Talents and skills of university woodwind students in St Andrew’s lunchtime recital

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

NZSM Wind Students

Music by Fauré, Francisco Mignone, Lowell Liebermann, Gareth Farr. Krysztof Penderecki and Debussy

St. Andrew’s on The Terrace

Wednesday, 23 May 2018, 12.15 pm

It is interesting to hear music students at different levels of their courses, and of ability and achievement.  All these students, though, performed well and provided engaging music.  In most cases they were accompanied on the piano, although two students played unaccompanied pieces.  It was pleasing to see a number of school students in the audience; perhaps they are studying wind instruments. Simon Brew, acting head of winds at the New Zealand School of Music, briefly introduced the programme.  Nearly all the students introduced themselves and their music more than adequately, using the microphone.

Fauré was represented by Fantasie for Flute, Op.79, played as the opening piece by Samantha McSweeny, accompanied by Kirsten Robertson.  French composers wrote prolifically for the flute, and this was a lovely example of their work, which for me carried over nicely from the Fauré songs I heard in Waikanae on Sunday.  The piece was inventive and graceful, with a languid opening section.  It changed to sprightly and playful passages.  It was written for a Paris Conservatoire competition, so it aimed to have the students demonstrate a range of techniques, tempi and dynamics.  As well as our player doing this more than adequately, the accompaniment was full of character.

I had never heard of the Brazilian composer Francisco Mignone.  His dates were 1897 to 1986.  (It would have been useful to have the composers’ dates printed in the programme.)   Improvised Waltz no.7  was the title of the piece for solo bassoon, played by Breanna Abbott.    It was quite a jaunty piece to start with, but the deep-toned instrument made it harder to get over a light-hearted mood.  It was short, and very competently played.

Lowell Liebermann is a contemporary American composer (born in 1961) who is a prolific composer as well as a performer.  His Movement 1 from Sonata for Flute and Piano, Op.23 was played by Isabella Gregory, accompanied by Kirsten Robertson.  A leisurely opening was followed by an allegro that brought a rush of notes before falling back to gentle utterances.  In places the piano doubled the part of the flute.  A new section was slow, but both flute and piano jumped around the staves, especially the latter.  Both played angular phrases, the flute employing particularly the lower register of the instrument.  A return to slower, gentler phrases brought the piece to a smooth, mellifluous end.

The only New Zealand composer represented was Gareth Farr; Peter Liley, alto saxophone, accompanied by Catherine Norton on the piano, played Farr’s Meditation very confidently, following an excellent spoken introduction.  The piece opened with notes on the piano, followed by chords, then a slow, pensive melody.  This gradually developed and built to a high climax – most effective.  More climbing motifs – then an abrupt end.

Solo clarinet was played by Harim Hey Oh, performing Penderecki’s Prelude for solo clarinet.  Slow, quiet single notes opened the short piece.  Then the music became quite gymnastic, with quick notes darting here and there, including very high notes and very loud ones (hard on the ears!).  Then it was back to slow, quiet notes, widely spaced – and it was all over.

The other great French composer represented was Debussy, by his Première Rhapsodie for clarinet, played by Frank Talbot with Catherine Norton accompanying.  The piece was written for graduate students at the Paris Conservatoire, so was constructed to test them.  Later, the composer orchestrated it.  This was a highly competent performance, employing a lot of different techniques and idioms. The full range of the instrument’s notes and dynamics were used.  It was most enjoyable music, not only for the clarinet’s role; the piano had a very varied part also.

This was a very satisfactory demonstration of the skills of wind students at the New Zealand School of Music at Victoria University of Wellington.

