Eternity Opera sings triumphantly once again at Wellington’s Hannah Playhouse – Puccini’s Madam Butterfly

Posted on by Peter Mechen

Eternity Opera presents:
PUCCINI – Madam Butterfly (Opera in Three Acts)
(libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa – sung in English)

Cast:  Butterfly (Cio-Cio-San) – Hannah Catrin Jones
Pinkerton – Boyd Owen
Sharpless – Kieran Rayner
Suzuki – Laura Loach
Goro – Declan Cudd
The Bonze – Roger Wilson
Kate Pinkerton – Jess Segal
Mother – Ruth Armishaw
Cousin – Tania Dreaver
Aunt – Sally Haywood
Imperial Commissioner – Minto Fung
The Registrar – Chris Berentson
Yakuside – Garth Norman
Bridesmaids – Milla Dickens / Beatrix Poblacion Cariño
Butterfly’s son – Leo McKenzie

Orchestra:  Claudia Tarrant-Matthews (leader), Vivian Stephens, Emma Colligan, Sofia Tarrant-Matthews (violins),  David Pucher (viola), Brenton Veitch (‘cello), Jessica Reese (double-bass),  Tjaša Dykes (flute/piccolo), Merran Cooke (oboe/cor anglais), Mark Cookson (clarinet), Leni Hoischen (bassoon), Shadley van Wyk (horn), Bruce Roberts (trumpet), Madeleine Crump (harp), Natoko Segawa (timpani/percussion)

Conductor: Matthew Ross
Director: Alex Galvin
Producers: Emma Beale and Minto Fung
Designer: Jennifer Eccles
Costumes: Sally Gray
Lighting: Haami Hawkins
Repetiteur: Bruce Greenfield

Hannah Playhouse, Wellington

Friday 16th November 2018

Eternity Opera’s presentation at Wellington‘s Hannah Playhouse of one of the most famous of all grand operas, Giacomo Puccini’s Madama Butterfly, used a reduced orchestral accompaniment, a “rhyming” English translation of the Italian, and cut one of the more colourful episodes in the work’s Second Act, albeit involving the brief appearance of a “lesser”character. And yet, despite these diminutions of the original, the piece worked its usual theatrical and musical magic, thanks to a production which incorporated the visceral energies and sharply-etched focus of the orchestral playing under conductor Matthew Ross’s clear-headed direction, and the direct, openhearted involvement of all the singers, principals and chorus. Director Alex Galvin’s clear and unobtrusive shaping of both detail and completed picture ensured that the singers gave us the essentials of the piece and consistently and powerfully brought their characters to life, musically and theatrically.

From the outset we got incisive, involving playing from the musicians, conveying these essences as much through sheer will and imaginative purpose in the absence of the usual “weight of numbers” which give the piece such power at the climaxes. In fact I can’t recall a moment during the performance when I found myself longing for the thrill of a full Puccini orchestra doing its “thing”, so involving was the presentation of the fabric of sounds in its more intimate context here.

When it came to the arrival of the characters on stage I was struck by the vivid quality of each of the voices, the opening exchanges between Goro, the Marriage-broker, and Pinkerton, the U.S.naval officer putting across their phrases easily and distinctly. Boyd Owen’s Pinkerton had instant surface-engaging “well-met, fellow” quality of utterance, while Declan Cudd’s Goro was as much “real-estate agent” in his characterisation as anything else (reflecting the production’s 1950s setting), his tones having the suavity one associates with that profession, but less of the spiky, Goro-like busy-bodyness we usually enjoy from the character. Laura Loach as Suzuki, Butterfly’s handmaid, vocalised beautifully at the outset, nicely mingling the character’s awkwardness and deference with a singer’s clarity and warmly-expressed tones.

It took me a while to register that the English translation was a ”rhyming”one, so readily did the words seem to flow without any overtly self-concious “striving for effect” that renderings in English of opera libretti often have – the discourse between Pinkerton and his friend Sharpless, the American Consul (played and sung sensitively and sonorously by Kieran Rayner), flowed easily and naturally throughout, and led up to Pinkerton’s jingoistic “America forever” declaration with irresistible exuberance. Both Owen and Rayner differentiated their characterisations with many a telling remark, response and gesture, even if the “full-on” aspects of their singing tended to emphasise at cardinal points the somewhat “cheek-by-jowl” nature of our listening-space!

This lack of spaciousness in the acoustic made for a slighty different problem in regard to off-stage voices“, notably the entry of Butterfly’s retinue (“heard from the path outside”, says the direction in my libretto) which to me sounded much too close at their first entry, reflecting the lack of backstage space – though I thought using the stairs leading up from the lower level in the foyer might have done the trick, instead….we lost that initial sense of fragility in Butterfly’s character, having her voice so immediate from the beginning. However, despite such strictures, the scene then unfolded beautifully and touchingly, with the “ordinariness” of Butterfly and her cohorts underlined by the modest 1950s  garb worn by the various relatives, all at that point in history, presumably, trying to be “Western”.

As Cio-Cio-San (Butterfly), Hannah Catrin Jones looked and sounded the part, the fragility of the instrumental accompaniment serving to underline her self-effacing quality, though her vocal personality was extremely well-focused throughout. Only when the voice was put under any kind of pressure did I register a vibrato which she soon managed to incorporate for me into her “sound”. I thought her portrayal believable and sympathetic, her rapport with whomever she was on stage warm and wholehearted, and her solo scenes stamped with a touching amalgam of vulnerability and strength that enabled the listener to take on a sense of her life-blood coursing the whole time through her being.

The Bonze’s startling entry (Roger Wilson wondrously menacing of voice and manner, almost Commendatore-like, in fact, as Butterfly’s uncle), come to condemn her for renouncing her “true religion”, effectively tore Cio-Cio-San’s world apart, alienating her from her family and placing her almost completely in the hands of Pinkerton, who, despite the intensity of feeling generated between him and Butterfly during the ensuing “love-scene”, subsequently abandons her. Cio-Cio-San’s isolation was here underscored in a different way, of course, by the excision of that aforementioned Second-Act scene in which she is wooed by Yamadori, a rich Japanese Prince, eager to add her to his coterie of wives, and which offer she rejects, remaining faithful to Pinkerton, despite his callous behaviour.

In a similar fashion to that in Verdi’s “La Traviata”, the opera’s core is found in the exchange between the heroine and a friend or associate of her lover, in this case, Sharpless, the American Consul (Kieran Rayner), who’s sceptical of Pinkerton’s intentions towards Cio-Cio-San from the beginning. The scene of his interaction with Butterfly came almost in the wake of the latter’s magnificently-realised “Un bel di” (sorry, I mean, “One fine day”!), Catrin Jones giving her all in thrilling fashion, with again, the relatively lightweight orchestral support delivering oceans of intensity in support of the singer. One would think that whatever followed would be something of an anti-climax, but Catrin Jones and Rayner exhibited such warmth and flow of feeling towards one another’s characters, that we were soon caught up in the interchanges and “moved on”, more than ready for the next stage of the drama.

This came, of course, with Butterfly’s fear and anxiety at the thought of being abandoned, mingled with the hope that hers and Pinkerton’s child (born and raised in secret) would bring them together again. The sudden arrival of an American warship, denoted by a cannon-shot, sent everything into a state of frenzied suspension, Butterfly commanding Suzuki to strew every flower about the house “as close as stars about the heavens”, and bringing the child to wait with her for Pinkerton’s arrival. I thought Catrin Jones’ interaction with the young Leo McKenzie as Butterfly’s little son simply charming and warmly whole-hearted on both sides, the heroine in the process excitedly and determinedly setting up her “welcome” to her long-absent husband, and preparing to wait for “as long as it takes”.

My one disappointment of the evening was the staging of the beautiful “Humming Chorus” which followed – I thought its enchanting, if bitter-sweet effect underdone by uncharacteristically fulsome stage-lighting. It seemed to me the waiting figures were “transfixed” in a strained and uncomfortable state of rigidity at odds with the music’s organic presentation of  an overnight vigil spent amid a mass of conflicting impulses shaped in the direction of somebody’s long-awaited arrival. In the context of the production’s whole, the sequence was something that for me didn’t knit music and stage together with the same sure-footed focus as the rest did.

Still, the final act was, in a word, terrific! – though at times for us in the audience almost claustrophobically so in that small space! Pinkerton’s arrival, with Sharpless, and with Suzuki as Butterfly’s would-be “protector” created enormous tensions and outpourings of emotion, Boyd Owen’s remorse as Pinkerton pushing against the threshold of pain, albeit expressing HIS anguish rather than any real concern for the hapless Butterfly, leaving Sharpless and Suzuki to do what they could for Butterfly instead – the somewhat thankless part of Pinkerton’s American wife, Kate, who accompanied him to the house, was expressed in dignified and graceful fashion by Jess Segal, her presence adding to the almost palpable psychological torture inflicted on Butterfly as she realised, upon entering the room and encountering her visitor, the truth of her situation.

Again, though wanting in sheer tonal heft, the playing of the orchestra in support of Butterfly’s final scene was properly overwhelming in its capacity for generating tension, helped immeasurably by the singer’s fearlessness in addressing the writing’s full-throated outpourings of unmitigated despair. These were the moments where nothing needed to be held back, and Catrin Jones certainly carried our sensibilities along with her towards the inevitability of that moment when she plunged her character’s life into existence’s oblivion.

Altogether, I thought the production a remarkable demonstration of the power of heartfelt and concentrated focus from limited resources to conjure up whole worlds of feeling and imagination. Very great credit to Eternity Opera and all associated with the production, for making opera’s star shine so very brightly once more at Wellington’s Hannah Playhouse.

