readily filling the opening spaces with their respective preoccupations, Kingsford-Brown at intervals  beautifully conveying almost child-like sequencings of curiosity, puzzlement, irritation, delight and impishness, however quickly each impulse returned him to his default-setting of anxiety and “wanting to be off”. His introductory struggles with the removal of his shoes had a Blake-like “world in a grain of sand” preoccupation which put him akin to an animal struggling to survive in, let alone make sense of a world of nightly beatings and daily vigils of hopelessness.

More of a thinker and a free-wheeling philosopher, Andrew Foster’s Vladimir readily and more pro-actively fleshed out his curiosities and irritations with an engaging charm and bright-eyed quickness of manner, though as the play unfolded we realised that his somewhat more energised and quixotic impulses and responses to things were actually more style than substance. More superficially rational and empathetic than Estragon, he repeatedly reminded his companion, even amid their most trenchant tribulations of whom they were supposed to be waiting for.

Peter Hambleton’s well-dressed, arrogant, self-regarding Pozzo ably pushed all of our buttons in the expected manner upon his arrival with the rope-bound Lucky, whom he treated as his slave with the utmost contempt and degradation, while addressing Estragon and Vladimir with hardly less disdain, the episode presumably a kind of “comfort stop” for Pozzo on his journey to wherever. As Lucky, Jack Buchanan’s physical control of his back-breaking position of utter servitude was no less remarkable than his sudden outburst of both manic dancing and clearly-enunciated nonsensical diatribe whose completion compelled his audience to spontaneous clapping – that it was more entertaining circus-act than piteous lunatic raving was due as much to Beckett’s alienatory settings as to the production’s more absurd than tragic leaning.

When Pozzo and Lucky returned in the Second Act, their roles were somewhat reversed, Lucky leading his now-blind master back across the vistas, the cortege collapsing in a heap midway to the piteous cries of the once-dominant and overbearing Pozzo, Estragon taking his opportunity amid the melee to kick Lucky in revenge for his first-Act injury. The play ended as the first half ended, with the boy arriving carrying the message that Godot will not come today but tomorrow for sure, and Vladimir and Estragon agreeing that they will go, but instead stay.

By the play’s end the hopelessness of the situation of Estragon and Vladimir was complete – amid the chaos they remained trapped, steadfast to the idea that their only choice was to wait for “Godot”. In this way, the production consistently expressed the dictum (not Beckett’s) “a tragedy to the heart and a comedy to the intellect”, and in the best existential tradition, left the question of “the best course” unanswered. A question for humanity at large, perhaps, waiting for us to “wake up to ourselves?”.

The essence of Don Pasquale splendidly delivered by Wanderlust Opera at St Andrew’s lunchtime concert

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

St Andrew’s lunchtime concerts

Wanderlust Opera
Donizetti: Don Pasquale – selections, in English

Director and narrator: Jacqueline Coats
Piano: Mark Dorrell
Stuart Coats (Don Pasquale), Barbara Paterson (Ernesto), Georgia Jamieson Emms (Norina)

St Andrew’s on The Terrace

Wednesday 1 May, 12:15 pm

For several years Wanderlust Opera has been on the road doing what our professional opera company should be doing (did do for a couple of years in the 2000s): taking cut-down versions of opera to the provincial cities and towns. They’ve performed a variety of shows: Sondheim, a pot-pourri of songs from musicals, Cosi fan tutte and The Marriage of Figaro.

Pasquale toured eight centres in January and February this year and in August will continue with Tauranga and Hamilton. Unfortunately, Middle C missed the Wellington performance in February. We’re not sure whether there might be another performance in Wellington. This was a very reduced one, in English: just three singers, with the major role of Doctor Malatesta unsung because of Craig Beardsworth’s unavailability.

But the three singers here created a splendid opera-buffa style show, all three delighting in the farcical opportunities that Donizetti and his librettists knew how to exploit. (incidentally, the opera was based on an earlier opera by Stefano Pavesi, Ser Marcantonio in 1810, which was drawn from a Ben Jonson play of 1609, The Silent Woman. Strauss’s late opera Die schweigsame Frau, libretto Stefan Zweig, was also based on the same play).

We skipped the opening scene where Dr Malatesta describes a young lady who will make Pasquale a wonderful wife while Pasquale tells Malatesta of his plan to kick his nephew out of the house for refusing the offer of a wife who will presumably benefit, not the nephew so much as Pasquale himself.  We had Stuart Coats energetically overacting his reaction to the prospect of marriage, the Italian ‘Un foco insolito’, a brilliant waltz-style aria that set the scene irresistibly. Malatesta was present in the form of a small plaster bust.

