Katherine McIndoe with brilliant performance of Britten’s Les Illuminations at St Andrew’s

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

St Andrew’s Lunchtime Concerts
Katherine McIndoe (soprano) with Catherine Norton (piano)

Britten: Les Illuminations (I Fanfare, II Villes, III Antique, IV Royauté, V Marine, VI Interlude, VII Being beauteous, VIII Parade, IX Départ)
Copland: Selections from Old American Songs: Long Time Ago, Simple Gifts, The Little Horses
Britten: Selection from Folk Song Arrangements: Dink’s Song

St Andrew’s on The Terrace

Wednesday 15 August, 12:15 pm

Soprano Katherine McIndoe has been at the Guildhall School in London for the past year, though she was last heard, conspicuously, in both the operas staged in the middle of last year by Rhona Fraser’s Days Bay Opera: Tatyana in Eugene Onegin and Guilietta in I Capuleti e i Montecchi.  In Britain she sang at the Aldeburgh Festival last year as a Britten-Piers Young Artist, and was the Governess in The Turn of the Screw and Marcellina in The Marriage of Figaro, and at the Barbican was Sister Catherine in the UK premiere of Jake Heggie’s Dead Man Walking (in which another prominent New Zealander, Teddy Tahu Rhodes, had sung in its inaugural production in San Francisco). Currently she is a finalist Australian Singing Competition.

Pianist Catherine Norton preceded McIndoe at the Guildhall by a few years, then as a Britten-Piers Young Artist, but also at the Franz Schubert-Institute for Lieder and Graham Johnson’s Young Songmakers’ Almanac; and she has appeared at the Barbican, LSO St Luke’s and the Oxford Lieder Festival. And she has performed in France, Germany and Northern Ireland and Malta. She is now tutor in vocal accompaniment at Victoria University School of Music.

So this was a significant recital from a highly promising singer with one of the best accompanists in the country.

By far the most important item in the 45 minute recital was Britten’s setting of nine of Rimbaud’s Les Illuminations. The name needs to be understood in the sense of the practice of decorating manuscripts – throughout the Middle Ages and even into the printing era.

McIndoe sang the cycle, memorised, in very convincing, idiomatic French: accompanied by the piano (instead of the original string orchestra).

Though the nature of the St Andrew’s free lunchtime concerts limits presentation costs, it’s a pity that fuller programmes could not have been offered for a recital like this. They should ideally be printed in both French and English, and several pages would probably be required. There are 42 prose poems in Rimbaud’s collection, written mainly in his youth, during the time of his relationship with Verlaine (ten years older than Rimbaud), which famously involved the latter shooting Rimbaud, though not fatally.

It opens arrestingly and appropriately (or not), with Fanfare which is not one of the poems, but simply the last line from Parade which is the second-to-last song in Britten’s cycle (‘J’ai seul la clef de cette parade sauvage’); and it’s a line that is repeated between Marine and Being Beauteous, as well as in Parade itself. It’s everything a fanfare should be, commanding attention, compelling. Then Villes II, wild and staccato, suggesting modern, urban chaos (even in post 1870 Paris), with satanic moments echoing the Ride to the Abyss from Berlioz’s La damnation de Faust.

Though Britten’s settings are by no means influenced by the more radical styles of early 20th century music, they do create a singular, unpredictable, unique feeling, as distinctive musically as are Rimbaud’s poems which were likewise shockingly radical in form and sense. They range, from both voice and piano, across jumpy staccato intervals, sometimes collaborative, sometimes in a sort of conflict. They sometimes present a polished sheen, then a ferocious outburst expressing terror or danger; then a calm episode, a slow waltz rhythm with an adventurous melody with keyboard-spanning intervals.

In Being Beauteous, words seem to struggle against the music, moving from hushed to contorted utterances; and Parade, frenzied, left an impression of violence hardly expressed before in music. I scribbled ‘a sense that nothing before or since has been created like this’. A momentary feeling, and not altogether inaccurate.

Though I was acquainted with Les Illuminations many years ago, I had not paid them close attention and so I found this performance a revelation. With the poems and the song texts in front of me as I wrote, I realised that Britten cherry-picks words from each poem, and a couple of times borrows a bare sentence from other, unidentified poems: for example, there’s a short sentence before Antique, ‘J’ai tendu des cordes à clocher à clocher”, that comes from some scraps labelled Fragments de feuillet 12.

Like most great songs and song cycles, words and music are of equal importance, and together they conjure very particular impressions and sensibilities; the poems were ground-breaking in the 1880s, and Britten’s settings of about a quarter of them made a remarkable impact on musical England in the 1940s (though probably on very small numbers).

One would expect that audience members, when they got home, would have reached for their anthologies of French verse or detoured by the Public Library to borrow a volume of Rimbaud’s verse.

For your amusement… enlightenment… edification, I found this comment on the YouTube recording by Ian Bostridge: “It’s like a madman shouting in the street. Imagine a stranger coming up to you with an intense expression and emphatically saying to you, “I alone hold the key to this passing parade” referring to life in general. Why do we respect madness, which was once considered repulsive, and conflate it with deep insight? When did our civilization become like this? We must wake up, especially now, or we are doomed.”

After that, Copland’s three Old American Songs seemed slightly irrelevant, though performed with distinction, offering vivid contrasts from one to another. And returning to Britten at the end with Dink’s Song, American originated, it was stunningly accompanied by its startling Brittenesque piano part. While the essence of the performance of Les Iluminations rested heavily on both words and music, both singer and pianist provided an immaculate and highly accomplished vehicle for the entire recital.

This was a lunchtime concert to be remembered.

 

Third fine Orchestra Wellington concert, unthemed but with Dvořák 7, a great success

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Orchestra Wellington conducted by Marc Taddei with Michael Houstoun (piano)

Mozart: Piano Concerto No 14 in E flat, K 449
Gao Ping: Wild Cherry Tree
Dvořák: Symphony No 7 in D minor, Op 70

Michael Fowler Centre

Saturday 11 August 7:30 pm

The third of Orchestra Wellington’s 2018 subscription concerts offered an unusual mix of music: nothing unusual about the theme symphony-Composer, Dvořák, and an unfamiliar Mozart piano concerto, but the premiere of a commissioned piece by a Chinese composer with New Zealand associations, no doubt raised a certain curiosity … or misgivings: that may have explained the slightly less-than-sold-out audience – a rarity for this orchestra these days.

Mozart K 449
The Piano Concerto No 14 is the first of the second set of three (K 449, 450, 451) that Mozart wrote after coming to Vienna in 1782; they are regarded as the beginning of Mozart’s period of greatest creativity. No 14 was the first to be recorded in Mozart’s own notebook listing his compositions, from 9 February 1784.  It is common to marvel at Mozart’s output of masterpieces from that time, especially the piano concertos (but of course much else, including the great operas) in the dozen years from 1784.

I was actually surprised to find that I didn’t know this piece very well and that the one I had expected and knew well, was No 12, one of the earlier group of three written in Vienna. So this proved a delightful re-awakening to a serious, confident, at the same time, very sanguine work, from the hands of just that kind of pianist, with conductor and orchestra who could do it splendid, totally sympathetic justice.

My initial feeling was the orchestra was perhaps a little too stripped back to ‘classical’ dimensions, though the numbers (12, 10, 8, 6, 3 as far as I could see) seemed fine; but it seemed to invite a warmer, richer sound. So the back and forth motifs between piano and orchestra in the first movement and the sonorities generally might have been a little more robust and fully-fleshed. But the orchestra once more revealed its responsiveness to this engrossing music; and I loved Houstoun’s elegant little ornaments, and the overall joyousness that he managed to draw from its E flat tonality.

The Andantino movement has a somewhat reticent air and to keep audience attention might not have been easy, but it happened, with Mozart exploiting his skills at embellishing and varying working its magic, with Houstoun’s lyrically detailed fingering. I loved the way they handled its final, reticent notes and the non-emphatic opening of the Finale, where a typical, characterful melody takes hold, beguilingly, stretching it till the time for the Coda, triplets, brought it quickly to an end.