(Until 24th November)

 

 

First-class performance of a Brahms masterpiece by Vivanti String Sextet

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Vivanti  String Sextet: Yuka Eguchi, Malavika Gopal (violins), Victoria Jaenecke, Martin Jaenecke (violas), Ken Ichinose, Rowan Prior (cellos)

Brahms: String Sextet no.1 in B flat, Op.18

St. Andrew’s on The Terrace

Wednesday, 14 November 2018, 12:15 pm

A sizeable audience heard this masterwork from Brahms, played by a sextet made up of members of the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra (plus friend Martin Jaenecke).  The work is seldom heard, probably because of the difficulty of assembling a sextet.  I don’t think I have heard it live since a concert given by a visiting ensemble in a Festival concert many years go – was it 1988?  1990?  They played also the String Sextet no.2.

Immediately the musicians commenced, we were treated to a gorgeous sound. – mellow, reassuring, in the first movement’s allegro ma non troppo.  The players performed with confidence and panache, and the church’s acoustics did them proud.  Darker tones entered; a cello solo was most mellifluous.  The music approached grandeur, but in a rather nostalgic manner.  Plucking from the cellos added piquancy.

A general excitement of tempo and volume led to a new, placid theme, which was passed around the players.  Its chromaticism gave a persuasive romanticism to the music.  A waltz towards the end was graceful, then a brief passage with all playing pizzicato finished the movement.

Throughout, the playing was splendid from all the musicians.  The second movement (andante ma moderato) had a strong opening to its theme and variations.  The song-like theme was harmonised in a very straightforward way.  The first variation was for the cello, and was given an excellent performance by Ken Ichinose.  (From where I was seated I could not see if Rowan Prior also played in this variation).  The violas took it up, and gave the theme considerable embroidery, before the cello had another complex variation, jumping all over the fingerboard.

Then the violas returned with a strong hymn-like variation.  The violins now had their chance, playing the same variation, before they had a passage playing a melody against the violas playing a drone accompaniment.  The cellos were at first absent from this interchange, until they took up with some pizzicato.  Cellos now had the melody, more-or-less straight.  The music became quieter, and slowly wound down to its end.

The Scherzo third movement was a very tuneful dance,  full of good spirits.  It was bouncy and euphonious.  The short trio lived up to its tempo (animato), driving forward constantly, as did the also animated scherzo, on its return.

The final movement, Rondo, was marked poco allegretto e grazioso.  It was sonorous and cheerful.  There was plenty of dynamic variety, and all was played splendidly, with superb subtlety and fabulous tone.  Gentle passages echoing the first movement helped the music wind down gradually in sombre vein, but it picked up animation again in the final bars.  This is a great work of chamber music, and it was marvellous to hear it, in such a first-class performance.

 

World Premiere in Palmerston North of 216 year-old work by English composer Samuel Arnold

Posted on by Peter Mechen

The Renaissance Singers of Palmerston North presents:

A NEW CREATION – Music by Josef Haydn (1732-1809) and Samuel Arnold (1740-1802)

HAYDN:  Oratorio “The Creation” (1798) – Part Three
ARNOLD:  Oratorio “The Hymn of Adam and Eve” (1802) – World premiere performance
(edited and realised by Robert Hoskins and David Vine)

Pasquale Orchard (soprano) , Shayna Tweed (soprano), Jennifer Little (soprano),
Nigel Tongs (tenor), Lindsay Yeo (bass-baritone)

Renaissance Singers (Music Director – Guy Donaldson)
Schola Sacra Choir, Whanganui (Music Director – Roy Tankersley)
Manawatu Sinfonia (Leader – Gillian Gibb)
Conductor: Guy Donaldson

Regent on Broadway, Palmerston North

Saturday 10th November, 2018

Musical history was made on Saturday evening at Palmerston North’s Regent on Broadway, when local forces (the city’s Renaissance Singers and the Manawatu Sinfonia, plus a clutch of home-grown/nurtured vocal soloists) combined forces with Wellington soprano Pasquale Orchard and neighbouring Whanganui’s Schola Sacra Choir, under the inspired direction of conductor Guy Donaldson, to bring into being a world premiere with a difference.

New Zealand being geographically as far away as one can get from Europe, and the UK in particular, it’s surely something of a red-letter occasion when a significant musical work written by an English composer is given its first-ever performance in this country. Last year, an original manuscript, long thought lost, of an orchestral work by Gustav Holst was discovered in a music Library in Tauranga, and given its first performance anywhere for 111 years (since the 1906 premiere), by local musicians to considerable amazement and acclaim – but this present work, “The Hymn of Adam and Eve”, composed by the little-known Samuel Arnold in 1802(!) trumped even that circumstance, having never previously been performed.

There’s more than a whiff of romance and intrigue surrounding Arnold’s birth and heritage, certain sources suggesting he may have been the illegitimate son of one Thomas Arnold, a commoner, and Princess Amelia, daughter of George II and Queen Caroline, a princess who remained unmarried, and was known for her independent spirit. Arnold was educated at the Chapel Royal, making rapid progress in his music studies, and soon earning his living writing both instrumental and vocal works for performance at various London “Gardens”, including operas and oratorios for Covent Garden and other theatres. He eventually became organist and composer to the Chapel Royal, and afterwards organist to Westminster Abbey, as well as becoming the conductor (so early in the history of that profession!) of the Academy of Ancient Music.

Along with all of this Arnold found the time to compose for cathedral service, producing a four-volumed adjunct to William Boyce’s 1790 Cathedral Music, and to undertake the first collected edition of the works of Handel, of which he completed forty volumes, a copy of which Beethoven received during the last weeks of his life, reputedly declaring that “Handel is the greatest composer that ever lived”. Judged by modern standards Arnold’s scholarship was wanting in places (the edition comprises only three-quarters of Handel’s output), but was for its time a notable and ground-breaking enterprise.

While searching for further pieces of information regarding Samuel Arnold to counter my lamentably skimpy knowledge of him I came across a couple of references to his activities as a musician which I thought significant, the first being the touching occasion in 1773 when Oxford University requested a performance of Arnold’s oratorio The Prodigal Son to mark the appointment of a new Chancellor for the institution, in return for which favour the composer was offered an honorary degree. Arnold at first declined, wanting to “entitle himself to it” by the usual academic course, to which end he submitted an exercise for examination – but his score was returned unopened by the music professor, assuring Arnold that it was “quite unnecessary to scrutinize an exercise by the author of The Prodigal Son.”

The other reference I thought telling in that it probably shaped whole generations of opinion concerning Arnold’s music was the entry on the composer in the 1900 edition of Grove’s “A Dictionary of Music and Musicians”, written by Edward Francis Rimbault, to the effect that “Dr. Arnold wrote with great facility and correctness, but the demand upon his powers was too varied and too incessant to allow of his attaining great excellence in any department of his art”. One recalls a similar “put-down” kind of treatment meted out half-a-century later to the music of Rachmaninov by the same publication, words that ring hollow in the light of THAT composer’s subsequent status and popularity.

Dr. Robert Hoskins, former Associate Professor of Music at Massey University and the New Zealand School of Music, “rediscovered” Samuel Arnold’s final and unperformed work “The Hymn of Adam and Eve” while researching the life and work of the composer in the early 1980s. Hoskins’ subsequent judgement of Arnold’s complete oeuvre takes issue with the aforementioned comment in Grove’s Dictionary regarding the composer’s lack of “excellence in any part of his art”, and attests to the best of his music attaining “a certain individuality” resulting in “attractive and dramatically vivid music”. Hoskins also makes mention of the documented popularity of Arnold’s works, which rivalled and perhaps even surpassed that of any of his English contemporaries throughout the last quarter of the eighteenth century.

Arnold composed much of his music in an environment that was very much under the combined spell of two creative “giants” – Handel, whose oratorios had won the hearts of the English public fifty years previously, and, more recently, Haydn, whose “Salomon” or “London” Symphonies had, along with the composer’s own visits to London, stimulated enormous interest in the (by then) venerable composer and his music. Arnold had become steeped in the music of both men – and at the time he was writing “The Hymn of Adam and Eve” he conducted performances in London of  both Handel’s “Messiah” and Haydn’s “The Creation”. It’s no surprise, therefore, that Arnold’s work comes across in places as a kind of “amalgam” of the two, almost as if he was unconsciously paying homage to each of them.

It was entirely fitting, therefore, that we heard as a kind of prelude to Arnold’s work the third and final part of Haydn’s “The Creation”, the two works sharing a similar theme courtesy of John Milton’s “Paradise Lost” – in Haydn’s case, the poetry translated and adapted by Baron Gottfried Van Swieten (who had also provided Haydn with his libretto for “The Seasons”), but here, translated back into English! Conductor Guy Donaldson however began the concert most appropriately with the final Chorus from Part Two, “Achieved is the Glorious Work”, giving the evening’s music-making a most auspicious and stirring beginning, the choral strands strong and firm in their fugal exchanges, the instrumental support full and energetic, with plenty of “schwung” in the rhythms, the whole capped off by wonderful timpani flourishes!

The Part three opening-proper was exquisitely-realised, the flute-playing limpid and “dewy”, and the horns “touching-in” the first rays of sunlight with real poetic feeling. Tenor Nigel Tongs kept a true line for “In rosy mantle”, his tone a tad wheezy in places, but steadily maintaining the musical shape of every phrase, giving his instrumental support plenty of beautiful “echo-material” to relish. Soprano Pasquale Orchard as Eve floated her first ascending phrase beautifully at “By thee with bliss, o bounteous Lord”, her Adam, baritone Lindsay Yeo counterweighting her line strongly and securely, and the oboe completing the “early-morning” scenario with a properly sylvan accompaniment– and how beautifully the chorus “stole” in with almost subterraneous murmurings, almost like the awakening of an “earth-noise”, underpinned in places by the timpani.