Ernesto, the nephew, a tenor role, was sung by soprano, perhaps a strange substitution but it was explained that ‘We wanted to use a tenor but none of them could yo-yo as well as Barbara Paterson”. The substitute trouser role quickly became just so right! The confrontation, demands rapid shift from Ernesto laughing at Pasquale’s marriage plan to dismay when he refuses Pasquale’s offer of a bride.

It is Malatesta who is the manipulator, and narrator/director Jacqueline Coats created his presence with lively narrative and gestures; it is Malatesta’s sister, Norina, with whom Ernesto is in love, reciprocally, and whom he seems to be offering Pasquale as wife. She falls in with Malatesta’s plan to thwart Pasquale by producing Norina, momentarily as the shy, obedient, convent-educated ‘Sofronia’, acquiescing obediently to marriage. But then, after the marriage, she turns into Georgia Jamieson Emms, the real Norina, a fearless virago: refusing to obey, ordering clothes, coaches and horses, more servants, announcing she’s going alone to the theatre. Jamieson Emms revealed many of her histrionic talents as she confronted Pasquale and took command of everything with bold yet interesting voice and flamboyant behaviour.

Even though much of the music is left out, there is no lack of brilliant and engaging arias and duets in those bits of the opera that were presented. Donizetti’s brilliant orchestra that supports and comments on the action with wit and sensitivity is compressed into Mark Dorrell’s piano rendition which very often reinforces the emotion, such as when Pasquale realises that he’s been made a fool of and a subdued piano accompanies his pathetic defeat.

In the third act, ‘Sofronia’ drops a note that reveals to Pasquale, who picks it up, that she will meet her lover in the garden that night, and Pasquale decides on divorce. That is easily accomplished since the marriage was a sham. In a full staging the business in the garden can seem a bit protracted; but here we heard nothing that wasn’t a highlight, and those who didn’t know its twists and turns and the many equally brilliant or delightful numbers that were missing, would have been fully convinced by this three-quarter-hour’s worth of admirably sung, accompanied and ‘staged’ Donizetti.

 

Brass septet produces haunting and enjoyable chamber music at the MFC

Posted on by Steven Sedley

Septura Brass Septet: An American in Paris
(Chamber Music New Zealand)

Ravel: Ma mére l’Oye (Mother Goose)
Debussy: Preludes
Gershwin: Three Piano Preludes; Songbook; An American in Paris

Michael Fowler Centre

Tuesday 30 April, 7:30 pm, 2019

Three trumpets, three trombones, one a bass trombone, and a tuba is not the usual combination for a chamber music concert, but seven principal brass players of London Symphony orchestras got together to demonstrate that brass is capable of producing chamber music. Horns, such an integral part of the brass section of an orchestra, were missing. They might have added a mellower sound to the ensemble, but obviously this was not what these players had in mind. Simon Cox and Matthew Knight, the two artistic directors of the group arranged the music for them. Their guiding principle was that the music should sound as if it was originally written for brass.

The audience was challenged to leave their preconceived ideas of what the music should sound like at the door and listen with fresh ears. The pieces in this programme are well known and familiar, but played by a brass ensemble they all sounded new.

Ravel and Gershwin knew each other and held each other in high esteem; they were both influenced by Debussy. It was this relationship that was the theme that held these works together.

The Mother Goose Suite, arranged from the piano duet rather than the orchestral version sounded colourful. It had a depth that cannot be attained on the piano. The special effects were enhanced by the innovate use of mutes. The beautiful rich sound of the brass was specially effective in the chorale sounding last movement, The Fairy Garden.

The Debussy Preludes for solo piano are lovely miniatures and played by the brass they attained a different, richer sound. The rich brass chords, the underlying bass of the trombones and tuba underscored the well-known melody of the Girl with the flaxen hair played on the trumpet. The trombones produced the humorous sound effects appropriate for the Minstrels. The Sunken Cathedral had beautiful bell like sounds produced with layer upon layer of brass sound. This was a different Debussy.