Wild Cherry Tree
The main piece in the first half was a premiere commissioned by Prof. Jack Richards from Gao Ping, for some years lecturer in music at Canterbury University. Wild Cherry Tree is based on folk tales and impressions from the region where he was born – Sichuan, the province in south-central China, east of Tibet. The vocal parts, presumably in Mandarin, or the Sichuan dialect of Mandarin, were sung by counter-tenor Xiao Ma and bass Roger Wilson. The first thing to record was the size of the orchestra, normal late-Romantic – four horns, though just double woodwinds and trumpets. But the back row could have marked it as a post-serialist juggernaut, with several keyed percussion instruments, a variety of drums, a set of three tuned gongs, claves and certain items whose names escape me. Their noise, dominated initially by timpani and bass drum, was impressive, but it was often refined by sensitively blended woodwinds, as well as the many more subtle percussion items.

The first of the four ‘movements’ was sung by Wilson whose pronunciation was a matter of admiration, though there remained a European timbre that no amount of linguistic virtuosity, with which he is generously equipped, can disguise. Without recourse to the programme notes, I might have been hard-pressed to attribute the sounds to ‘Snow-capped mountains’. But then, scenic or narrative associations of music often escape me and rarely seem relevant in my appreciation of music, particularly of Asian music which seems to be much devoted to landscape and other visual sources. So I found the orchestral episodes elucidated the vocal parts, and as the music passed, its meaning and emotional qualities and made increasing musical sense.

The second part, ‘Scarlet Horse’, seemed to have set itself challenging subject matter: ‘overlapping romantic relationship between past and present, fantasy and reality, with contrasting visual images… roaming the world on a scarlet horse’. If the theme seemed to be a matter of some obscurity, galloping rhythms enlivened it, and the actual sung episodes delivered by Xiao Ma’s counter-tenor offered a musical experience that felt perfectly matched and coherent. The timbre of his voice, of rare purity and beauty worked persuasively to suggest what we have come to associate with Chinese music even though the pentatonic scale did not dominate the soundscape. Later, the two voices duetted, sometimes in passages that were colourful and animated, sometimes in what I took to be wordless episodes.

The counter-tenor alone sang through the third part, ‘Little Flower’, accompanied by percussion, including the small gongs, marimba and high, delicate woodwinds. flutes. Both voices shared the fourth movement, ‘Under the Wild Cherry Tree’, with the two alternating in a sort of dialogue, charmingly, with delicate string playing, alongside tuned percussion.

This was a challenging score in every way, though not in the avant-garde, contemporary western music sense; there was no doubt that the orchestra’s success with it flowed from some serious rehearsal under conductor Taddei along with the orchestra’s high level of musical skill that can easily be unremarked.

Dvořák’s Seventh
It was Dvořák’s 7th symphony from which the concert’s name ‘London’ derived (though oddly, that was mentioned neither in the season brochure nor in the evening’s programme book; however, it had been mentioned in much earlier publicity). It was first performed in London in 1885 (he made nine visits to England between 1884 and 1896). The composer himself regarded it very highly.

With their decision to feature five Dvořák symphonies this year, Taddei and the orchestra have already shown their flair and affection for his music; I hope that audiences have understood how his earlier symphonies, and not just those numbered 1 to 4 which had earlier been excluded from the canon altogether, have been seriously under-exposed as a result of what I feel is the blind popularity of the Ninth. The Fifth and especially the Sixth have been revealed as very fine works, but the last three are more or less on a par, i.e. to be compared with Schumann’s and Brahms’s, and some scholars rate the Seventh as the best; I’m so inclined as well.

This was a beautiful, sensitive performance that explored all the delicate and meditative aspects of this D minor work, a key that for some reason most composers have used to convey sadness, grief, sometimes anger, certainly, seriousness of purpose. (Mozart’s piano concerto no 20 and Brahms’s first piano concerto, the Choral Symphony, Schubert’s Death and the Maiden quartet, Mozart’s Requiem, Franck’s symphony, Bruckner’s ninth, Sibelius’s sixth, Shostakovich’s fifth symphonies…. )

Those characteristics were evident right from the beginning: sombre, with restless, uneasy melodies, but before long these same ideas acquire a feeling of contentment, with passages that are optimistic and almost joyous, and it slowly subsides to end peacefully. The orchestra captured the greatness of the second movement, with its beautiful, near flawless horn passages, and descending themes that expressed a meditative spirit, a mood that for all the composer’s joyful, Slavonic flavoured music, harbours very a deep pensiveness, and the playing here was both meticulous and moving.

There is also a very special character about the Scherzo which, miraculously, combines the jocular, a feeling of contentment with looming sadness. There is a remarkable persistence of mood and musical spirit throughout the work, with a feeling of inevitability as movement follows movement. That seemed especially strong at the end of the vigorous Scherzo and opening of the very deliberate, serious-minded Finale: the two movements, superficially in tempo, far apart but their moods are so satisfyingly complementary.

I think I have recently lamented the way musical taste gets dominated by a single ‘great’ work by a composer, in each genre, and that’s true for Dvořák; for me this fine performance of the Seventh, emphatically put the New World in its place: not above, but simply in the same class of musical inspiration and integrity as the 7th (and the 8th, which we come to in October; not to mention last month’s 6th which used for a long time to be a cherished cassette tape companion in the car).

The programme might have looked a bit lacking a common theme, with a big, pageant-like Chinese work between a Mozart concerto and the Dvořák; but it proved a wonderfully enjoyable evening.

 

Ensemble Zefiro a breath of fresh, tangy air in Wellington

Posted on by Peter Mechen

Chamber Music New Zealand presents:
ENSEMBLE ZEFIRO

Alfredo Bernardini , Paolo Grazzi – oboes
Alberto Grazzi, Giorgio Mandolesi – bassoons
Dileno Baldin, Francesco Meucci – horns

HANDEL – Due arie HWV 410,411
Marcia in F Major HWV 346
FASCH – Sonata in G Minor, FWV N:g1
TELEMANN – Ouverture in F Major TWV 55:F9
HAYDN – Parthia in C Major Hob.II.7
MOZART – Divertimento in E-flat, K.252/240a.

Michael Fowler Centre,

Friday 10th August, 2018

I’ve copied out the titles of the pieces as per programme, which accounts for the unusual names for aria (arie), overture (ouverture) and partita (Parthia), the last of which I thought at first was some kind of misprint. But no – there it was – Parthia, an alternative form of “partita”. So as it was something I didn’t know before I thought it was worth committing to review! However I must admit to being a little bemused by something else in the programme, the description of the Greek God Zefiro (whose name the ensemble has adopted) as “tender and Kind”, when I knew the legend of the same God’s jealous petulance which prompted the mean-spirited act of using his powers to blow a discus off course to disrupt a game between Apollo and a young boy, Hyacinth, whom Zefiro fancied – which ploy went horribly wrong when the object hit and killed Hyacinth! – the best-laid plans, etc…….still. there are so many conflicting stories regarding these deities, it’s a case of “pick-and-choose” when it comes to identifying with certain personalities and their traits. (hmmm – I’d better get on with the review, I suppose…….)

I loved the ensemble’s playing, right from the beginning, though I must admit that Handel’s music is one of those phenomena happily available to all and sundry that simply can’t help inducing a sense of well-being and contentment on contact! Here, straightaway, we in the audience (a decently-stocked ground floor at the MFC) were simply buoyed along by the energy, wit and charm of the composer’s seemingly limitless invention, fully realised by the ensemble’s playing. And what made the music even more endearing on this occasion were those characterful “authentic-instrument” sounds, the arrestingly nasal oboes, the throaty bassoons and the fruity (if occasionally asthmatic) horns. The point of the exercise seemed to me to refreshingly differentiate and contrast, rather than blend and smooth over, the different strands, the distinctive voices.  Why, I found myself thinking, as the music went along, would you want to “blend” sounds in a way that negated so much character and individuality, of the kind that was on show here?