 

 

 

 

Unusual but timely concert by Supertonic, dynamic mixture of the musical, the political, the sexual

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Supertonic conducted by Isaac Stone

‘Shakespeare’s Sister: celebrating the music of women who created art in the shadows of men’
Music by Hildegard, Clara Schumann, Alma Mahler, Fanny Mendelssohn, Amy Beach, Francesca Caccini and Lili Boulanger, and two New Zealanders: Dorothy Buchanan and Rosa Elliott (who, at age 20, was the ‘featured composer’)

Pipitea Marae, Thorndon Quay

Sunday 20 May 6:30 pm

Middle C has reviewed two previous concerts by Supertonic (both by Rosemary Collier), in 2015, and she was impressed (where have we been in the meantime?). They were in different venues, the Sacred Heart Cathedral and the New Zealand Portrait Gallery. This time they gave me my first experience in the Pipitea Marae, which I’m ashamed to confess I’d never been in; a building of normal construction, with impressive Maori mural and ceiling decoration.

The concert was very well organised, with enough people at the door to take tickets and give seat numbers and generally manage. The seating on either side of a centre aisle was turned to face inwards by about 15 degrees. A congenial feeling.

One of the first impressions as the music began, was the splendid acoustics of the large whare, allowing distinct parts of the choir on the one hand and the choir singing homogeneously on the other to be heard as a finely balanced ensemble. Enhanced I imagine by the high vaulted ceiling and walls which were probably plastered and so a bit more absorbent than concrete, stone or timber.

The singers were ranged in four rows at increasing heights; the piano to the left and to the rear left, the ‘Concert host’, Clarissa Dunn, and a microphone. After the choir had entered, a chant arose at the back and the nine women’s voices came slowly to the front singing Hildegard von Bingen’s ‘Quem ergo femina’. The fine ensemble augured well.

This is the moment to remark admiringly on the paper-work. A nicely printed programme on glossy paper, with a woman in profile who has just released a bird – a swallow, a symbol? Inside, notes on the choir, on host Clarissa Dunn and the ‘featured artist’, the 20-year-old Canterbury University student composer, Rosa Elliott. All the composers’ names and the titles of the pieces were listed and on a separate page, original words and translations of all the songs in foreign languages.

There was a distinct air of professionalism about the entire presentation, not least the evidence of excellent, thorough rehearsal by Isaac Stone, a gifted young conductor who has a very impressive and interesting record both as musician and leader in musical and social areas, especially in the Maori sphere.

One thing we could probably not reasonably expect was to encounter music that we knew – though I speak only for myself.

Clarissa Dunn’s introduction
An unexpected element, but one that was illuminating was Clarissa’s quoting an essay by Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own, on the importance of a space for creative work; it related to Dorothy Buchanan’s cycle. The essay presents an “argument for both a literal and figurative space for women writers within a literary tradition dominated by men” in the words of Wikipedia.

One hears often about the importance of having a private place in which to compose. Some such composing sanctuaries are famous, like Mahler’s two lake-side hideaways, at Steinberg-am-Attersee and Maianigg on the Wörthersee in Carinthia, or Ravel’s house in the country, Le Belvédère, at Montfort-l’Amaury. The same applies to women but it is harder for them to find such space.

Clara Schumann’s composing was not forbidden but after Robert died she composed no more and devoted herself to performance and the promotion of Robert’s music. The choir sang Drei gemischte Chöre (3 mixed choruses). They were sung with flawless ensemble, purity of tone and clarity of diction.

American composer Amy Beach’s music is heard more these days than a few years ago. She was, like Clara Schumann, both composer and pianist and her husband wanted her to concentrate on composing rather than performance. Again, the a cappella Three Choral Responses were accomplished works if not particularly original, showing little sign of absorbing composition trends of around the turn of the century.

Alma, Lili and Francesca
Then three singers from the choir sang songs by Alma Mahler, Lilli Boulanger and Francesca Caccini. Samantha Kelley sang the first, Die stille Stadt, with a very agreeable voice, and pianist Matthew Oliver, who was occasionally hesitant.