It took a little time for the orchestra to “bring together” the catchiness of the rhythmic gait leading up to the baritone’s “Of stars the brightest”, which the singer “opened up” securely – the chorus’s energy at “proclaim throughout vastness” seemed to galvanise the players somewhat, and the soprano’ s “And thou, the solace of the night” was more sturdily supported. Chirpily alert winds decorated the baritone’s next entry, and both soprano and chorus contributed to the infectious excitement and growing energy, finely controlled and gloriously released by conductor Donaldson, as all living creatures were enjoined by the singers to “praise the Lord” throughout crescendo after crescendo.

The singers’ rapport was evident in their exchanges throughout the recitative and duet that followed, both pointing their words and “relating” their trajectories and impulses to achieve a sense of true dialogue. The tenor returned, Nigel Tongs again reliably focused of line and elegant of phrase in his admonition to the couple to be content with what they have, before giving way to the splendour of the concerted forces’ concluding hymn of praise to the Almighty. The choir did itself and its conductor proud in its focusing and dovetailing of the fugal lines with the orchestral punctuations, the brass, winds and timpani suitably splendid of utterance, backed by the strings’ energy and colour – everybody at the piece’s conclusion giving their all, most satisfyingly.

After an intermission came the “real business” of the evening, the “public birth” of Samuel Arnold’s similarly-themed work for soloists, choir and orchestra, the “Hymn of Adam and Eve”, whose emergence from obscurity into the limelight had been lovingly enabled by Robert Hoskins as a result of his researchings. The performance was to also mark the retirement from the music directorship of the Renaissance Singers of conductor Guy Donaldson, after thirty years’ service in the role – so, altogether, the occasion promised a uniquely distinctive combination of a beginning and an ending, with each circumstance adding extra gravitas to the other.

Samuel Arnold fully intended his work to be performed shortly after its completion in January of 1802 – in fact he had planned the work for the Lenten concerts at the Haymarket Theatre Royal that year. His principal soloists were hand-picked for their roles by the composer – the soprano was to be German-born Gertrude Elizabeth Mara, one whose voice had been described as “remarkable for its extent and beauty”, as well as “its agility and flexibility” – it was for her particular abilities that Arnold had written the fiendishly difficult vocal bravura parts we were to hear in tonight’s performance. The baritone was the well-known singer Thomas Welsh, renowned for his voice’s  richness of tone. All was set to begin rehearsals, when the composer was stricken with ill health and was forced to cancel the proceedings.

Arnold died that same year in October, his oratorio unperformed and neglected, and eventually forgotten – fortunately the manuscript was given to the Royal College of Music in London, there to be rediscovered and reconstituted for the present performance, a premiere delayed for 216 years!

Arnold had set the “Morning Hymn” from Book 5 of Milton’s “Paradise Lost”, a passage describing the sequel to a dream of temptation experienced by Eve, and to Adam’s reassurance that she can overcome any such thoughts in her waking life. After an orchestral introduction, the soprano’s (Eve) is the opening voice, praising God and enjoining all creation to do the same – As Part One proceeds the pair join with the Seraphs to address the heavenly entities, beginning with the angels, the “Sons of Light” and including Venus, the brightest star. Adam then attends to the sun, and Eve the moon and the planets, each urging these entities to acknowledge their Creator. In the Second Part, the singers (predominantly the soprano) then turn their attentions to the earth and its attendant elements and various forms of life, concluding with a salutation from Adam to the “universal Lord” and a plea that whatever evil is concealed will be dispersed “as now light dispels the dark”.

I thought, in general terms, the performance was terrific, and largely because of the musicians’ willingness to make the commitment required to address the challenges of some of the writing. In particular, the soprano part (written for the illustrious Mara) was of an order of difficulty that almost beggared belief, and which was tackled by Pasquale Orchard with near-tigerish intensity in places – the only possible response that could have made it really “work”. There was no holding back – we all felt “engaged” by her utter vocal fearlessness, even in the one or two places where the outcomes seemed angular, almost awkward in effect. It all seemed to go with the territory, the visceral stimulus veritably coursing this listener’s blood through the veins at what seemed at times like breakneck speed! – most exhilarating!

In parallel, I did think that Arnold’s writing seemed particularly attuned to the pieces featuring the soprano – which, of course applied to a staggering thirteen numbers out of nineteen! By my count baritone Lindsay Yeo had, in comparison, only three solo opportunities throughout, which did seem a little curmudgeonly of the composer. And, despite some challenging and skilfully-realised writing for the horn, I felt Arnold’s invention wasn’t quite on the same ecstatic level for the baritone in the aria “Sound His praise”, though Yeo did his best to make it “sing”. Better was the final “Hail, universal Lord”, the singer bringing vigour and accuracy to the opening and making a good fist of the difficult coloratura passages.

The work began with an orchestral Symphony, sturdy and Handelian, followed by an appropriately lustrous opening declamation from the soprano, “These are thy glorious works”, Orchard projecting the sound of her voice with radiant character both here, and in the aria “Speak ye, who best can tell”, accompanied by lovely work from the horns and winds, the bassoon-playing particularly eloquent in its support of the singer. The Seraphs’ Duet which followed featured mellifluous teamwork between Shayna Tweed and Jennifer Little, supported faithfully by oboe continuo, and sturdily framed by an orchestral response which worked triumphantly through one or two shaky dovetailings. The somewhat tricky triplet passages were boldly tackled by the singers, with lovely teamwork at the repetitions of “And with songs”. If a strenuous quality occasionally “grabbed” a phrase or two of the figurations, it added to the excitement and colour of the singers’ work.

The Quartet and Chorus “Ye in heaven , on earth join all ye creatures” was introduced somewhat tentatively on the strings, who then seemed to warm to the task in support of the fugal passages, the choral work enlivened by timpani and brass in the middle section, and made very dramatic and theatrical at the end with portentous pauses! A complete contrast came with the delicate play between the flutes wreathing delicacies around and about the recitative “Fairest of stars”, and the soprano making the most of her words – again, with the aria “Praise Him in thy sphere” the winds set the scene most charmingly alternating with the voice, the long-breathed phrases contrasting with the brief, shooting-star-like cadenza at the end.

Adam’s recitative “Thou sun” brought vigorous phrases from the strings and sturdy singing from Lindsay Yeo, which carried over into the subsequent aria – the singer held his line, and gave of his best with the cadenza, even if I sensed a severity about the writing that didn’t quite take flight. What a difference with the following recitative “Moon, that now meet’st the orient sun“, singer and instrumentalists working with their conductor to evoke the grandeur of the “wandering fires that move in mystic dance”, before energising the sounds in praise of the Lord and Giver of Light – the soprano casting caution to the starry firmament with her vocal pyrotechnics and the chorus dramatically plunging into the ferment of excitement, each relishing the exchanges and banishing the darkness with their energies, the singer’s coloratura gripping and breath-taking in its effect.

With Part Two, things “came down to earth”, the opening recitative almost scientifically delineating the biosphere as the starting-point, life deriving from and nourished by “air” – the aria, “Let your ceaseless change”, that followed (both sung by Orchard as Eve, who dominated the proceedings from here on) sounded to me particularly Handelian, the flowing lines steadily and purposefully flowering into realms of great beauty, wrought and relished by the singer and her conductor, with the help of some lovely liquid clarinet phrasings. Even more visceral in effect were the instrumental evocations of the following Recitative “Ye mists and exhalations”, the overtly descriptive texts finding the composer’s imaginative powers equal to the task of rendering the words’ descriptions, culminating in bursts of magnificence from brass and timpani hailing the sun and gentle pizzicato strings suggesting delicate rain.

Again, Handel’s spirit rose majestically skyward in Arnold’s “Rising or falling”, firstly with Orchard’s utterly uninhibited vocal pyrotechnics, culminating in a “knockout” of a cadenza that bordered on the outlandish – what commitment to the cause!! – and then followed by a chorus using the same text to   put across majesty and might with great relish. Arnold’s gift for word-painting came to the fore once again in “His praise, ye winds”, the strings deployed most exquisitely and ambiently, both here and in the subsequent aria, “Fountains and ye that warble”, along with some fetching wind contributions, the singer’s voice floating her line across the gentle dotted rhythms. Next, it was the choir’s turn, a confidently joyous rendition of “Join voices all ye living souls”, the wind writing decorating the voices’ counterpointed lines, the latter sometimes in strongly-shaped thirds and in places very Handelian, the former an absolute delight, and to that end, most mellifluously played.

From things airborne we were then taken to things “that in waters glide” and “that walk the earth” – here was an intensely beauteous declamation, Orchard never letting up the intensities of her expression, just momentarily pushing her tones a shade sharp, but always with a vibrancy that infused the words and notes with a quality of engagement that characterised her work throughout the whole evening – a magnificent performance. She was supported by string playing whose quiet energies brought out something of the music’s own life-force, which I felt was partly derived from the concert’s overall spirit, one which enabled something challenging but within reach, and in the process generating considerable delight and satisfaction.