Well, as Ecclesiastes says, there’s a time for everything, a time to blend and a time to differentiate (to coin an extremely unpoetic phrase!). It was simply refreshing to encounter an evening’s playing which seemed to proclaim “Vive la difference!” rather than seek to contain, control and smooth out differences in sounds. Not that Ensemble Zefiro couldn’t “blend” when they wanted to – but even when they did no individual strand or timbre disappeared or lost any of its character. It’s a quality I sometimes encounter when playing older orchestral or wind ensemble recordings, on which one hears sounds that are individual to the point of being quite “ornery” at certain moments – afterwards, turning to recordings of almost any 21st-century orchestra one finds oneself at a loss to discern any individual “character” in the actual sound, however skilled the playing might be.

Another quality that the authentic instrumental timbres underlined in the music was its “out-of-doors” aspect, and not only regarding the horns – in the second of the Handel “Arie” (HWV 411) I felt a kind of “spaciousness” about the sounds, a ready evocation of the “al fresco”, to do with, perhaps, a number of things, the players standing in a line accentuating the music’s antiphonal aspect, and the spaciousness of the Michael Fowler Centre, not to mention the horns in particular having “outdoor” associations anyway. But regarding the last point, both oboes and bassoons here took on more of a rustic character than I often associate with them – and in fact, the group’s spokesperson, Alfredo Bernadini, alluded to this “out-of-door” association, ironically when introducing a very different work by the evening’s second composer, Johann Friedrich Fasch (1688-1758).  Bernadini described Fasch’s piece, a Sonata in G Minor for two oboes and bassoon, plus bassoon continuo, as much more “chamber” and intimate in style.

The piece opened with a Largo movement,  the tones sombre and plaintive, and the instrumental timbres expressive and gorgeously fruity. One could hear before long why it was that JS Bach had a high regard for Fasch’s music, with the piece moving steadily and unerringly towards an expressive climax immediately leading to the second movement Allegro. Here was zest and bounce aplenty in the writing, the oboes offering chattering melodic leads and the bassoon delicious stepwise counterpoints. The composer replicated his markings for the following two movements, the second Largo enabling the bassoon to demonstrate its engagingly wheezy lyrical tones, working with its continuo partner in figurations an octave apart, and sounding like a pair of ancient, characterful voices! The Allegro finale really put the onus on one of the bassoons with an insanely virtuosic part, the notes literally flying from his instrument!

Telemann’s music then made an appearance, an “Ouverture in F Major”, a work written along the lines of JS Bach’s Orchestral Suites, consisting of an initial piece also called an “ouverture” followed by a number of French dances – while Bach wrote only four such words for instrumental ensemble, Telemann produced well over a hundred. This particular Ouverture (or “Suite”), for two oboes, two horns and bassoon continuo, was nicknamed “The Hunt”, referring in part, perhaps, to the prominence given the pair of horns in the work.

Certainly the opening piece gave the pair ample opportunity to make their presence felt, mostly by interrupting the more garrulous oboes at every possible opportunity, reminding them that they were still “here”. The Allegro section of the opening was spectacularly marked by the horns with a fanfare-like figure, again keeping a watchful ear on what the oboes and bassoon were doing. Throughout, the bassoon seemed almost an intermediary between the garrulous Montague-like oboes and the volatile Capulet-like horns, calling the ensemble to order when things got outlandish (particularly the occasional hi-jinks from the Capulets!).

Right through the course of the dances, the instrumental detailings gave us great delight, chirpy phrases galore from the oboes and occasional blasts of wind from the horns during both of the Passepied sections, a lovely glow illuminated with horn calls during the Sarabande, fanfares and giggles at the ends of phrases further enlivening the Rigaudon, and a dignified, regal sweep and grandly processional poise accompanying the concluding Le Plaisir. The ensemble certainly gave us “moments per minute” during this varied and entertaining sequence.

An interval later we were taken into the classical world of Haydn and Mozart, necessitating a change of instruments for the oboe- and bassoon-players. Thanks in part to the cheekiness of Haydn’s writing for the ensemble in the first movement of his Parthia in C Major, we didn’t notice as sharply as we might have the change in actual “engagement” of the instrumental sound, the tones smoother and more elegant-sounding in themselves, though here employed by the composer in ear-catching ways with writing whose wit and sparkle recalled  certain of the composer’s piano sonatas. The first of the work’s five movements featured a fanfare-like leading motif being tossed about in gay abandon, and given extra pomposity by the horns, and finishing with an abruptly-turned phrase which left a single low note unashamedly exposed (I involuntarily snorted with laughter, and had to apologise to my companion at the next break in the music!).

A regal and dignified Menuet-and-Trio began with oboes only, before turning to a Trio section with delightfully emphatic horns, all of which preceded an Adagio with a lovely, easeful rhythmic carriage, the oboes rhapsodising, the bassoons gently jog-trotting and the horns contributing answering or “rounding-off” phrases – everything so beautifully and expressively played. Then came ANOTHER Menuet-and-Trio, this time lots of minor-key staccato strutting, completely different in character to the one before. Haydn then rounded off the work with an unbuttoned presto gallop across the fields for all concerned, the bassoons performing miracles of articulation and repeated-note playing, and horns whooping in delight, the piece finishing with a Beethovenish “take that!” gesture!

The Mozart Divertimento K.252/240a in E-flat concluded the programme in style – the ensemble generated an engaging “swing” to the rhythm over which the oboes sounded the melody, the horns and bassoons easefully alternating between chordings and “echo phrases”. The Menuetto was a sprightly dance with gloriously “burbled” horn-writing, exhilaratingly performed, before a rather strange Trio section with a repeated descending figure, here played faster than the main dance, for some reason – it sounded merely as though the players wanted to get it over with so they could get back to the real fun!

Then came, rather unexpectedly, a Polonaise, its rhythm catchy and foot-tapping, like a popular dance number – some lovely antiphonal writing here, which the ensemble coloured nicely with varied dynamics, the horns making much of the rhythm’s syncopations. Presto assai said the finale, and the players responded with energy and wit, finishing with a flourish! We thought the players would by then have “blown themselves out”, but they generously came back for an encore – one, moreover, with a difference, a work entitled “Homage to Haydn” (sitting some way back from the platform as we were, neither my friend nor I could quite make out the announcement of the actual composer’s name).

Beginning with and establishing an infectiously strutting march reminiscent of Haydn’s “Military” Symphony, the music reached what we all thought sounded like a concluding cadence, but then continued, despite one of the bassoonists standing up, bowing, and then leaving the platform and coming down into the auditorium as the others played on. After another sequence had finished, one of the horn players did the same thing, followed a few measures later by the second horn player, leaving the oboists and one of the bassoonists continuing to play! One by one, each oboist finished a phrase, and then stood up and left the platform, with the single bassoonist left – he played a doleful-sounding minor-key cadenza-like passage finishing with a trill, and then stood up, acknowledging our laughter and applause, as did the others who rejoined him.  It was all great fun, and completely in accord with the delight we’d experienced and enjoyed throughout the concert.

 

NZSM classical voice students show their talents at St Andrew’s

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

NZSM Classical Voice Students
With Amber Rainey, piano accompanist

St. Andrew’s on The Terrace

Thursday, 9 August 2018, 12.15 pm

A Thursday lunchtime concert apparently does not have the appeal of the regular Wednesday one; the audience was quite small.  However, it was an opportunity to hear some promising young singers, and a first-class accompanist.

The singers were all sopranos, and a mixture of first, second and third year students, the majority being second years.

First up was Olivia Stewart.  She sang two items in English: ‘Angels ever bright and fair’ from Handel’s Theodora was first.  Olivia’s voice was clear and fresh, with pleasant, unforced tone.  It was well-projected, and the words could be understood with ease.  Immediately the excellent work being done on the piano by Amber Rainey was apparent.  With the piano lid on the short stick the accompaniment never dominated, but was always executed with skill and sympathy.

An excellent feature of the concert was that the librettists’ names were always shown, where known.  The second song was by a composer unknown to me: Richard Hageman.  He was a Dutch-born American conductor, pianist, composer, and actor (1881-1966).  However, I had heard the song  before: ‘Do not go my love’, the words by Rabindranath Tagore.  The singer conveyed the feelings very well, and communicated with the audience.