The second half of the programme was devoted to the music of Gershwin, arrangement of the Three Piano Preludes, short little pieces from the Songbook and the major work, An  American in Paris. Gershwin created a colourful world of his own which encapsulated the jazz age, the frivolity of the 1920s, and these pieces sounded particularly appropriate for a brass ensemble. It was an era after the First World War in which people believed that life was short, people had to make the most of it, live it up, seek happiness in gaiety, but underlying it all there was a touch of melancholy. This was captured by the joyful yet sensitive performance.

Britain has a great tradition of brass music, but this concert was a world away from the usual sound of brass bands. This group had a flexibility that tested the limits of the players’ ability and together they produced a sonority seldom heard. They shed new light on familiar music; one came away from the concert with the haunting sound of beautiful brass playing. It was a concert with a difference, but very enjoyable.

 

Darth Vader, Storm Troopers, The Millenium Falcon… and the NZSO. Sounds unlikely? Don’t judge it until you’ve heard it.

Posted on by admin

STAR WARS: THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK IN CONCERT

Film with live Orchestra

Music by John Williams
Presented by the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra
NZSO Associate Conductor Hamish McKeich

TSB Bank Arena, Wellington Waterfront

6:30pm  Sunday 28th April 2019

Important note from reviewers Lindis Taylor and Peter Mechen:

 Star Wars isn’t the usual cup of tea for Middle C – or its visionary but old-fashioned reviewers.

So, from Middle C’s Intergalactic critical arm, Cosmic Comparisons, we sent two of our young people along to tell us what they thought.

 Jeremy Mechen and Julia Wells report in! – (materialise….reconstitute…..welcome!)

 

What is The Empire Strikes Back?

The Empire Strikes Back is the second film in the original Star Wars trilogy. It continues the story of the conflict between the evil Galactic Empire and the Rebel Alliance/the good guys. Fun fact: it is the second highest grossing sequel of all time. The score was composed and conducted by John Williams and was played on the film soundtrack by the London Symphony Orchestra.

The NZSO playing Star Wars? How does that work?

The screening/concert was held in the TSB Bank arena on the Wellington waterfront. There was a large screen at the front with a projection of the film, then underneath was a stage with the orchestra. As the film played on the screen above, the orchestra played the score. There were recordings used for the voices (plus subtitles on-screen) and also for more unusual sound-effects, such as blasters and lightsabres.

What did you like?

Julia Wells: Firstly, I loved the enthusiasm and energy of the audience. The TSB arena is a huge venue, but the place was crowded – there was barely an empty seat to be seen. The audience was mainly young/middle aged and absolutely thrilled to be there. We saw lots of big grins, Star Wars T-shirts and even a glow-in-the-dark lightsabre. Someone whooped the first time Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher) appeared on screen.

The orchestra was fantastic – it was magical when the title caption started scrolling and they began to play the iconic Star Wars theme. The highlight for me was the imperial theme music (the musical riff for the bad guys), which recurs throughout the film. It had a drama and richness that you just don’t get with a cinema screening.

In general my favourite bits were the climatic moments, particularly the fights scenes (for example, the Alliance fighter pilots’ defence against the Imperial Walkers). However, the softer and sweeter bits of the score were also lovely – the scene when Luke Skywalker starts to explore the planet of Dagobarth stood out for me.

Jeremy Mechen: The takeaway for me was the enormous potential that these type of performances have. When I heard about the orchestra’s plans to play the score of Star Wars live I knew it would be a popular event. Star Wars’ position in the cultural zeitgeist spans generations, and so walking into the packed arena of diehard fans didn’t surprise me. What did, was how inarguably well the organisers and the musicians pulled it off. As the iconic yellow on black text scrolled across the screen the music burst into life to a cheering crowd. The movie had begun.

Merely five minutes had passed and I was enthralled. The camera panned over the otherworldly vistas as the music rose to a crescendo, and for a couple of minutes the subpar quality of the screen didn’t matter – I was completely transported to another world.  It also didn’t hurt that the environment shots are a part of the film that has aged much more gracefully than certain other aspects, like the visual effects.

Overall the experience was undoubtedly greater than the sum of its parts. The NZSO did an amazing job in demonstrating the unparalleled strength of a live orchestra. What might have otherwise been background music was transformed into a gripping soundscape that rose and fell throughout the movie, and iconic moments like the imperial march were brought to life in a way I’d never heard before. I have no doubt John Williams would have been more than happy with the performance.

What didn’t work so well for you?

JM: This is not exactly a negative, but I think at some points it almost became too cohesive an experience. The orchestra did such an impeccable job of synchronizing with the action; and Star Wars is such an engaging film, that I occasionally had to remind myself that I was hearing the soundtrack live, and not just listening to a very impressive recording.