The work’s final act came with “Hail, universal Lord”, Lindsay Yeo’s Adam managing to get a word or two in at last, singing his lines with vigour and making a splendid thing out of the difficult figurations. Then came a truly overwhelming “all-in” flood of energy and colour from all the musicians throughout the work’s final pages which set the spaces of the venerable Regent Theatre aglow “as now light dispels the dark”. It was all, in a word, magnificent! – and both maestro Guy Donaldson and editor-extraordinaire Robert Hoskins would have been well-pleased with the musicians’ efforts and the audience’s response – as would the shade of Samuel Arnold, after more than two hundred years, able to finally proclaim his “last compositional will and testament” as fulfilled.

Edo de Waart reaffirms his comprehensive Mahlerian authority and insight with Number Seven

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, conductor Edo de Waart

Mahler: Symphony no.7 in B minor, Op.36

Michael Fowler Centre

Friday, 9 November 2018, 6:30 pm

The concert was one of Edo de Waart’s ‘Masterworks’ series.  A mammoth symphony of over 80 minutes in length was obviously not everyone’s cup of tea: the front block of seating downstairs was virtually empty.  But it was a tour de force for conductor and orchestra.  The huge variety of musical and instrumental content and the diversity of sounds, timbres and musical ideas bore out Mahler’s well-known saying that ‘the symphony is like the world, it must encompass everything!’

It is the only one of his symphonies with which I was not familiar, and of which I have no recording; it is probably the least frequently performed, not only on account of its length.  Such a long and complex work takes some getting to grips with.  Yet like all the composer’s works, there is much in it to delight as well as much to wonder at and to ponder on.  An excellent essay in the printed programme contained interesting and illuminating material.

The orchestra was led by Yuka Eguchi, assistant concertmaster (though this was not shown in the programme), and numbers of guest players were brought in to create the large orchestra required.

With five movements, the symphony is one of the largest in the orchestral repertoire, and is played without an interval, though the breaks between movements must have been welcomed by the orchestra’s members.

A theme for the symphony suggested by the composer (though he made many revisions to it) was ‘darkness to light’.  However, each movement has a distinct ‘personality’.  The first movement, very long, like the last, is entitled ‘Langsam [slow]– allegro molto ma non troppo’.  The opening seemed indecisive, that could not entirely be blamed on Mahler, but the brass soon made their presence felt; next, woodwinds were added, with strings playing at a low pitch, the tones very solemn.  Woodwinds take over again, before a general overall shindig breaks out.

More lyrical figures creep in, before the large percussion section has a good workout.  The clarinettists play their instruments unusually, holding them up horizontally in front of their faces.  The full orchestra plays military motifs, then all is quiet, with a few solo instruments having short statements, and many changes of orchestral colour.  The two harps created lovely ripples, and there were dramatic passages with typical Mahlerian harmonies and intervals.  The brass contributed numerous expostulations.  Everyone was busy; the percussion had their own outbursts, but eventually the music subsided, though soon quickened to a brass march, that illustrated the different tonalities and discordant chords in this symphony compared with the harmonies in Mahler’s earlier ones.

A problem here was the unhelpfulness of the programme in describing the additional brass instrument used.  When the player stood for his special bow at the end of the concert, I thought that he had a euphonium.  However, Wikipedia says that Mahler did not want that instrument, but describes the instrument variously as tenor horn or baritone horn.  The player sat next to the trombones, and in the list of players at the back of the programme he is stated as simply “Brass  Nitzan Haroz”.  Certainly here was a distinct sound at various points in the symphony.  Another failure of description there was in joining the fourth movement guitarist (Jane Curry) and mandolin player (Dylan Lardelli) under the heading ‘Guitar’.

The second movement, like the fourth, is titled ‘Nachtmusik’ (Nocturne).  It opens with a horn figure, echoed by a muted horn, then an oboe, before the other musicians gradually enter, including distinctive percussion.  A jaunty rhythm has the strings tapping their bows, but soon the contrabassoon makes a noteworthy contribution, and a marching tempo takes over the music; then a smooth theme, like a folk-dance, is played on violins, before one of Mahler’s Des Knaben Wunderhorn songs, ‘Revelge’ (or ‘The Dead Drummer’) sounded forth its sad but militaristic tones.  We heard the horn echo again.  We heard superb, rich, colourful, sonorous playing throughout.  The four flutes contributed largely, with lots of delightful little figures for woodwind before a fortissimo passage with spooky elements (as so often with Mahler).  The ‘kitchen department’ lived up to its nickname here and elsewhere, with splendid cowbells.  Lyrical motifs issued from all sections.

To the Scherzo third movement, Mahler had given the description (in German: Shadowy.  Flowing but not too fast.  It has a spooky character throughout, but also spiky and perky..  Horn, drums and double basses began proceedings, with many brief utterances from various instruments, notably frequent short solo violin fragments.  Likewise, the viola contributed lovely sonorous solo fragments.  After some hectic brass, the clarinets contributed to a quirky ending.  The ¾ time used in this movement led a commentator to call it ‘a most morbid and sarcastic mockery of the Viennese waltz’ (Wikipedia). Among the unusual instruments employed was the small E-flat clarinet, played by David McGregor.  Its distinctive sound was heard quite frequently throughout the symphony.

The fourth movement, another ‘Nachtmusik’, this time andante amoroso throughout, as compared with the varying tempo markings of its predecessor.  Brass is absent (except horns), and the use of guitar and mandolin create a serenade atmosphere.  A brief violin solo opens the movement, then a charming oboe intervenes, soon allowing the violin to resume.  I noticed that in this more intimate movement, Edo de Waart conducted without the baton.  Violin, flute, oboe, mandolin and guitar continued the serenade-like character of the music.  This movement was in many ways more colourful than the earlier ones. There was always something new happening; some great horn melodies emerged and the movement had a gentle ending.

Now for the powerful Finale – a rondo, that opened with timpani and brass, and great excitement.  There is repetition of a main theme from the first movement.  A jaunty dotted rhythm makes its appearance, then the woodwind take over, followed by strings – but the brass cannot be suppressed for long.  Muted trumpets were most effective.  There such a variety of sounds!  Tapping the top (wood) of the bass drum was done with a sort of whisk.  I learned in Wikipedia that this was a rute.

“The rute… from the German for ‘rod’ or ‘switch’), also known as a multi-rod, is a beater for drums. Commercially made rutes are usually made of a bundle of thin birch dowels or thin canes attached to a drumstick handle… A rute may also be made of a bundle of twigs attached to a drumstick handle. The Rute is used to play on the head of the bass drum.”

Shrill flutes and piccolos contribute to the continuing variety of the movement, as did the high-pitched, sometimes squeaky sound of the E-flat clarinet.  A huge musical wake-up ensues, and then subsides.  Peals of bells and full brass brings the movement, and the symphony, to an end with grandeur, although a soft passage intervenes, and finally an enormous proclamation, with all players flat out.  The climax resulted in great acclamation from the audience.

It is noteworthy that the Dutch premiere of this symphony took place only a year after its initial performance in Prague in 1908.  It seems that the Dutch have an affinity with Mahler.  Not only is our present conductor a notable interpreter of Mahler, but there are others, including Bernard Haitink.  If we didn’t already know that de Waart is a great Mahler conductor, we found out when he conducted Symphony no. 5 in 2016.

 

Eighteenth Century German music from two accomplished Wellington early music specialists

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

St Andrew’s lunchtime concerts

Imogen Granwal (viola da gamba) and Martin Ryman (harpsichord)

Music by Carl Friedrich Abel and Johan Sebastian Bach

St Andrew’s on The Terrace

Wednesday 7 November, 12:15 pm

The musicians had asked that this recital be not reviewed.

We are happy to comply with this request but because Middle C sees itself as both a vehicle for reviewing music, and an archival record of public classical music performance in Greater Wellington, this is simply an opportunity to record what was played. As well as to comment on the good sized audience and the great pleasure this particular audience member found in the performances.

It began with two works by Carl Friedrich Abel for viola da gamba: the Prelude in D minor, WKO 205 (for viola da gamba alone) and the Sonata in G, one of the six sonatas for viola da gamba and continuo written during his prolonged stay in England.

Harpsichordist Martin Ryman played the sixth of Bach’s French Suites, in E major, BWV 817, and the duo then played J S Bach’s Sonata in D major for viola da gamba and harpsichord, BWV 1028.

 

Recital from pianist and concertmaster at Orchestra Wellington’s Saturday concert

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Christopher Park – piano (who was soloist in Bartok’s piano concerto No 1 with Orchestra Wellington at the concert in the MFC on 27 October, and Amalia Hall, the orchestra’s concert master
Mozart: Violin Sonata No 17 in C, K 296
Brahms: Violin Sonata No 1 in G, Op 78
Scharwenka: Suite for violin and piano, Op 99

St Andrews on The Terrace

Tuesday October 30, 12:30 pm

The audience at Orchestra Wellington’s Saturday concert in which Christopher Park played Bartok’s piano concerto No 1 was invited to this lunchtime concert, and came along in good numbers (though fewer than for Johannes Moser after the NZSO concert where he’d played Shostakovich’s First Cello Concerto); he was joined by the orchestra’s concert master Amalia Hall, a friend, who was apparently instrumental in getting him to New Zealand to play the terrifying Bartok piece.

Mozart’s Violin Sonata No. 17 in C major, K. 296, is the first of his fifteen ‘mature’ sonatas; it was composed in 1778, aged 22, in Mannheim when Wolfgang and his mother were on their unhappy journey to Paris (his mother died there, and father Leopold never forgave Wolfgang for his carelessness). It must nevertheless by considered a ‘middle period’ work, since there were 16 earlier ones written in childhood and adolescence.