Grace Burt sang a Vivaldi aria ‘Piango gemo’, a rather mournful song.  Here was a richer voice, with quite a lot of vibrato – suited to the Italian repertoire.  Enunciation was good, and also in her second item, ‘Sebben crudele’ by Antonio Caldara, from an opera long in obscurity, except for this aria (which has been recorded by Cecilia Bartoli and others).  This was simpler musically than the Vivaldi, and exhibited the singer’s good range of dynamics, and her attractive strong and passionate tone.

Jessica Kauraria was next.  Or so the programme said, but thanks to Google I have confirmed my suspicion that the surname is ‘Karauria’.  First she gave us ‘Lamento’ by Duparc.  Here was yet another different voice.  It is good to know that NZSM does not turn out singers who sound like each other; each is an individual.

Jessica’s pensive, slightly darker tone suited the sad nature of the song; she made a good job of the French language and her style was appropriate for a Duparc song.  She then sang the lovely aria from Dvořák’s opera Rusalka, ‘Song to the Moon’.  Jessica sang in the Czech language.  It seemed to take her a few bars to get into the song, and here and there she sang just a shade under the note.  But she had plenty of strength in this good performance of quite a long aria, and was dramatic when she needed to be.

Alexandra Woodhouse-Appleby has yet another vocal quality.  She sang first Hugo Wolf’s ‘In dem schatten meiner Locken’ (‘In the shadow of my tresses’, from The Spanish Songbook).  The voice was smooth with easy production.  The second song, by Rachmaninov, sung in Russian, particularly revealed a lovely rich quality.

The next singer programmed was unable to appear due to illness.  I was sorry not to be able to hear the gorgeous ‘Le Colibri’ by Chausson, and ‘Ach, ich fühl’s’ from Mozart’s Magic Flute.

Instead, we had Teresa Shields, who sang ‘Verdi Prati’ from Alcina, by Handel.  It was sung in Italian, and initially without much expression.  As the singer warmed up, she developed more character in the voice, which was rather smaller than most of the others.  Teresa’s second song, quite short one, was ‘Les Cloches’ by Debussy.  This was most attractively performed.

Michaela Cadwgan has quite a powerful voice, and a rich timbre.  She performed first Mozart’s concert aria ‘Vada ma dove’.  It was very dramatic, suiting the words, all about torments and doubts in love.  Music, words and emotions were all projected well.

The second song was quite different; Poulenc’s ‘C’, which speaks of a place in France much ravaged by war; the song was composed in 1944.  Michaela produced a lovely, mature lower register tone in this song – but her top was fine too.  It was an affecting rendition.

The last singer was Cheyney Biddlecombe.  She performed first ‘As when the dove laments her love’ from Acis and Galatea by Handel.  Her voice was agile, but had rather a ‘covered’ quality.  Her words were not as clear as those of some of the other singers, and there was not a lot of variety in the dynamic range.  The accompaniment was particularly beautiful.

Cheyney’s second song was ‘O del mio amato ben’ by Stefano Donaudy (1879-1915), whose name was unfamiliar to me.  A slightly rasping tone was evident in this song, especially in the lower register, but the song was communicated well.

Amber Rainey proved to be a most accomplished accompanist, supporting the singers extremely well.  The latter all acquitted themselves to a high standard.

 

 

One piano, six hands and a programme of highly unfamiliar, surprising music by composers in unorthodox mode

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

NZ Six Hands Trio: Hamish Robb, Nicole Chao, Beth Chen

Rasim Ramazanov: Salsa Rhythm and Small Rhapsody (trio)
Rachmaninov:  Barcarolle and Scherzo, from Six Morceaux, Op. 11 (Hamish Robb & Beth Chen)
Johann Strauss (arr. Greg Anderson): Blue Danube Fantasy (Nicole Chao & Beth Chen)
Mike Cornick: Bénodet Breeze, from Three Pieces for Six Hands (trio)
Gershwin, arr. Manfred Schmitz, ‘I Got Rhythm’ (trio)
Lidia Kalendareva and Alin Cristian Oprea: Russian Dance for Six Hands (trio)

St Andrew’s on The Terrace

Wednesday 8 August , 12:15 pm

Though this three-pianist ensemble has evidently been around for a while, I hadn’t encountered them. All three were masters students together at the New Zealand School of Music at Victoria University nearly 20 years ago.

They operate at one keyboard, in case you have the impression that even the piano duet format is a bit crowded and might be uncomfortable; their places at the keyboard varied with each piece.

Clearly there was neither discomfort nor embarrassment here, for they emanated a feeling of considerable enjoyment.

The first two pieces were by Rasim Ramazanov. I am always interested in composers’ identity but there were no notes and the material that the trio sent to me later did not offer any information about him. Nor did the Internet help initially as there are scores of people with the name, but eventually I spotted a composer-pianist whose name fitted, evidently from Crimea or Ukraine, with a Tartar connection; there were several others of the name in Azerbaijan.

Anyway, the first of his two pieces, Salsa Rhythm, was vigorously rhythmic, jazzy, suggested Gershwin influence and involved ‘prepared piano’ technique, creating dampened string sounds, while the second, Small Rhapsody, was calmer and more melodic, again involving strumming deadened strings inside the piano; there was a third piece, not mentioned in the notes: perhaps one of the two named was in two parts.

Beth Chen and Hamish Robb played two pieces from Rachmaninov’s Six morceaux, Op 11. The Baracrolle sounded Prokofievish rather than Chopinesque while the Scherzo was playful, even frenzied in character with dotted rhythms, sounding very uncharacteristically Rachmaninov. But there was no question about the pianists’ command of the notes and their idiom.

A highly unorthodox yet entertaining fantasy version of The Blue Danube followed, possibly still recognisable by Johann II had he stopped by, as it could, at a pinch, have been a particularly adventurous Lisztian paraphrase.

Mike Cornick’s Bénodet Breeze, from his Three Pieces for Six Hands again had hints of Gershwin or perhaps Poulenc; extremely dense, as if all 30 available fingers were involved at times.

Gershwin himself, arranged by Manfred Schmitz, arrived next, with ‘I got rhythm’, with sequences of heavy, rising chords exaggerating the basic rhythm.

And finally Russian Dance for Six Hands by Lidia Kalendareva and Alin Cristian Oprea. Lidia is from Saint Petersburg and Alin was born in Bucharest; both were educated partly in Germany; both studied at Rostock, a famous university city in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, north-east Germany. They are involved in many styles of music, prominently film, judging by websites. They operate as LA Music. One could well wonder how the composing partnership worked – perhaps each contributed one player’s part while the third was a compromise. This again revealed echoes of Prokofiev, pausing after a while to resume in a more relaxed manner, now dropping hints of Bartók, mining his huge collection of Balkan folk music.

I found this on their website: “Lidia Kalendareva & Alin Cristian Oprea founded LA Music in 2005. They perform and create international award winning custom made music for a variety of different purposes: reaching from music and arrangements for media, movies, games, commercials, to ballet shows and concert music.” Try it out: https://www.la-music.com/ – quite beguiling.

It was a high energy recital, the main object seeming to be to strip away orthodox expectations of the nature of piano music, and listeners’ prejudices, that might be limited to Chopin and Brahms.