JW: This is not a comment on the NZSO’s playing, but some parts of the film have not aged well. It was first released in 1980s, and post #MeToo, some of Han Solo’s interactions (read: harassment) of Leia now appear more creepy than charming. It’s certainly a product of its time. However, there’s still a lot to love in the film – it’s a classic for a reason.

Would you go again?

JW: Yes, definitely. I think this is an awesome thing for the NZSO – not to try to attract a wider audience to their classical concerts (I don’t think it will), but because on its own terms it’s a great performance. I hope in the future they will consider trying out other film/TV scores. Game of Thrones, anyone? I’d be there.

JM: Without a doubt. The worlds of movies and video games have so much to offer in terms of beautiful orchestral scores, it’s a shame they’re often overlooked compared to more traditional offerings. It’s not about subtracting from the culture of classical music that already exists, it’s about exploring the huge amount of genuine talent that exists in the world today.

 

 

 

The third in the ten-part series of Widor’s organ symphonies from Stewart and Apperley at St Paul’s Cathedral

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

The Widor Project
Organ Symphony No 3, Op 13, No 3

Richard Apperley at the digital organ

Wellington Cathedral of Saint Paul

Friday 26 April, 12:45 pm

This performance, by Richard Apperley, of Widor’s third organ symphony confirmed me as an organ devotee, a condition facilitated by my being free from the (usually ill-founded) reservations that many classical music lovers cherish concerning French music.

This was one of Widor’s first four ‘symphonies’, Op 13, published in 1872, shortly after his appointment to the prestigious position of organist at the church of Saint-Sulpice in the 6th arrondissement (Paris, Left Bank). It is the second largest church in Paris, after Notre Dame, and the organ is the largest of the many built by Aristide Cavaillé-Coll through the mid 19th century, in churches all over France and elsewhere. The one in Saint-Sulpice is his master-piece. (The biggest organ in France is in Saint-Eustache and is not by Cavaillé-Coll).

After hearing the second organ symphony a month ago, I felt as if I was meeting an old friend with this one. The complex of rich sounds that Widor prescribes from the organ’s huge range was wonderfully captured by Apperley on the digital organ which the Cathedral has bought awaiting the restoration of the earthquake-damaged pipe organ. As with the previous performance from Michael Stewart, the placing of the console at floor level in front of the choir allowed us to admire the spectacle of the organist at close quarters: the ranging of hands across all four manuals and the feet dancing on the pedals. It’s an experience that in some ways beats a pianist’s virtuosic activities at the single keyboard.

It struck me that the constantly changing registrations at all five keyboards, prescribed in detail in Widor’s score, was a good deal more varied than in most organ performances. Though one doesn’t usually get such a close-up view of the performer’s activities.

Cavaillé-Colle plus Widor produces the organ symphony
The reason that Widor described the work as a symphony is the revelatory experience of the remarkable range of sounds that Cavaillé-Colle’s versatile and spectacular instruments had made available: a lot more symphonic than was possible on earlier organs. Though it’s pointed out that the early symphonies don’t conform to the normal specifications of a symphony (but Berlioz had broken that tradition forty years before), since then it has been the length, complexity, intellectual quality and aesthetic sophistication of later 19th century works that tended to distinguish the orchestral symphony from, say, a suite. Likewise, for an organ symphony.

I had no difficulty in hearing the first movement, Prélude, as introducing a work of symphonic scale, with its chromatic and harmonic qualities, its symphonically evolving thematic material and the thrilling range of near-orchestral sounds. The Minuette, second movement, had a charming pastoral spirit, easily associated with the ‘minuet’ of the classical symphony, with a contrasting middle section that becomes airy and insubstantial, with its modified rhythms though still in triple time. The Marcia, third movement, is the most striking, with a great deal delivered on the powerful ‘Great’ manual, switching suddenly to quieter, more muffled stops on the Solo (or was the top manual the ‘Swell’?). It was interesting to be able to see these transitions, not merely to guess which manual the player was using. The Marcia climaxed in a real militaristic, victorious fff (really? two years after French defeat in the Franco-Prussian war?).

The slow movement was the fourth, Adagio; played with a variety of subtle stops, creating a beautiful rhapsodic quality. I couldn’t help feeling that it was the sort of movement that RNZ Concert, with its obsession with playing isolated movements ripped from the body in which they had been conceived, could make use of. It might even be justified if it were to introduce people to a neglected corner of classical music.