Few ordinary music lovers would have all of Mozart’s violin sonatas systematically embedded in their minds: there are as many as 36, including several incomplete ones, and the 16 composed in his childhood, which occupy most of the Köchel numbers below 30. This one was familiar to me but no more.

Initially, the piano dominated the violin somewhat, though given the fact that Mozart’s instrumental sonatas were published as for piano (or harpsichord) ‘accompanied by’ the other instrument, the violin’s inferior role in it was hardly conspicuous. Writing for both instruments was sparkling, offering opportunities for technical display and exuberance, with many decorative, flamboyant arpeggios. There’s a contrasting middle section, in contemplative minor key. It was marked by striking originality and character.

The second movement, Andante sostenuto, opens with a rather routine first theme, but continued with a warm, more flowing second melody. It’s probably unfamiliarity with the work that left me with the feeling that the last movement, a Rondeau, was not especially memorable, rather suggesting the tone of Boccherini, though a march-like middle section created a well-balanced composition. In all, the performance by both players captured its characteristics and its distinctly Mozartian virtues with great accomplishment.

Brahms’s first violin sonata was obviously a far more mature work, with emotional and musical qualities to which the two players gave conspicuous attention. Amalia’s playing delighted in the swaying rhythm in the first movement, as well as in the subtle dynamic changes that accompanied the variations of tempo, all encompassed by the instruction Vivace ma non troppo.(mainly ‘non troppo’). Even though the Mozart sonata had singular strengths, given the composer’s age at the time, the elaborateness of Brahms’s composition and the stylistic variety dramatized the way music had evolved in the hundred years (exactly) between the two works. In the Brahms there’s a feeling of sobriety, compositional sophistication and depth that characterised the late Romantic period; it was an interesting case study in the evolution of music. These thoughts were highlighted by the polish and conviction of the playing.

A singular seriousness of purpose colours the second movement and the pair captured its meditative beauty, especially in their handling of the lovely second theme, given richness and warmth with double stopping by the violin and complementary treatment on the piano part.

The last movement is no bold heroic finale, just Allegro molto moderato, emphasis on the ‘Moderato’. was again the opportunity to be touched by her ability to sustain long melodic lines filled with genuine emotion.

Philipp Scharwenka 
The totally unfamiliar piece in the recital was a Suite by Philipp Scharwenka. I had assumed that this was the composer whose name cropped up in old piano albums – the composer of a popular, outwardly impressive Polish Dance, not really all that difficult. But the pianist told me that the latter was by Xaver Scharwenka, the younger brother of the composer of today’s Suite. The two bothers attract similar space in most musical reference books.

Philipp was born in 1847, in the then-Prussian-occupied Poland – the Grand Duchy of Posen (now Poznan). Perhaps they both help fill that empty space in the chronology of German/Austrian composers between Brahms and Mahler, thinly inhabited by Bruch, Humperdinck and ???… – The surname as well as his birth and early life in Polish-majority territory, suggests, like his contemporary Moritz Moszkowski, possible Polish family origins but I find no mention of that.

The four-movement Suite suggested Brahmsian influences (though that would have been almost impossible to avoid in late 19th century Germany, unless a Wagner/Liszt acolyte). Though he avoids the word ‘sonata’ its shape and scale might have invited that description. The first movement, Toccata, passes through an interesting sequence of musical ideas and treatments, often agitated, which suggest a more genuine imagination than a marginally gifted composer might produce, with its several shifts of tempo and mood, a feeling of substance and creative talent. And the performance by the two excellent musicians demanded serious attention, persuading one that a second hearing might bring increased admiration and even pleasure.

The other movements are Ballade, Intermezzo and Recitativ und Tarantella. The Ballade was slower and more contemplative, with touches of attractive melody that even became implanted. The scherzo-like third movement changed the tone again, with a fast cross-string work-out for the violin, leaving a very lively impression that could well have suggested earlier origins, Schumann or even Schubert. And the last movement, after a tentative sort of opening – the Recitative, continued in a comparable, energetic vein, calming for a moment, but soon plunging again into the rapids; it then picked up folk-dance rhythms that became distinctly challenging, especially for the violin, though both instruments were treated to music of very similar interest and demands.

Though I had had no idea what to expect from this piece by a composer unknown to me, well before the end and thanks to a splendidly committed and accomplished performance, I had concluded that this was a most interesting piece and that one should explore more of Philipp Scharwenka’s music.

So this recital of over an hour’s length offered interesting discoveries, performed with great flair and accomplishment.

Great performances of unfamiliar Bartók and major Dvořák introduced by young geniuses

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Orchestra Wellington conducted by Marc Taddei with Christopher Park (piano); joined by Arohanui Strings (Sistema, Hutt Valley), led by Alison Eldredge

Simon Eastwood: Infinity Mirror, for Arohanui Strings
Smetana: The Moldau (Vltava from Ma Vlast)
Bartók: Piano concerto No 1
Dvořák: Symphony No 8 in G Op 88

Michael Fowler Centre

Saturday 27 October, 7:30 pm

Each year, one of Orchestra Wellington’s concerts is embellished by a contribution from Arohnui Strings, the Sistema-inspired children’s orchestra based in the Hutt Valley. They took their places at the beginning of the concert in the place of most of the regular strings of Orchestra Wellington, interspersed by a few of the professionals to lend some body to the sound. The nerves and excitement of the young players infected the audience too as they opened the concert, under conductor Marc Taddei, with Simon Eastwood’s Infinity Mirror, commissioned for them by SOUNZ (Centre for New Zealand music). The string elements were sympathetically scored for the young players while there was supporting music from marimba, xylophone and timpani, creating a happy ensemble.  It was followed by Dvořák’s Humoresque (which is actually No 7 of his eight Humoresques, Op 101), and the young string players clearly relished the chance to play an actual classic of the repertoire.

That was followed by Alison Eldredge leading a dozen or more very young musicians across the front of the stage to play the famous last section of the William Tell Overture, plus a Maori item. All of which occupied about half an hour. As a result the concert lasted till about 10 pm.

Denis Adam
In his opening words, Marc Taddei spoke about the death last week of the man who has for several decades been one of New Zealand’s most important benefactor of the arts: Denis Adam; and he dedicated the performance of the Dvořák symphony to his memory. There have been obituaries in the press and references from all those indebted to his Foundation’s generosity, acknowledging his wide-ranging philanthropy. Middle C must add its name to those by recalling that the Adam Foundation was the leading financial supporter of Middle C when it began in 2008, to enable a website to be created and for the reviews to be collected and printed.

At a more personal level, the Adam Foundation gave funding to support a concert series that I had undertaken: two series of lunchtime concerts, in 2000 and 2002, during the New Zealand International Arts Festivals. It will be recalled that daily lunchtime concerts were an important part of the early festivals, from 1986 to 1998. When the festival in 2000 dropped these popular concerts that gave prominence to New Zealand musicians, I decided to tackle the job, along with my wife, Jeanette. We were very lucky to find a talented manager and planner in Charlotte Wilson (now a RNZ Concert presenter), who in the space of about three months did most of the organising and negotiating with fifteen groups of musicians.

The series was very successful, and a surplus was carried over for another series in 2002. It too ended with a modest surplus which has been used to support classical musical enterprises since then.

Vltava
The grown-up musicians then took over, with a piece that was my first love as a nine-year-old, hearing it played in the then ‘Broadcasts to Schools’ which had the important effect of implanting classical music sounds, permanently, in unprejudiced, receptive minds: Smetana’s Moldau, the German name of the river which later became known by its proper Czech name, Vltava. The performance captured the moods of the river as it passed through Bohemia’s countryside and towns, but it struck me that it hadn’t had quite the studied attention that either the Bartók or the Dvořák music demonstrated next.

Bartók
In most ears Bartók’s music can sound more alien and unapproachable than that of any other Balkan/Central European composers (it had not been that way with Liszt whose music has come to be denigrated as not truly ‘Hungarian’). Interestingly, while other composers used the indigenous music of their country in a recognisable framework for listeners in western Europe, Bartók took the more challenging route, sacrificing easy popularity by treating the Magyar music of his country in ways he felt were faithful to its non-Western character.

His first piano concerto was not a work of impetuous, iconoclastic youth as Prokofiev did; Bartók was 45 when he wrote his first concerto (and you might feel that he should have been over his impulse to shock and upset; many great composers were dead by that age!). However, it is a useful weapon in the armory of an adventurous young pianist like Christopher Park; in his hands it was utterly committed: brilliant, fearsome and astonishingly idiomatic.

For the orchestra and conductor, however, the challenge would have been of a very different order; because of its technical and interpretation difficulties it’s rarely performed. Geoffrey Norris, in a Gramophone article a couple of years ago speculated about its treatment:

“Are the concertos rarely performed because they are not popular, or are they not popular because they are seldom performed? In a pragmatic sense, the comparative sparsity of performances could well be explained by finance or, at least, by the demands of orchestral schedules. Particularly in this straitened age when rehearsal costs have to be ruthlessly budgeted, the hours needed to get the First Concerto up to scratch could be punitive. Even present-day British orchestras, acknowledged for their swift, reliable sight-reading, have been known to find a first run-through of the First Concerto troublesome. Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring is said to be a doddle by comparison.”

In the light of that view of the concerto’s (he’s speaking, mainly, of the first two) difficulties, here we had a part-time orchestra with very constrained rehearsal time, tackling it.

Piano Concerto 1: 1st movement   
While it opens with chilling ferocity, reminiscent of parts of The Rite of Spring, that is not the prevailing character of the piece, for after the hard-hitting piano and timpani and the fierce response from brass, convention is acknowledged with sombre bassoons, bass clarinet, and strings in staccato melodic snatches that offer sign posts that are not hard to recognise when they reappear.