Monteverdi’s Orfeo – a “rarely comest…spirit of delight” from Eternity Opera

Posted on by Peter Mechen

CLAUDIO MONTEVERDI – Orfeo (1607)
An opera in Five Acts
Words by Alessandro Striggio

Cast of Singers
Music – Laura Loach
Orfeo – Will King
Euridice – Alexandra Gandianco
Nymph / Prosperine – Olivia Sheat
Shepherd 1 / Infernal Spirit 2  – Garth Norman
Shepherd 2 – Sally Haywood
Shepherd 3 / Infernal Spirit 1 – Peter Liley
Shepherd 4 / Infernal Spirit 3 – Minto Fung
Messsenger – Alexandra Woodhouse Appleby
Hope – Milla Dickens
Charon / Pluto – Joe Haddow
Echo – Tania Dreaver
Apollo – Theo Moolenaar
Chorus – Bill MacKenzie
Chorus – Philip Oliver

Eternity Renaissance Orchestra

Concertmaster – Anne Loeser (violin)
Viola – Sophia Acheson
Viola da Gamba & ‘Cello – Imogen Granwal
Cornetto & Trumpet – Peter Reid
Alto & Tenor Sackbuts & Recorder – Peter Maunder
Bass Sackbut – Jonathan Harker
Guitar – Christopher Hill
Theorbo – Jonathan Le Coeq
Triple Harp – Tiffany Baker

Music Director – Simon Romanos
Producers – Emma Beale, Minto Fung, Alex Galvin
Lighting –  Haami Hawkins
Repetiteurs – Craig Newsome, Joel Rudolph

Hannah Playhouse, Wellington

Saturday 4th August, 2018

To my consternation, I learned after the performance on Saturday evening was completed, that this was to be the only “outing” for Eternity Opera’s production of Monteverdi’s Orfeo! On a number of counts, this was regrettable, if only for the fact that I knew of a number of people who weren’t able to attend the performance and who had expected (as I certainly did) that there would be at least one further chance to catch up with it – a matinee the following afternoon, perhaps? But no, that was “it”, I’m afraid – and though I’m counting myself among the lucky ones who witnessed such a bold and breathlessly beautiful undertaking by Eternity Opera, I’m feeling dismayed by the thought that neither would a new audience be given the opportunity to enjoy Monteverdi’s masterpiece, nor would the performers be allowed the satisfaction of consolidating their achievement with a second public performance.

There would have doubtless been any number of reasons for this, both artistic and financial – my general lamentations merely reflect the interest and excitement which I experienced over the time leading up to the production, the in situ enjoyment of and pleasure in the performances, and the aftermath’s glow of satisfaction as I recalled the music’s and the presentation’s delights. A pity that such an enterprising venture (one, incidentally, which was completely sold out) lacked what it was in material terms that would have enabled the performance to have become a “season”, however tantalisingly brief a one!

But such was not to be – and we had, instead, performers giving their all as if their lives depended on the outcome, presumably buoyed along by knowing that this was going to be their only “shot” at the business in hand, and in the process conveying something of that feeling to we in the audience. Even before the music began our expectations of something out of the ordinary were galvanised by the presence of certain instruments alone, such as the gigantic theorbo, a viola da gamba, a triple harp, a cornetto and a couple of tarnished, trombone-like sackbuts alongside those which were rather more familiar, all brandished by the players of the Eternity Renaissance Orchestra.

In Monteverdi’s score over forty instruments are designated, though their exact usage was often decided upon by the interpreters depending upon the forces (and performing spaces) available – and the number of players needed were always fewer because the composer kept certain instruments for certain scenes. Here, for example, the score was realised by no more than nine players, some of whom changed to a different instrument in places – to give one example, sackbut player Peter Maunder demonstrated all-round skills with some nifty recorder playing at certain points.

At the beginning we very properly got all three renditions of the well-known opening flourishes, a martial-sounding toccata, played variously by the winds and strings at contrasting dynamic levels, as was the custom at the court of Mantua, in honour of the Duke. On the face of things an obsequious gesture very much of its time, the sounds have since become a splendid springboard for the entry of listeners into a timeless realm of expression, graced by Monteverdi’s music and  Striggio’s poetry. Mentioning at this point the momentary inaccuracies of intonation and rhythm in the playing at the outset is to get the unimportant things out of the way, first – what fully engaged us instead was the music-making’s focused purpose and its continuation throughout the drama, a purpose which never flagged across the work’s five-act span.

This was a “concert” rather than a “staged” performance, and was sung in English, both of which circumstances enabling the Introduction’s singer, Laura Loach, to completely command the stage in the role of Music. Her whole deportment was arresting, her diction perfect, and her voice true, appropriately varied, and thoroughly engaging, everything beautifully balanced between voice and instruments. While neither Garth Norman nor Sally Haywood (as First and Second Shepherds respectively) could similarly imbue their voices with similar strength and precise focus, each maintained a steady vocal line with sufficient expression to give their words an inner life. Each of these singers then joined in with the choruses, as did the others at various times throughout.

Conductor Simon Romanos kept things judiciously moving between singers and instrumentalists, picking up the lines between voices and the various ritornellos and sinfonias as required, and keeping firm control of the numerous changes of rhythm and metre as well. He seemed to give the individual singers the space they required to properly “phrase” their individual figurations, and the instrumental ensemble similar leeway throughout. Olivia Sheat as Nymph took a few phrases-worth of space, I thought, for her voice to settle in her solo, though in the Fourth Act singing the part of Proserpine I thought her tones steady, her vocal inflections convincing and her sense of rapport with her cohort as Pluto, Joe Haddow, absolutely delightful!

With the arrival of Will King’s Orfeo on the scene, everything seemed to begin to pulsate more deeply, partly to do, I think with the expectation created by the imminent appearance of the eponymous hero, but also with King’s own vibrant sense of presence in the role, capped off by his fine, ringing voice! His on-stage partner, Alexandra Gandianco as Eurydice, though not as resplendent vocally, responded with a clear, true voice, leading up to the choruses which proclaimed the marriage, the “Come Hymen, come” sequence particularly beautiful, the voices evocatively augmented by instrumental strains. Various expressions of delight came from Peter Liley’s Third Shepherd, again the voice not especially voluminous but focused and agile – the singers felt more freedom in the following duet and trio, whose words remarked on the symbolic progress of winter to spring.

Act Two’s liveliness at the outset mirrored the nuptial happiness of Orfeo in his declaration of new-found joy at the beauty of the woods, and the sturdy duetted response of the two shepherds, Garth Norman and Peter Liley, with wonderful support from the ensemble, including great violin- and recorder-playing. The mood became even more euphoric with Orfeo’s comparison of his previous misery to his present joy, made all the more exuberant by King’s exultant singing and the ensemble’s energetic playing.  All of this, of course, made the arrival of Alexandra Woodhouse-Appleby’s Messenger all the more dark and disturbing, here given an expressively stark and tragic aspect by the singer’s power of concentrated sorrow in both appearance and voice. At the news of Euridice’s sudden death the shock was galvanic, the hurt unmistakable on Orfeo’s part, King’s response then beautifully grown out of his character’s dumbstruck grief towards a powerful and passionate resolve to rescue his beloved and bring her back “to see again the stars”.

Act Three’s sonorous opening brought both splendour and darkness, the brasses thrilling amid the occasional spill with both regal pomp at the beginning, and grimmer timbres of the utmost solemnity as Orfeo entered accompanied by Hope, attempting to gain access to the Underworld. Milla Dickens’ Hope was truly and steadily sung, the voice nicely expanding as it ascended, and stylishly negotiating the figurations, bringing convincing emphasis to the words “Abandon all hope ye who enter here!”. King’s impassioned plea for Hope to remain was startlingly interrupted by the infernal combination of voice and rasping instrumental timbres, from Joe Haddow as the ferryman Charon, challenging Orfeo’s presence with beautifully sepulchral tones, splendidly supported by the brasses. The hero’s famous aria “Possente spirto” received a tremendous performance from King, ably supported by various instrumental combinations, firstly the pair of duetting solo strings, followed by the cornetto, whose phrases were echoed most effectively offstage by a sackbut. Then the guitar, theorbo and bass viol augmented the singer’s fearless coloratura-punctuated passages, leaving the triple harp to fill the brief interlude before the singer’s “Orfeo am I” with flourishes and gestures that seemed to bring time to a standstill.

At the conclusion of King’s impassioned pleas of “Give me back my love”, we were riveted, taken up with the heart-rending eloquence of the singer’s supplications, so that no-one dared move, much less applaud!! The ensuing ritornello expressed Orfeo’s ultimate triumph, as Charon slept, allowing the hero entry into the infernal regions. Act Four began with the appearance of the Underworld’s Royal Couple, Proserpine and Pluto, the former pleading with the latter to allow Orfeo to take Euridice back to the world of light and stars with him. Both of the two singers I thought built on what they had established with a separate role earlier in the drama, Olivia Sheat as Proserpine seeming to me to “find” her focused tones more freely and comfortably than when a Nymph, and Joe Haddow as Pluto an even more darkly imposing personality than his Charon – between them they actually generated a touch of “infernal” chemistry, which, together with Pluto’s decision to allow Orfeo to recover Euridice bore out the chorus’s comment in the wake of the interchange “Today, pity and love triumph in Hell”.