And the last movement, though not labelled ‘Toccata’, has recognisable characteristics of the 5th symphony; marked Allegro molto. Thematically more varied than the famous one, and almost as arresting, it was also a spectacle for the ‘happy few’ in the audience. Apperley’s hands raced vertically as well as horizontally across the four manuals and the 60 odd keys on each, plus agile feet on pedals. But I was left with far more than the excitement of a half hour of organ virtuosity; I’m looking forward to booking part of Friday lunchtimes to hear all the rest, and even exploring the possibility of finding recordings to buy. Joseph Nolan is the one, by the look of it.

Widor’s innovation has had a significant impact on organ music. Wikipedia lists 29 composers who have written organ symphonies, only one of whom predates Widor by a couple of years.

So this is probably an organ exploration with a certain claim to international significance. The musical gifts and the interpretive insights of the two organists involved certainly justify such a claim.

Tudor Consort revives ancient Tenebrae rituals marking the stories of Holy Week

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Tudor Consort directed by Michael Stewart

Tenebrae – music for Holy Week
Plainchant, and polyphony by Victoria, Edmund Rubbra, James MacMillan and Gesualdo

Wellington Cathedral of St Paul

Friday 19 April, 7:30 pm

The number of people familiar with the word Tenebrae is probably getting fewer by the year as religious belief declines and the deep-rooted traditions, including the use of Latin, are ‘modernised’. It’s not just a Roman Catholic Easter observance but it is also in the Anglican, Methodist, Lutheran, Western Orthodox and other churches. And since the Roman church ditched the use of Latin in normal services, the spirit of the past is offered in concert settings where the rituals are chanted and sung in Latin.

Tenebrae is a special office particular to Holy Week which used to be observed on the three days preceding Easter Sunday: that is, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Holy Saturday. It has now been reduced to just once or twice, and has generally retreated from performance in the small hours of the morning.

The introduction in the programme book explained that there are two parts of the office of Tenebrae: Matins and Lauds. There are three Matins on each of the three days and each consists of three ‘Nocturns’ which begin with an ‘Antiphon’ followed by Psalms, both in plainchant. The following Responsory settings are in polyphony, drawn from words respectively, in the Book of Lamentations, Saint Augustine’s commentaries and the third from the New Testament Epistles.

They are followed by settings of texts that had come traditionally to form part of the office of Tenebrae before the 1955 reforms of Pope Pius XII. Michel Stewart confined the settings of parts of the service to four composers: justified as being considered by some music scholars as among the greatest composers of liturgical music: Tomás Luis de Victoria, Edmund Rubbra, James MacMillan, and Gesualdo.

Matins, Nocturns, Antiphons, Responsories …
The first ‘Nocturn’, after the plainsong Psalm 2, consisted of five settings by Victoria and Rubbra formed the ‘Readings from the Lamentations, answered by a responsory’, which can be chosen from the 27 ‘responsories’ (three ‘nocturns’ on each of the three days), that have become traditional and have been set by various composers., according to the agendas of particular priests. Victoria’s ‘Incipit lamentatio Jeremiae’ was a beautiful, slow example of Renaissance polyphony, that was splendidly enriched in the Cathedral’s big acoustic; it presents difficulties for more recent music, but seems perfectly adapted to this.

The juxtaposition of Victoria and Rubbra seemed to reinforce the impression that their sources of inspiration were very close, only separated, not by any radical compositional transformation such as atonality or serialism, but by a naturally richer sensibility and harmonic freedom. Rubbra’s name is not very familiar today. In the first decades after WW2 his name was better known and I owned (and still might have somewhere) recordings of a couple of Rubbra’s symphonies, as I’d encountered his music on the ‘Concert’ programme of the 1950s (2YC) which was a major part of my musical education. Such programming was far from the narrow and misguidedly ‘popular’ classical music that is broadcast today.