Bassoons soon supply an almost conventional tune and later, they offer a hesitating, rising motif all of which contribute to a structure whose parts become recognisable, almost old friends later on.

I’m tempted to say that the piano has the hardest time of it, but then Christopher Park had had an intensive relationship with it for much longer than the orchestra. He had become its master, hitting all the right keys at the right time, as well as capturing its radically non-western idiom as if he’d lived with it from childhood. For Marc Taddei and the orchestra, in spite of the limited time (equals ‘funding’) available, the music’s alien character seemed of little consequence; almost masking its extraordinary success in keeping pace and meeting the technical difficulties. Each time I was tempted to think a passage wasn’t too challenging, I would be struck by another fearsome orchestral flare-up that demonstrated both Taddei’s impressive grasp of the entire work and our orchestra’s real acumen.

Though I’ve listened to recordings of the concerto, this was my first live hearing and the impact of the real thing was a revelation: the orchestration, the careful, studied employment of particular instruments, to far greater purpose and deliberateness than in much 20th century music.

At the start of the 2nd movement, a discreet side drum presages the piano and one by one, timpani, snare drum, cymbal; then very specific percussion; after a couple of minutes, a lone oboe then a clarinet, flute, bass clarinet, cor anglais, but no strings at all. Though not a conventionally contemplative movement, these sounds stayed with me in the most haunting way. But it was of course Christopher Park’s piano that perpetuated the sense of astonishment, for his feat of memory to start with, for his technical panache and profound intellectual grasp of Bartók’s musical idiom and intent.

An entirely new energy emerges as the 3rd movement, launched by various drums, muted trombones, then the piano; again, always in the limelight, commanding wonderment. The orchestration is always precise, deliberate, and this imposes special demands on players, as more general, indiscriminate scoring can conceal smudges; I won’t say there were none but the energy and tempo were of far greater importance and a matter of both astonishment and delight.

Applause was enthusiastic, and Park played an encore, from an utterly different planet: the 20-year-old Chopin’s Nocturne in C sharp minor (Lento con gran espressione), Opus Posthumus.

Dvořák: the Eighth
The common ground for this year’s series, the last five of Dvořák’s symphonies: No 8 followed after the interval. That distance was vital to settle the head and emotions after the extraordinary impact of the Bartók. No 8 is in the sanguine key of G, not subject to painful soul-searching or grieving. The opening, after the calm introductory cellos, then trombones, released its alternating tuttis and folk-tune like themes in a delightful way. Here was a focused energy, that was perhaps a bit lacking in Vltava; the brass was vivid with precision and clarity, and the strings, perhaps not at quite the strength that a Dvořák symphony demands, were splendidly secure.

But their playing of the lovely woodwind-led second movement, Adagio, was both dynamic and poetic; I always especially loved the slow descending scales on strings with a pensive oboe; the long, near-silences that mark the movement seemed exactly in tune with the composer’s spirit; and there are disturbed moments, of unease, atmospheric horns, throbbing strings. It’s a movement rich in changing emotions: for me the Adagio is the very centre of the work; until, that is, we reach the striking and moving parts of each of the other movements.

As so often with third movements, even one as charming, a sort of waltz, as this, its first phase opens peacefully, followed by the more pensive, though equally beautiful second part – a sort of ‘Trio’ to a traditional Scherzo. Every movement has its striking contrasts between unsullied delight and long moments of uncertainty, regret; and all these phases were clearly and vividly created in a great performance. So the last movement, after its brilliant trumpet fanfare drops to a slow, stately episode with the orchestra’s cellos biting into their rising arpeggios; but suddenly bursting with brio as the whole orchestra creates its own driving version of that arpeggio. The last movement is full of variety, yet with just the right amount of repetition and reflection, with a limpid clarinet handling it wistfully as the end approached.

If I have suggested that earlier parts of the symphony held the greatest intellectual and emotional interest for me, hearing the work live in the hands of Taddei (without score before him) and the orchestra, after many years without the opportunity, bringing it to a heart-warming conclusion through its disparate last movement, renewed my understanding of the wonderfully inventive and universal character of the Eighth Symphony.

Exuberance and poetry from pianist and conductor Lars Vogt with the NZSO

Posted on by Peter Mechen

The New Zealand Symphony Orchestra presents:
LARS VOGT PLAYS MOZART

BEETHOVEN – Overture “The Creatures of Prometheus) Op.43
MOZART – Piano Concerto No. 21 in C Major, K.467
WEBERN (orch. Gerard Schwarz) Langsamer Satz
MOZART – Symphony No. 36 in C “Linz”

Michael Fowler Centre, Wellington

Friday 26th October, 2018

Review for “Upbeat” RNZ Concert (with David Morriss)
Monday 29th October 2018

There’s always great interest whenever somebody decides to take on the dual role of soloist and conductor in the performance of music – we had Freddy Kempf here with the NZSO a few years ago playing the entire cycle of Beethoven Piano Concertos, for example, which, from all accounts , was a great success. And now, with even more historical precedent in the case of Mozart’s Piano Concertos, here was Lars Vogt demonstrating his skills in that respect with one of the most famous of all Mozart’s concertos, popularly known as the “Elvira Madigan” concerto, due to its use in a 1970s Swedish film of the same name. How did his playing and conducting of the concerto come across for you?

He is obviously a brilliant pianist and, on this showing, a talented and exciting conductor. In fact I found more interest in what the orchestra was doing under his direction than I did with what he was doing at the keyboard – his playing was predictably brilliant, but at times I thought the passage-work became a bit mechanical – he would ever-so-slightly race the figurations faster than I wanted them to go, giving the music in places a “machine-like” quality, I wanted him to “savour” the music more, and allow it a bit more light and shade.

Of course other people will have “heard” the music somewhat differently – simply where one is sitting in the hall makes a tremendous difference to how one “hears” the music, and the microphones placed over the top of the orchestra will pick up a different kind of “quality of sound with anything we play to that which I heard on Friday evening. I thought, for instance, that from where I was sitting the violins seemed to be dominated by, even sound underpowered next to the wind and brass instruments in tutti – but others could well feel different, depending on where they were sitting. Music, as we know, evokes very subjective responses, and it would be a very boring world if we as listeners all felt the same way about everything we heard.

The slow movement we’ve just heard part of had a silken, light-as-a-feather quality throughout, but with plenty of variety in the exchange of phrasings between piano and orchestra. The only thing was that, at this tempo it was all over so quickly! – It came across as more divertimento-like than as a serenade, beautifully done though it was.

All-in-all, do you think he was able to successfully combine the functions of both soloist and conductor in this performance? We know that Mozart did this – conduct his own concertos from the keyboard – and most successfully, by all counts. 

I find myself wondering whether these people who direct from the keyboard need to be so demonstrative in their direction of the players. I was speaking to someone from the orchestra who had played in the Freddy Kempf performances of the Beethoven concerti shortly after, and I remember this person saying that they wished Kempf had simply sat still and directed the players from the keyboard and not jumped up and down from his seat all the time. I imagine it varies from musician to musician what they feel is necessary to do to achieve control when conducting, but I still found it distracting, as I did Kempff’s movements.

I wondered whether there was an element of anxiety in Vogt’s playing, wanting to get to the next orchestral entry to bring the players in, or trying to keep an “edge” to the overall performance. The playing in the slow movement we’ve just heard was lovely – but for me, the finale was the most successful movement, because it had an overall “bubbling exuberance” spirit from everybody that was extremely well-captured, as was a slightly more wistful sequence in the music’s alternate minor-key sequence from the opening

Also in the concert there was a real rarity – an early work by Anton Webern which I’m sure most people on hearing would never associate with the actual composer! Rather like a piece of early Schoenberg, do you think?

This was Webern’s single-movement work “Langsamer Satz”, which I thought was a beautiful piece! I found myself thinking, “How could this have been written by Webern?” – because it was so romantic-sounding, which is the antithesis of what most of the music by Webern I’ve heard sounds like! I thought this piece had the makings of some kind of modern classic, like Schoenberg’s Verklarte Nacht, or Barber’s Adagio for Strings.

Of course Webern’s original, written in 1905, was for string quartet (Webern himself never heard the work, incidentally). It was the only movement he completed of a planned string quartet, and was lost for well-nigh 60 years.  After being rediscovered and played, the piece came to the attention of American conductor and composer Gerard Schwarz, who thought it would sound more effective if transcribed for string orchestra, with a bass part added. This was done and first performed in 1982.

Concluding the concert was Mozart’s “Linz Symphony  – one of a trio of Symphonies named after cities the work had a particular association with – the “Paris”, the “Linz” and the “Prague”. Mozart was supposed to have composed this work in four days – does it sound like a “rush job to you?

Not even slightly – of course Mozart was renowned for his ability to put things together inside his head before they’d even been committed to paper – and this symphony seems as though it almost “wrote itself” in that respect – he must have been truly inspired by his surroundings or put in a frame of mind that gave his imagination full reign, because the work has a wonderful “spontaneous” quality right throughout. The only detail in the playing I found difficulty in “placing” in an overall sense was the conductor’s somewhat abrupt way with the opening chords, before the music relaxed in the quieter sections which followed. I found it hard to marry the two sections together, because the music has always seemed to me to continue in the same rhythmic vein, albeit muscular and arresting at the beginning and suspenseful and charged in the subsequent passages. I thought it could have all been done in one tempo. Apart from this, I thought the overall conception of the movement beautifully brought out the music’s different characters in a flowing and unified way.