Lili Boulanger was the first woman to win the Prix de Rome at the Paris Conservatoire and though no barriers were put across her musical career, she died aged 24, 100 years ago. (She is one of this year’s important anniversaries; the others: Debussy’s death 100 years ago, Bernstein’s birth 100 years ago, Gounod’s birth 200 years ago, Rossini’s death 150 years ago*). Reflets, set to a poem of Maurice Maeterlinck, sounded an altogether more inspired composition, with an interesting, even adventurous piano accompaniment; Natalie Williams’s voice was well attuned to the music if occasionally insecure.

A duet from three centuries earlier, Aure Volanti by Francesca Caccini was sung by sopranos Natalie Moreno and Sophie Youngs; there were clear marks here of a fine composer, whose father was also a leading composer who composed one of the first operas in 1602. Women composers were not all that rare at the time; slightly later, Barbara Strozzi was famous and she has re-emerged. This performance handled the weaving voices and Isaac Stone’s piano accompaniment in a charming, authentic manner.

Fanny, Felix’s sister
Felix Mendelssohn’s sister Fanny (Hensel her married name) was also a gifted pianist and composer, whose musical inclinations and gifts were rather discouraged by Felix. Her settings of three of Eichendorff’s poems, Gartenlieder, appealed to me as much as anything in the concert; the writing was fluent and there was plenty of melodic charm and character, far from clichéd. I enjoyed the varied expressive qualities that were well conveyed in the choral performance.

The next group of pieces by Dorothy Buchanan was a curious composition: for flute (Liz Langam) and wordless women’s voices, a small cycle called Five Vignettes of Women. They were marked, Virginia (Woolf), Olivia (Spencer-Bower), Robin (Hyde), Fanny Buss and Katherine (Mansfield). The Virginia Woolf song was the link with the introductory reference to Woolf’s essay, A Room of One’s Own. The set was interestingly varied in style and mood and the different instruments produced some novel impressions. The whole struck me as very engaging work, admittedly with a not very important vocal element, but enough to justify its inclusion here.

Rosa Elliott’s Songs for Sisters
Featured artist was 20-year-old composer Rosa Elliott who set three of great 19th century novelist George Eliot’s (real name Mary Ann Evans) poems: Songs for Sisters.

Conductor Isaac Stone is quoted in a SOUNZ website saying that he fastened on her to compose for the choir because of her “incredible way with haunting melodies, matched perfectly with choral colours”. They involved violinist Vivian Stephens, pianist Matthew Oliver and Samantha Kelley using castanets. The first song, O Bird, coloured with hushed breathing, employed an undefined bird-call that later imitated a vocal motif from the choir. I lost track of the breaks between the three songs; however, the unusual combination of vocal effects, occasional distinct words, the melodic attractiveness, Stephens’ excellent violin contribution offered lively variety. The castanets marked the Spanish character of the third song, Ojala, in which the choir could be detected chanting the name. By the end I was won over by the unusual character of this trio of songs, their confident, surprisingly grounded feeling. I think they have a life.

The concert ended with a, for me, puzzling, enigmatic song: Quiet by (I suppose) a young woman called Milck. I confess to looking it up on Google. It’s a song protesting sexual violence in the wake of the Harvey Weinstein scandals, frankly bluesy in style, but more importantly, arresting in both its music and its message. She writes that it is part of “a massive movement of women and survivors speaking out against sexual assault, I find myself in awe and moved to my core”.  I caught words of intimate advice to vulnerable girls; it was, I guess, a timely insertion for the choir whose purpose here was to dramatise efforts to empower women and demand changed behaviour on the part of men, and sexual exploitation is as evil as depriving women of the wherewithall to create music.

An interesting and poignant way to end the concert which had virtues and strengths at many levels, social and musical.