From this came the extraordinary sequence of events during which Euridice was regained and then irretrievably lost by Orfeo, as he wrestled with his conflicting emotions before eventually disobeying Pluto’s edict that he was not to turn and look back at her during their outward journey. Will King conveyed most tellingly the character’s characteristic volatility with both body and voice, bearing out a later chorus comment that “Orpheus conquered hell, but was conquered by his own emotions – worthy of eternal fame shall be only he who has victory over himself”. Again, the character’s overweening confidence, underlined by the jaunty instrumental accompaniments, with strings and continuo giving the rhythms plenty of spring, was in a few moments dashed by a sudden loss of confidence and crisis of faith.

Even though the drama wasn’t in a strict sense “staged” here, I still felt the moment of Euridice’s loss was awkwardly presented by the protagonists in a visual sense – their actions and movements didn’t clearly enough convey what the words and music were saying (all admittedly difficult to do in a concert scenario!). Alexandra Gandianco’s singing admirably served to put across Euridice’s sorrow and despair, as did that of King as her would-be saviour, characterised here as reaping a whirlwind out of his impetuosities. The tragedy of the moment was superbly underlined by the sneering brasses, who joined with the strings and continuo to realise a sardonic processional, heralding the chorus’s already-quoted verdict on the hero’s flawed resolve.

A cruelly cheerful-sounding sinfonia launched the final Act, bringing Orfeo to those same woods where news of Euridice’s death was brought to him. Again, Will King was equal to the music’s possibilities, realising the character with an affecting sense of heartbreak and sorrow, the mood amplified by the affecting strains of Tania Dreaver’s voice as Echo, and further intensified by Orfeo’s self-indulgence in his grief, complaining at the paucity of Echo’s replies. It remained for Apollo to descend from the heights, Theo Moolenaar making a properly dignified entrance as the God of the Sun and Light and Healing, the voice comforting and true-toned, rather than overtly celestial and all-commanding, chiding Orfeo for his intemperance, and his obsession with earthly, as opposed to heavenly delights. Their duetting worked well as Orfeo was taken to heaven, having been promised by his father that he would enjoy Euridice’s likeness in the sun and the stars.

It fell to the chorus to further lighten the mood of tragedy with sprightly and energetic verses celebrating the hero’s transfiguration, a mood we were invited to join along with the singers and the ensemble by conductor Simon Romanos, our cheerful company clapping in time with the energetic moresca rhythms that concluded the work. Rather than belittling the story’s intensities and profundities, the “lightness of being” feeling engendered by these concluding gaieties served to highlight all the more the epic nature and scope of the drama we had witnessed, a quality of overall perspective which some of Mozart’s greatest music also possesses. It was to the company’s credit that the production and its performers realised, I thought, Monteverdi’s genius at bringing into being such a work, so that its impact, like Orfeo’s lyre, sang and resounded long after the work’s last strains had been sounded.

 

 

 

 

 

Rebranding strikes academia: Victoria University victim of corporate-style image-making

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Rebranding strikes academia

In a radical break from the knitting pattern that Middle C usually follows, I am driven to raise my voice to protest about the planned rebranding of my alma-mater, Victoria University of Wellington, or simply ‘Vic’ as it has always been universally known. Music in Wellington has its most important educational institution in Victoria University.

This ‘review’ is prompted by the publication of Dave Armstrong’s column in this morning’s Dominion Post drawing attention to the announcement by the Vice Chancellor that the obscene word ‘Victoria’ would be dropped from the name.

In May I became aware of the proposal and wrote to the Vice Chancellor. This is the essence of my letter, slightly modified:

The propensity to change long-standing names has always seemed to have been a characteristic of authoritarian regimes, most conspicuously used by Communist states.

I happen to be a graduate of the university (actually, a pre-1961 graduate of the University of New Zealand). For me, the habit of changing a name other than for an overwhelmingly important reason, has always struck me as a mark of an immature institution, and in particular, one that places greater importance on what might be called ‘political correctness’ or fashion than on tradition, constancy; even integrity.

I am not the least persuaded that there is any merit in the argument that its name is a matter of confusion. Ours in the Victoria University of Wellington; surely that is clear enough: after all this is the capital city.

Two other universities (and I imagine there may well be others) that use the name Victoria, are mentioned; both geographically related. They are perfectly justified, but they too are likely to be subject of confusion by people who take no trouble to identify them. What are they doing?

I suspect that a secondary, unstated reason is the lingering imperialist flavour associated with the name; it may also reflect a pro-republican spirit. I too am in favour of a republican constitution, but it has nothing to do with the anti-Victorian temper that arose in the early decades of last century!

Many universities carry names associated with a founder or a political leader whose reputation, by standards of today, might be dubious. But those universities will have achieved a reputation that obliterates the shortcomings of that individual. My university should likewise be mature and self-respecting enough to withstand such adolescent, ephemeral pressures.

I plead that you take a more academically and politically mature view of this matter, and retain the name which already has more than a century of history behind it.

I had a very courteous and friendly reply from the Vice Chancellor and an update in the last few days about the council’s decision, to press ahead with the change.

He followed up last Friday with a circular letter announcing that: “The University Council today approved in principle a change to ‘University of Wellington’ along with the adoption of a new Māori name of Te Herenga Waka.”

And the letter added that “This is a draft decision and Council will consider further feedback over the next two weeks. This can be emailed to ‘feedback@vuw.ac.nz’ or posted to ‘The Chancellor, Victoria University of Wellington, PO Box 600, Wellington 6140’.  Feedback closes at 5:00pm Monday 13 August 2018.”

And there’s a petition: https://www.change.org/p/victoria-university-of-wellington-victoria-university-of-wellington-to-abandon-their-name-change-proposal. And in its report on the issue, Stuff has an article on the subject: https://www.change.org/p/victoria-university-of-wellington-victoria-university-of-wellington-to-abandon-their-name-change-proposal?recruiter=146541735&utm_campaign=signature_receipt&utm_medium=twitter&utm_source=share_petition

Armstrong mentions several other reasons to oppose this senseless move.

They include reference to the university’s not irrelevant behaviour over the Karori campus, the former Wellington Teachers’ College, which should have been held for educational purposes, sold for $28 million to Ryman!!

For me, a curious weakness in the case is the list of other universities (or tertiary institutions) around the world that enjoy the word ‘Victoria’. There are nine. Are any of them embarrassed at having the offensive word attached to them, and planning to change their name, and if not why not? And why, as the one that may well be the oldest and most distinguished, is our Victoria University so lacking in self-confidence, a sense of its own reputation and traditions?

I think it is disgraceful.

 

Swedish-New Zealand ensemble beguiles Waikanae with varied pieces: brand new, interesting, much loved

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Klara Kollektiv (Anna McGregor, clarinet; Manu Berkeljon, violin;Taru Kurki, piano)
Waikanae Music Society

Anthony Ritchie: Picture Stone: Trio for clarinet, violin and piano. Op.198
César Franck: Sonata for violin and piano
Brahms: Clarinet Sonata no.1 in F minor, Op.120 no.1
Khachaturian: Trio for clarinet, violin and piano

Waikanae Memorial Hall

Sunday 29 July 2018, 2:30 pm

On picking up my printed programme when entering the hall, I recalled the last chamber music concert I reviewed: Wellington Chamber Music Trust’s concert at St. Andrew’s Church in Wellington on 15 July, where larger-size programmes (double A4) were available; an example Waikanae should follow, given the older-age group that comprises the bulk of the audience.

This time the audience was considerably smaller than is usual at this venue, which was a shame.  An interesting programme and top-class players were received enthusiastically.  The trio comprises two New Zealanders resident in Sweden, and a Finnish pianist who also resides and teaches in Sweden.