The name “Linz” (after the city of Linz) suggests something with a certain “public ” character, as if drawing attention to the characteristics of a city as a whole, something, of course representative of a great number of people, something easily identifiable with a place’s particular set of characteristics.

Yes, you’re right – it seems to be a very “public” statement, doesn’t it, especially compared with other symphonic works like the two G Minor symphonies. The very opening is a “call to attention”, with a kind of rumbustiousness that follows, driving the music forward, the second movement is dance-like rather than ruminative and deep, and the third movement – well, the third movement is an out-and-out invitation for people to kick off their shoes and join in the Minuet. It was so infectiously played, here, that in the trio section, one could almost imagine the dancers’ impatience to get back to the dance when the Minuet finally returned!

There used to be a famous rehearsal recording of this symphony available, one conducted by the great Bruno Walter in the 1950s – 1955 I think….. It illustrates how much Mozart interpretation has changed over the years, as you can hear if you own Walter, Klemperer or Karl Bohm recordings of these works – and yet Mozart remains the same spirit in the hands of each conductor.

I was sitting close to John Button, the DomPost critic, and asked him at halftime whether he remembered the Walter rehearsal recording – he immediately said, “Yes, especially Mr Bloom, the oboe player!” Walter talks a lot with “Mr Bloom”, the oboist in the orchestra, whose name was hereby captured for all time on these records! I believe this recording was from 1955, which is pretty old, now – and yet the chance to hear a famous conductor painstakingly rehearse a work that he knows and loves is one I wouldn’t think anybody interested in music and music interpretation would want to miss.

What would you say unites those different styles of playing so that you could say – yes, it still sounds like Mozart? What did you hear on Friday evening that bore a relationship to those older performances we know?

Well, after the somewhat abrupt start, with those assertive, swiftly-played chords I’ve already mentioned, I thought the playing and conducting brought out a sense of “line” that I hear on those older recordings – and that was what I think gave Lars Vogt’s conducting of the symphony such overall strength. It was a consistency – a kind of “connective tissue” – which I felt was made up of things such as the feeling of the players being encouraged to “own” their musical phrases, so that this sense of “caring” about the music was constantly being presented to us  – that’s what I mean by “line” not everything played legato, or anything like that, but, as I’ve said, a consistency.

The other prevailing sense for me was Vogt’s bringing out the music’s character – and I felt this was better, more strongly achieved in the symphony than in the concerto because the conductor was free to conduct and “focus” the music’s on-going consistencies, generating a truly infectious exuberance and not just note-spinning, which I thought parts of the concerto weren’t entirely free from. Again, there are parallels with an older style of music-making, the best of the modern performances just as concerned with the music’s overall feeling as with some kind of so-called “authentic” way of playing it. This came to full fruition, I think, in the symphony’s finale, which seemed to engage every player and bring out the music’s essential joyfulness.

 

“Hammers and Horsehair” (joined with birdsong) enchant an Aro St audience in Wellington

Posted on by Peter Mechen

HAMMERS AND HORSEHAIR –

Romantic Music from Bohemia, Austria and Germany

JAN KALIVODA – Three Songs for voice, ‘cello and piano
Der Schöne Stern (The Beautiful Star)
Die Abendglocken (The Evening Bells)
Der Wanderer (The Wanderer)

LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN – Sonata in A Major for ‘Cello and Piano Op.69

ROBERT SCHUMANN – Kinderscenen (Scenes from Childhood) for solo piano Op.15

FRANZ SCHUBERT – Two Songs for voice and piano
Suleika 1
Im Haine (In the Wood)

Song for voice, ‘cello and piano (originally for voice, clarinet and piano)
Der Hirt auf dem Felsen (The Shepherd on the Rock)

Rowena Simpson (soprano)
Robert Ibell (‘cello)
Douglas Mews (square piano)

Aro Valley Community Centre Hall,
Aro St., Wellington

Thursday, 25th October 2018

We sat amid soft lighting on comfortable, homely furniture, talking softly with our fellow audience-members while listening to pianist Douglas Mews “tuning up” his square piano and then “playing us in” with music that I for one didn’t know – it actually sounded, appropriately enough, like a kind of improvisation, perfect for warming up player, instrument and our increasingly attentive ears, until all was ready. ‘Cellist Robert Ibell having by then “tuned up” his own instrument, it was time for soprano Rowena Simpson to welcome us to the concert on behalf of all three musicians.

I had previously heard singer and pianist performing together (also in the Aro Valley, as it happened!) as long ago as 2013  in a most entertaining soiree-like presentation entitled “Lines from the Nile”, an evocative, if fanciful slice of local music performance history, cleverly devised and written by Jacqueline Coats. If there were fewer opportunities this time round for Rowena Simpson to demonstrate histrionic as well as vocal and musical abilities, the repertoire itself plus the singer’s glorious song-bird-like tones made up for any possible lessening of overall effect upon the concert’s audience.

More recently, I’d encountered the “Hammers and Horsehair” combination of Douglas Mews and ‘cellist Robert Ibell, in a splendid 2016 concert at St.Mark’s Church, Woburn, playing repertoire from a similar period to this evening’s, though with no actual repetition of repertoire. I commented then on the “rightness” of their use of period instruments for this music, and was delighted all over again this evening at the musicians’ continued ability to make their beautiful instruments speak with what sounded to my ears like voices “belonging” to this music. Modern instruments can, of course, “do it” as well, if the interpreter is sensitive and visionary enough, but here we had performers and their instruments sounding so integrated as to take themselves right into the various worlds of the pieces played – an extraordinary fusion of sensibilities.

The musicians presented occasional readings which linked the music performed to either its era, or to its mood, or sometimes to the contributions made to New Zealand’s musical life by various German speaking musicians.  However, we began the concert with three songs by Czech-born composer Jan Kalivoda (sometimes spelt as “Kalliwoda”) who lived from 1801 to 1866 – the  German texts of the songs were translated and the words reproduced in the concert’s written programme, enabling us to savour all the more the pure, bell-like tones and exquisitely-floated phrases brought to the music by Rowena Simpson’s lovely soprano voice.

The beautifully-tailored accompaniments gently brought out the flowing triplet rhythms of the first song “Der Schöne Stern” (The Beautiful Star), making the perfect “sound-cushion” for the voice’s solicitous expressions of hope and comfort to a fearful, despairing heart. The following “Die Abendglocken” began with a beautifully-voiced ‘cello solo, the arco phrasings demurely turning to pizzicato when accompanying the voice, both ‘cellist and pianist complementing the soprano’s rapt exploration of the song’s varieties, in places hushed and atmospheric, in others radiant and full-throated. Finally, a brisk ¾ rhythm brought in “Der Wanderer”, the music enthusiastic and urgent as the singer waxed lyrical about “strange lands where unfamiliar stars shine in the heavens”, Robert Ibell’s cello-playing giving weight and colour to the surge of rollicking energy at the music’s end.

Beethoven’s ‘Cello Sonatas were the first written for that instrument which gave it proper “soloist” status. Rowena Simpson told us that the manuscript of this particular work was headed “Amid tears and sorrow” (Inter Lacrimas et Luctum), though the impression given by the work itself doesn’t really accord with such sentiments, possibly prompted by the composer’s thwarted interest in one Therese Malfatti, who eventually married one of the composer’s aristocratic patrons, Baron Ignaz von Gleichenstein, an amateur ‘cellist and the dedicatee of this sonata.

Simpson then told us briefly about Maria Dronke, a German-born Jew who came to New Zealand with her husband John and their two children in 1939 to escape Nazi persecution. Maria, who had been a well-known actress in Berlin, began teaching drama and voice production in Wellington, while John, a Judge whose legal training was not “recognised” in New Zealand, worked in menial jobs until he was able to secure a position as a double-bass player in the National Orchestra. Maria eventually became well-known as a play producer, drama and poetry recitalist and teacher, and included New Zealand poetry in her recitals – she helped lift the levels of acting and production of local theatrical ventures, as well as enlivening the cultural and social climate with her presence. According to Edith Campion, a former pupil, she was “volatile, brimful of temperament and never tepid….” She died in Lower Hutt in August 1987.

The Beethoven Sonata seemed the perfect “rejoiner” to the tale, the music’s personality as distinctive as that of the subject of Simpson’s brief anecdote. From the cello’s questioning opening phrase and the piano’s “raised eyebrows” reply, the music played with our sensibilities through minor-key agitations, and succeeding phrases whose ascents seem never-ending, everything capturing the composer’s whimsical fancies and cast-iron sense of overall direction, so that the music’s “character” sang out with all of its volatilities and overall purposes given their due. The jovial scherzo’s skipping energies were brought out with both tremendous fire and playful humour, right up to the movement’s unexpectedly throwaway ending.

I thought the brief but heartfelt slow movement demonstrated the players’ melting rapport, the phrases and colourings beautifully varied, making the most of the sequence’s interlude-like brevity, before the finale scampered in from out of nowhere, the irruptions of energy resulting in the occasional finger-slip or strained intonation, but more importantly adding to the fun and excitement of the music, the players challenging our capacities (and their own capabilities) to keep up with the rapid-fire figurations and their variants. I was astonished at the sheer transcendence of sound generated by these instruments via their own particular timbral and tonal qualities, a tribute to the skill of the players in making their instruments “speak” with such overall impact and specific focus on detail, and to their bravery in taking “risks” in aid of getting the music’s spirit across to us.