Rubbra’s settings of the ‘Amicus meus’ and ‘Judas Mercator’ might have sounded more angular than Victoria but they were tonal and comparably sombre, though women’s voices became more optimistic towards the end.  Rubbra’s third setting, ‘Unus ex discipulis’ – one of the disciples, deal with the story of Judas…

The second ‘Nocturn’ was based on Psalm 53, and it was followed by both Victoria’s and, instead of Rubbra, James MacMillan’s settings of appropriate Responsories.  It was striking that the 60 or so years from Rubbra to MacMillan sounded far greater than the 350 years between Victoria and Rubbra as a result of the radicalisation of musical language. And his first utterance, ‘Tenebrae factae sunt’ in which Christ calls out ‘God, why hast thou forsaken me?’ was delivered in dense, almost terrifying dissonances that expressed the emotion perhaps more powerfully than any earlier style of composition might have allowed. Not that I under-estimate the power of the musical language of the height of the Renaissance or the most gifted of Romantic composers.

It was somehow most fitting for this tragic, exclamatory phase to be accompanied by the extinguishing one by one, of the 15 candles on the candelabra (or ‘hearse’) at the front of the choir (which, incidentally, made it impossible to read the programme and identify what was being sung). Here was a point at which it was probably a shame for those unfamiliar with the narrative details, to be in the dark… For those unfamiliar; for the non-adherent, or non-believer, its meaning and enjoyment would derive only from the singing.

The third Nocturn began, again with an Antiphon and a Psalm – No 93, rather vengeful in spirit. The Responsories were again from MacMillan (‘Tradiderunt me’ and ‘Jesus tradidit impius’, respectively from the books of Job and Lamentations) and one from Victoria (‘Caligaverunt oculi mei’), about Christ’s betrayal and finally the crucifixion, a piece that expresses the deepest grief.

After the last of the Matins responsories comes the Lauds which were just represented by the ‘Miserere Mei’, Psalm 51, in a setting by Gesualdo, in which verses are alternately chanted and spoken.

By then all candles had been extinguished and the church was in darkness: the final step in the Tenebrae is the Strepitus, or ‘great noise’ which took the form of a fireworks-type blast accompanied by smoke, symbolising the earthquake that followed Christ’s death.

Even in its inevitably abbreviated form, performances of one of the major rituals of the church, dominated by a great deal of wonderful plainchant and polyphony continues to attract good audiences of believers and others. The performance by the Tudor Consort under Michael Stewart was impressively accomplished and deeply moving.

There are times when the use of Latin rather than a vernacular language is a huge advantage. Here we had an admirable programme pamphlet that printed both the Latin and an English translation. Improbabilities of religious tales seem to be far more acceptable sung in Latin (or any other language) than in English where the meaning of words and sentences is unambiguous, and something of the mystery lacking. Even more important is the fact that what we hear when the original language is used, are the very sounds that the composer was setting: his resonse to the sounds, and rhythms of the original language; it’s an important aspect too in arguments about use of the original language in opera and in song recitals.

 

Maria Mo: a fine recital by a promising artist at St Andrew’s

Posted on by Steven Sedley

Maria Mo – piano 

Beethoven: Piano Sonata in C, Op.53 (Waldstein)
Albeniz: Iberia, Book 1
                Evocación; El Puerto; El Corpus en Sevilla

St. Andrews on The Terrace

Wednesday 17 April, 2019

Mario Mo is a talented young pianist at the threshold of her career. She has won awards and scholarships, studied with Katherine Austin at the University of Waikato and then at the Vienna Conservatory and the University for Music and Performing Arts in Vienna. She has had a thorough grounding. She played an ambitious programme.

Beethoven stretches the limits of the piano in the Waldstein Sonata and apart from a few glitches Mo coped with these challenges capably. The problem was that because the work is so well known it is hard not to draw comparisons with performances by some of the great pianists. Mo is a thoughtful performer who paid a lot of attention to the phrasing, the dynamic contrasts and melodic flow of the piece. I am sure that with greater experience and maturity her playing will acquire greater fluidity.

The Albeniz pieces were more successful. Albeniz, virtuoso pianist, one of the foremost composers of the latter years of the 19th and the first decade of the 20th centuries had a significant influence on composers of a younger generation, Debussy and Ravel among others. His piano pieces were based on Spanish folk idiom. The best known of these works is Iberia. Mo played these pieces with a delightful freedom bringing out their lovely Spanish lilt. Evocación set the spirit of the work, El Puertocaptured the busy port, expressed through the use of the zapataedo, a lively traditional Andalusian dance. El Corpus en Sevilla is the longest and most dramatic of the three movements. It is a colourful depiction of the Spanish celebration of the feast days of Corpus Christi with its solemn march, religious fervour and ecstasy. It called for a great tonal range and sharp contrasts. Mario Mo gave an enjoyable account of these pieces. This was a fine recital by a promising artist.