The opening work (Picture Stone) was written specifically for Klara Kollektiv, last year, and the current New Zealand tour is its premiere outing.  This work, and the Khachaturian are common to the other programmes the Trio will play in New Zealand, but the other works differ.  A few introductory remarks gave us the interesting thought that if we see a painting we do not like in a gallery, we can simply walk away.  Not so with music in a concert.  However, we were assured that the Ritchie work was very likable, and this proved to be the case.

There were headings in the printed programme to indicate topics considered in the music, but they were not formal movements, and the music was continuous, with no breaks.  The headings: Dawn – Child – Journey – Battle – Sacrifice.  The title ‘Picture Stone’ refers to ancient Viking artefacts.  The music takes the point of view of a child in Viking times, contemplating such a stone, and imagining a journey and battles.

After a piano opening, very appealing but somewhat mournful tones came from violin and clarinet, the latter featuring some very high and shrill notes.  The music contained a lot of repeated notes and repeated phrases, and a spiky, jaunty effect, perhaps depicting the child.  This was followed by running figures, especially on the piano, which I considered perhaps denote the journey.  Then a livelier section – battle?  Or sacrifice?  A chord on the piano held for some time by the sustaining pedal and all the players remaining still for some time, presumably symbolising sacrifice, ended the work.  The music was rewarding, but like much music, another hearing would give the opportunity for forming a better impression of it.

I have to confess that the Franck sonata is not one of my favourite chamber works.  One hears it not infrequently on radio, sometimes in arrangements for other instruments.  However, these musicians played it very sensitively, and with plenty of variety from rubato excellent tone, and changes of dynamics.  Thus they made it interesting and diverse compared with other renditions I have heard, which can strike me as merely long-winded repetition.

The music moved from allegretto ben moderato in the first movement to an allegro second.  Again in this faster music, the violin’s tone was varied and lovely, while the piano playing was excellent and full of subtlety.

The third movement, Recitativo – Fantasia, began with a strong and forthright recitative, while the fantasia was played with a variety of timbres, moving from delicacy to almost bombastic utterances, and back again, its pace becoming variable.  Imaginative playing from all the players made for enjoyable listening.

Strong themes and references back to the opening movement feature in this and the Finale (allegrettto poco mosso) – but there is a lot of repetition, and the canon in the last movement becomes tedious as it goes over and over a simple theme related to the first movement theme.  The massive ending required prestidigitation from the pianist – something she was well capable of.

After the interval came the Brahms sonata.  The composer’s fondness for the clarinet in the latter stages of his composing career was evident in his beautiful melodies and  acrobatic figures.  There was plenty of interest to be found in the writing for both instruments.  Following an allegro appassionato first movement, the second (andante un poco adagio) developed a rather plaintive melody, creating a charming effect.

The allegretto grazioso third movement exploited the full range of the clarinet, while providing plenty of appeal in the piano part.  The movement was short and sweet.  The vivace finale was fast and playful, and made a good summing up. This was a satisfying performance, marked by clarity.

Khachaturian’s Trio piano opening struck me as orchestral in style.  The andante opening movement was notable for the delectable writing for both violin and clarinet.  It was short but attractive.  The second, allegro, was bouncy and bright,  and became fast and furious, using folk tunes as a basis, as in the other movements.  In the middle section, the piano became somewhat independent of the other instruments.

The third, and last, movement (moderato) opens with solo clarinet, then the piano is added, and finally violin, in a duet with the clarinet.  The clarinet repeats its part while the others go into new byways.  The Trio has a rather sudden but peaceful ending, after much liveliness.

The trio’s encore was a surprise: a song (presumably a Swedish folk-song), sung by Anna McGregor, accompanied by piano improvisation (very discreet) and violin drone.  In between the verses, the violin played a little tune above the notes of the drone.  So out of character with the rest of the programme, this was an unusual diversion.

 

Tudor Consort advances four centuries to the contemporary, war-stricken world with great success

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

The Tudor Consort directed by Michael Stewart with Andrew Joyce, cello

Exaudi – Songs for cello and choir
John Tavener: Exhortation and Kohima; Svyati 
Jocelyn Morlock: Exaudi
Bach: Suite No 4 in E flat for solo cello
Richard Rodney Bennett: A Farewell to Arms

Saint Mary of the Angels

(Apologies for lateness of filing; it has induced endless journeys into peripheral subjects: all fascinating but irrelevant)

Saturday 28 July, 7:30 pm

Director of The Tudor Consort, Michael Stewart, spoke to introduce this generally unfamiliar (apart from the Bach) programme. As well as drawing attention to aspects of the music, he remarked on what might be felt as a departure from the choir’s usual territory, concentrating on early and Renaissance music (though there have generally been interesting deviations from that prescription), to tackle an entirely 20th, even 21st, century programme. He commented on the choir’s interest in collaborations with sympathetic musicians whose activities lie largely in other territory; on this occasion, NZSO principal cellist Andrew Joyce.

Some in the audience might have come across the pieces by Tavener; I had not, as far as I remember. That was where they started: Exhortation and Kohima, one relating to WWI, the other to WWII. It was commissioned for the festival of Remembrance in the Albert Hall in 2003. The two parts were sung separately – Exhortation at the beginning and Kohima at the end of the concert.

Exhortation is a setting of the famous lines from Laurence Binyon’s For the Fallen. It began with strong, clear sopranos whose voices echoed around the nave, and then several voices – both male and female – emerged from behind the west door, delivering a long, consoling response, melodic in a secular though not irreligious spirit.

The second Tavener piece was Svyati, a Russian Orthodox prayer (Tavener, for many years, before eventually declaring his agnosticism, was deeply interested in Orthodox rituals and music). It involved cellist Andrew Joyce. Tavener had explained that the cello represented the Priest or the Icon of Christ and suggested it might be played at a distance, perhaps from the opposite end of the building.  But here Joyce sat at the intersection of the centre and cross aisles, slightly behind and to my right. That created an unexpected immediacy so that when men’s voices emerged, singing in Church Slavonic (which I think is rather the equivalent in the Orthodox ritual, to Latin in the Roman), their involvement was almost imperceptible, intoning alone till eventually joined by the rest of the choir. The note didn’t make entirely clear to what extent the setting might have been Tavener’s original of some kind of adaptation of the original Slavonic hymn. It moved through several phases with the cello entering and then falling silent between choral episodes, and it held the attention through long passages of near silence from the singers; one didn’t feel the need for more. It’s impact was singularly moving.

The title work of the concert, Exaudi, was that of a recent work by Canadian composer Jocelyn Morlock, According to the pre-performance publicity, it is her own highly personal response to Tavener’s work though the programme itself didn’t enlarge on that. Exaudi was a commission from the Vancouver Musica Intima vocal ensemble and included a cello part played by Stephen Isserlis. Here the cellist, Andrew Joyce, sat at the right front of the choir, and contributed a vividly contrasting element to the chanting by bass voices, and later by especially high women’s voices that seemed to weave a quite complex harmonic fabric. It ended with repeating phrases moving higher and higher, quieter and quieter.

It was as well to have the interval at that point, as Joyce’s rendering of Bach’s fourth cello suite inhabited such an entirely different music-sphere. Joyce was now on his own in the centre of the performance area. He handled the repetitious broken chords, up and down triplet quavers, that dominate the Prelude with a mixture of seriousness and lightness, coloured with fluttery gestures, that held the listener’s curiosity throughout. Comparable rhythmic variety and distinct pauses had the effect of connecting the long, flowing phrases in the Allemande which, to state the obvious, becomes ever more complex and rewarding with every hearing (or playing). Joyce’s Courante was characterised by little rushes on the rising phrases, almost becoming blurred but never losing clarity; on the other hand, the courante can be played with such studied detail that its flowing, ‘running’ character risks being lost; not here.

Before starting the Sarabande, Joyce paused pointedly, shifted on his chair as if to draw attention to the importance of what was to follow; the sarabandes in each suite are occasions for spiritual stock-take, and his playing indeed took on a distinctly more profound spirit.