The instrument Douglas Mews was using had its own colourful history which I fancy I had heard something of at a previous concert, if it was, indeed the same instrument, one brought to New Zealand from the Shetland Islands in 1874. The next item on the programme certainly showed off the instrument’s characteristics in a way appropriate to the music, its capacity for expressing both intimate and assertive feeling, and its characteristic colourings in different registers and with contrasting dynamic levels – a “way more” volatile instrument than the average grand piano! It seemed perfectly suited to convey the worlds within worlds aspects of Robert Schumann’s exquisite pieces collectively known as “Kinderscenen”, all but two of its thirteen pieces performed by Mews for us.

A reading of Katherine Mansfield’s poem “Butterfly” set the scene for the music – sequences of deceptive simplicity containing as much reflection as movement, but just as liable to “irrupt” in forthright ways as each succeeding “picture” was brought into view. Though the most popular of the set of pieces, “Traumerei” (Dreaming) here made an unforgettable impression under Mews’s fingers, played with song-like expression, giving each note its own distinctive, but still organic, inflection. The middle section conveyed moments of urgency, with impulses momentarily creating micro-tensions that dissolved as simply as they were wrought, the whole then rounded with a lump-in-throat ascent that caught us in thrall for the briefest of moments before allowing the dream to drift away.

The “Knight of the Rocking-Horse” which immediately followed came as a bit of a shock, as the usual “At the Fireside” ( which Mews chose to omit) is a somewhat gentler “waking up”! After this tempestuous number, and the volatile “Frightening”, we were reclaimed by gentler forces and gradually becalmed, the concluding “The Poet Speaks” here properly eloquent and reassuring in Mews’ hands, and altogether part of a memorable musical journey.

Rowena Simpson then read for us a couple of extracts from a diary kept by Anna Dierks (b.1856), the daughter of a Lutheran pastor who married a missionary in Upper Moutere, later living in Waitotara and then Wooodville. She was obviously musical and when in Nelson was distressed at the lack of quality in her local church choir – an 1875 entry mentions “terrible singing”. She had obviously decided she would attempt to rectify the situation, but it wasn’t an easy task, as an entry a couple of years later (1877) indicates, re choir practice – “It is not easy to lead such a choir – but the Lord will give me strength!”.

Singing of an obviously different order from Simpson concluded the evening’s programme, three of Schubert’s numerous songs, the first, Suleika I, with a text written by Marianne von Willemer, a contemporary and friend of Goethe’s, whose poetry was actually published by the latter under his own name. Willemer and Goethe had had a kind of literary “relationship”, taking pseudonyms and trading poems under the names of “Suleika” and “Hatem”. It all made for a particularly potent amalgam of impulses, a “gift” for a composer to render as music!

The opening of the song recalled the composer’s earlier setting of the same poet’s “Gretchen am Spinnrade” in its agitations, adroitly modulating between major and minor as the singer poured out the music’s intensities, Simpson carrying the feeling of the words so beautifully, doing well with the stratospheric intensities of the vocal line. These highly-charged feelings subsided into  a touching concluding sequence, conveying “the heart’s true message”, drawing forth tender phrasings from the singer and pulsing chords from the pianist, leaving the “infinite longing” of the setting to ceaselessly echo in the silence.

The second song was “In the Woods” (Im Haime), a song the programme notes described as “a bitter-sweet Viennese waltz-melody. I thought the performance most successful, with soaring vocal phrases supported by a beautifully-lilting accompaniment, and each verse of the song sounding like a true exultation of the forest’s capacities for inspiring feelings of well-being.

Before the final item ‘cellist Robert Ibell thanked the audience for “braving the elements” to attend the concert. Referring to the group’s recent twenty-concert tour of the country he recounted the experience of connecting here and there with certain people who had, in turn, a previous association with the instruments the musicians took on the tour. He also quoted from the writings of Julius Von Haast, geologist and explorer, who came to New Zealand from Germany in 1858 with a view to providing information regarding the country’s “suitability for German emigrants”, staying on in New Zealand and eventually becoming the first curator of the Canterbury Museum. Haast was a violinist and a singer, and his wife was also a singer, enabling them to take part in musical events in Christchurch, where they lived. Ibell quoted from Haast’s words – “geology during the day, and music in the evening” which the latter had written to a fellow-geologist, by way of imploring him to come and visit!

The final item was Schubert’s “The Shepherd on the Rock”, his resplendent setting of words by Wilhelm Muller and Karl August Vanhargen von Ense, a work that the programme note called something of “a mini-cantata” in its range and scope, written by the composer during the final months of his life for the soprano, Anna Milde-Hauptman. She wanted a display piece with an especially brilliant conclusion. Schubert never heard it performed as he died just weeks after the work’s completion. Notable also for its inclusion of a clarinet part, the work was here performed with the ‘cello taking over the former instrument’s role.

At first, to hear the ‘cello playing the lines one normally encountered on a clarinet sounded odd; but as the work proceeded I came to enjoy the contrasting timbres and tones, in the sense of a completely different kind of relationship, more of a “real” partnership than the original singer/clarinet echo scenario. Here the soprano’s delivery was radiant in every way, following the long, sinuous ‘cello lines throughout the opening, and awakening the “echo-impulses” from the music’s textures. It was the piano’s turn to shine during the melancholic middle section, with liquid, fluid tones, underlining the loneliness of the shepherd amidst the quiet and empty vistas, illuminated most beautifully by the soprano’s stratospheric ascent and the cello’s introduction of more hopeful impulses, taken up and flung further on high by the soprano’s bell-like exultations, here an exhilarating effect of joyful release, with caution tossed to the four winds! We all loved it to pieces!

We didn’t let the musicians go until we had extracted what we could out of them, so intense was our pleasure at what we had heard. In reward for our appreciation we were given as an encore some music by Louis Spohr, a charming duet between a girl and a bird, in which (so we were told) the bird sang of spring and the sun, and the girl sang of love! Singer and ‘cello both played their parts winningly, the trio enjoying the conventional but still effective ecstasies of the music, before concluding the piece with some delicate, exquisite-sounding phrases. It was music-making that gave rise to thoughts of how fortunate we all were to have witnessed and enjoyed it all.

A lunchtime concert for the exploratory and spirited on violin and cello

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

St Andrew’s lunchtime concerts

Rupa Maitra (violin) and Margaret Guldborg (cello)

Pieces by Halvorsen, Bréval and Ravel

St Andrew’s on The Terrace

Wednesday 24 October, 12:15 pm

Duos between the piano and many other instruments are numerous, but between pairs of other instruments, without a keyboard, rare; though string quartets and less often string trios and quintets seem to be popular and work well.

This was an opportunity to put it to the test.

Halvorsen’s Passacaglia based on a theme from Handel’s harpsichord suite in G minor is not completely obscure. The tune lends itself to variations and Halvorsen made it into something of a virtuoso showpiece, though it’s rather more than that; and though this performance didn’t exploit its bravura character, it was played with imagination. While Handel’s fingerprints were evident in the character of the melody, the late 19th century, a Paganini/Sarasate spirit guides these variations. In some ways it was not a propitious opening piece as it drew attention to a contrast in tone, even in control of articulation, between the two instruments; the cello tone was rather more polished and mellow than the violin’s where the high register tended to be thin.

The Duo by Jean-Baptiste Bréval, cellist, and a close contemporary of Mozart, was found in a collection of Airs varies for violin and cello and produced a curious sound that probably reflected the very different musical climates between Italy/German lands and France. The variation character was not as conspicuous, wide-ranging as might be found in German music of the period; the composer called for a lot of harmonics as well as very high normal fingering on the cello, and Guldborg handled them comfortably. As might be expected from a cellist-composer, that instrument tended to be more conspicuous.

The major work in the recital was Ravel’s Sonata for violin and cello of 1922. I think most listeners, blindfold, would find it hard to identify the composer, other than through a process of elimination, and even then ‘Ravel’ might be deleted. Nor is identification easier because of its connection with Debussy’s death four years before.

Each of the four movements is emotionally and stylistically distinct.  The first movement, Allegro, calls for curious kinds of duetting, counterpointing, handling the two instruments, sometimes in happy accord, sometimes as if in different universes; lots of demanding playing high on the fingerboards of both instruments.

The second movement, Très vif, rhythmically a different creature from the Allegro, insistent, short motifs, but then a long, almost elegiac, passage from the violin, its pedigree still very obscure. In many ways it struck me as singularly avant-garde, not inconceivable in the immediate post-war years, post dodecaphonic, Schoenbergian era, yet essentially tonal.

The only quasi peaceful episode is the ‘Lent’ third movement. It’s thoughtful but even here there is nothing of a more familiar character that might shackle it to Ravel. Margaret Guldborg had spoken briefly about it, hinting at its possible kinship with Shostakovich (and the 2nd movement with Stravinsky), but neither helped. There were tortured, abrasive elements; and there were moments that I thought listeners with more open-minded ears than mine might have rated as melodic; and there were passages of dialogue between the two instruments that were arresting, though not in a language in which I am fluent.

The cello opened the last movement, Vif, actually, ‘Vif avec entrain’, (lively with enthusiasm), gruffly, in the cello’s low register, as was Maitra’s violin, which also revealed an adventurous spirit. I also enjoyed what I felt as a characteristically Ravellian, comedic element, notably in the rhythmic games played: in the way the two challenged each other. It is some years since I heard it played live, and again I was persuaded by its considerable musical value, though its beauties are probably not to be enjoyed without effort.

In this, the contrast in timbres and colour between the two instruments, to a certain disadvantage in the other two pieces, became a positive element in a piece that demanded attention to every detail. So it proved a lunchtime concert that challenged a little, as well as opening one’s mind to unfamiliar but worthwhile repertoire.