The challenge for the cellist in the Bourrées is somehow to give some individuality to every one of the endless repeats of the short, unvarying motifs; Bourrée No 2 usually seems a long time coming, and there was a risk here. Each movement has a different role to play in the suite and the Gigue’s is to send the audience away, forgetting the tragedies and horrors that are the normal accompaniment for our lives, and it worked pretty well.

The choir then returned to sing A Farewell to Arms (no relation to Hemingway) by Richard Rodney Bennett (it took me ages to get him sorted from Robert Russell Bennett, the American, famous for orchestrating Broadway musicals as well as original composition). It was written on commission for a Minneapolis choir in 2002, it consists of two distinct poems written half a century apart.

The first is a 17th century poem by the obscure Ralph Knevet (roughly contemporary with the many post-Tudor poets like Herrick, Herbert, Carew, Marvell, Waller, Suckling … and Milton…. ). His poem began: ‘The helmet now an hive for bees becomes…’. It’s followed with a hardly audible break by a poem by the slightly less obscure Shakespeare contemporary, George Peele, entitled Polyhymnia which begins: ‘His golden locks time hath to silver turned…’; the programme notes described its somewhat convoluted provenance.

Bennett was something of a poly-stylist, a classical composer fundamentally; one with solid serialist, avant-garde credentials; but also jazz (I heard him in such a recital maybe 15 years ago in the National Library’s then theatrette) and popular styles; but this was thoroughly approachable, a mainstream choral composition though unmistakably of our era.

Andrew Joyce’s elegiac cello plays an extended introduction before the choir enters, led by women’s voices with men sounding somewhat secondary. Choir and cello were nicely matched, and the music, while calmly meditative, was agreeably melodious with attractive, wide intervals. The presence of the cello struck me, increasingly, as the element that grounded it and offered persuasive support to the choir which, alone, might have struggled to hold attention through its near quarter hour duration.

Then came the second part of Tavener’s Exhortation and Kohima, specifically called the Kohima Epitaph. The Battle of Kohima marked a major battle in north-east India, from April to June 1944, which drove the Japanese from critical positions and turned the tide of the war with Japan in that theatre. The words ‘When you go home, tell them of us and say, For your tomorrow, we gave our today’ are attributed to John Maxwell Edmonds.

To return to the spirit of the concert’s first piece was a congenial device, and even, now, without the cello which had become such a rewarding element in most of the other pieces, it focused the audience beautifully on the quality of the choir’s performance and the subdued beauty of Tavener’s setting.

Finally. The Tudor Consort’s programmes are admirable: it’s A4 size, printed in large type so that even if the light is dim (which it wasn’t and could have been turned down a little to help atmosphere) it was very readable.

 

Tutors at the ASQ Academy confirm their stature in rare Shostakovich quartet, plus other masterpieces

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

St Andrew’s Lunchtime Concerts
Aroha String Quartet: concert by tutors from the 2018 ASQ International Music Academy

Mozart: Piano Quartet in G minor, K 478 – 1st movement
Shostakovich: String Quartet No 11 in F minor, Op 122
Dvořák: String Quintet in E flat, Op 97 – 1st movement

St Andrew’s on The Terrace

Thursday 26 July, 12:15 pm

Rosemary Collier’s review of Wednesday’s concert by participants in the 2018 Aroha String Quartet International Music Academy, offered a view of the level of performance skill that emerged from the week-long participation in the Academy, the fourth in what has become an annual event. Middle C appears to have overlooked them in the past. Further recitals by participants are taking place in the evenings and notably on Saturday evening, 28 July.

This however, was an opportunity to hear performances by the tutors themselves: the four quartet members, plus others who contributed to the tutoring demands of the participants.

The main event at this recital was Shostakovich’s eleventh string quartet. But I will leave comments on it till last.

Mozart
The concert began and ended with first movements of a couple of major pieces (it struck me that this might be an infection spread by the misguided behaviour of RNZ Concert which is now broadcasting, through most of the day, just single movements of works that composers had taken great pains to compose as complete, balanced works of art).

Mozart’s two great piano quartets do deserve to be heard in their integrity. However, it can be forgiven in circumstances like this, in a brief lunchtime concert that’s a sort of testimonial presentation. Here, in the second quartet, we had the rare chance to hear the fine pianist Emma Sayers along with violinist Donald Armstrong, and viola and cello from the Aroha Quartet itself. It was a remarkably vivid performance, driven by buoyant energy, each instrument exhibiting its individuality, almost to the point of sacrificing perfect ensemble; but I hasten to say, that was never affected.

Dvořák
It was equally delightful to hear the first movement of Dvořák’s string quintet, Op 97. It may have been programmed to complement the performance of his string quintet, Op 77 (which uses double bass instead of a second viola or cello) by Academy participants the day before. It’s not a well-known piece; Dvořák is a somewhat unfortunate composer who’s known to the average music lover for just one piece in each class of music – the New World Symphony, the Cello Concerto, the American Quartet, the Piano Quintet, Op 81, perhaps the Dumky Piano Trio, the Carnival Overture and some of the Slavonic Dances. In each genre, there are many other delightful works.

This is one of them and it’s first movement got a performance that revealed its beauties and character admirably. The players were Aroha’s first violin, Haihong Liu, violist Zhongxian Jin and cellist Robert Ibell, plus Donald Armstrong on second violin and Brian Shillito, the second (or was he technically, first?) viola. A viola (I couldn’t see which) opens the piece with a typically ruminative, Slavic theme, a minor third, quickly joined by other players who soon assured the major key’s dominance. Though the programme note remarks on the presence of Algonquin drumming patterns, I can only take their word for it. Even though, the movement ends with a typically climactic peroration which could well be heard as the end of the Finale, it should have given listeners a strong inducement to hear the rest.

Shostakovich No 11
Few of Shostakovich’s quartets other than No 8 are much played, though I think over recent years we’ve heard Nos 4, 5, 9, 11… and certainly one or two others.

It is a unique piece, unorthodox in form, written in 1966 as a memorial for the death of his close friend Vasily Shirinsky, second violinist in the famous Beethoven String Quartet. It’s in seven movements, of varying lengths and character. Though it is not uniformly tragic in mood, in its entirety it emerges as a remarkable, deeply felt creation. The first violin opens alone with a feeling of unease, a motif of cold beauty before being joined by the others to create a bleak though very human landscape.

The second movement also opens in a sort of pretend brightness, with the violin alone and it continues in a sort of fugal fashion, the staccato motif punctuated by ironical swoops by different instruments. It expresses a feeling of reluctance to give voice to much lyricism; nevertheless there are melodic thoughts, though presented sparingly, offering no reason for unalloyed delight.

The third part, enigmatically entitled Recitative entered with shocking violence, with harsh bowing by the cello. While each movement presents a very different musical character, there is no let-up from the pervasive feeling of anguish or anxiety, even in the bizarrely entitled Humoresque which seems to be the composer in typical disguise, with wild endlessly throbbing thirds on the violin.

As the notes pointed out, the sixth movement, Elegy, is the heart of the work, the longest movement at about four minutes, and the quartet drew from it a profound sense of terror and pathos. In the Finale, Shostakovich allows the first violin to offer a tiny hint of comfort, but in spite of the return of the slightly droll, upwards violin scoop, over pizzicato, he seems to deny the listener much hope.

In spite of the utterly different depictions of life by Mozart and Dvořák played before and after it, the Shostakovich was the music, played uncompromisingly, with utter sincerity, that stuck in the mind.

Though I have come to think I’d heard all Shostakovich’s quartets, I think this must have escaped me, but it will remain embedded for the rest of my life. (But one can say that about so much of his music: would we have such a store of awful, soul-searing music if he had not lived through such distressing times?).

As I hinted at the beginning, it is surely time for one of our resident quartets to stage a mini-Shostakovich festival at which all 15 quartets are played. Since I heard most of them in a revelatory series of late-night (10.30 to midnight) concerts by a gifted Israeli quartet at the Verbier Festival ten years ago, I have the feeling that Night suits their character, and that such an atmospheric presentation, in the right place, could capture the imagination of a few hundred Wellington music lovers.