*Composer Anniversaries
This sort of thing interests me. I was half aware of several other composers who were born or died in these or similar years. There’s Arrigo Boito (Verdi’s librettist for Otello and Falstaff and also the composer of Mephistophele), and Hubert Parry both of whom died in 1918. Then I came upon a contribution to the topic from a kindred spirit who writes a column in the French Opéra Magazine, Renaud Machart. He wrote about Lili Boulanger, naturally, and he also noted the successor and in some ways Offenbach’s rival in the post Franco-Prussian war period (1870 – 1880): Charles Lecocq (1832-1918). His best known pieces were La fille de Madame Angot and Le petit Duc. And very tongue-in-cheek, Machart  also pointed to one Procida Bucalossi (1832-1918), a British/Italian composer of light music; with that background, he naturally wrote a successful operetta for London in neither language, entitled Les Manteaux Noirs (The Black Cloaks).

Looking back to 1868, as well as Rossini’s death, Swedish composer Berwald died. And François Couperin was born in 1768, 250 years ago.

Admirable, stimulating programme of piano trios from Te Koki Trio

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Te Koki Trio: Martin Riseley (violin), Inbal Megiddo (cello), Jian Liu (piano) – senior lecturers in Victoria University School of Music
(Wellington Chamber Music)

Brahms: Piano Trio in C minor Op. 101
Avner Dorman: Piano Trio No. 2
Shostakovich: Piano Trio No. 2 in E minor, Op. 67

St. Andrews on The Terrace

Sunday 20 May 3 pm

Gale-force winds outside might have been an appropriate accompaniment to Shostakovich’s frightful war-time masterpiece. But it was not necessarily a fitting way to characterise Brahms’s third piano trio. In spite of the remarks in the programme notes (in general, illuminating), and even though it’s in a minor key, I have never found the opening pages devoid of melody, or revealing an ‘unsettled nature’; though later movements might be so characterised.

However, Jian Liu’s reading of the opening chords might for a moment have supported the sense of the programme note. His first chords were so heavy that they dominated the violin and cello and I rather wished the lid had been down, as well perhaps as having the piano on a carpet. But the music soon shifts to the much more sustained, warm and heart-felt second subject that in fact seemed to characterise most of the movement, in spite of momentary returns of the more emphatic first theme. The imbalance between piano and strings didn’t recur.

The notes might have somewhat exaggerated the restless and haunted nature of the second movement which is considered the Scherzo, though not marked so. The minor key colours the entire work and even this ‘scherzo’ movement hardly produces a feeling of ecstasy or contentment. Much of it is staccato in character, permitting neither buoyancy nor delight. The singular feature of the work as a whole is the shortness of each movement – the second movement lasts only about four minutes. And the first was only about twice as long.

The Brahms we’ve waited for arrives in the third movement, and here Martin Riseley’s violin and Inbal Megiddo’s cello play alone for half a minute and they do so again after the piano had a brief contribution. The movement seemed all too short, as I couldn’t help feeling that the players longed for its prolonging and I even wondered whether there was actually a repeat that they were ignoring. There is not of course. Here was the quintessential Brahms writing the most expressive and alluring music, and the programme note’s ‘unsettled material’ and ‘irregular phrases’ were not very audible to me.

Even though the last movement remains in the minor key and there’s a seriousness of mind which the players showed their full awareness of, there’s no lack of melody, even if the tunes are sometimes stretched over a wide range, and the occasional staccato irruptions hardly encouraged the listener to drift into a feeling of contentment. The gentle rising and falling theme which becomes the heart of the movement was all too short.

Avner Dorman
The novelty of the concert was a 2002 trio by Jewish-American composer Avner Dorman. When I looked at YouTube, I was surprised to find scores of performances of a great variety of music by Dorman, though none of this piano trio. He has clearly attracted a large following for music that is distinctive and genuinely imaginative. His music seems often to begin in a comfortable, familiar manner, sometimes, like the present trio, with the utmost simplicity. It began with a simple four-note chorale-like motif, repeated in subtly changing ways, creating at least the impression of each instrument playing distinct phrases in different keys, while one became aware of the original motif continuing repetitiously below the evolving sounds above.

Dissonances slowly became more and more arresting and complex, curiously, not in a way that aroused frustration or irritation. Perhaps no dissonance can today really sound barbarous or outrageous because profligate use of it has diminished its impact, its capacity to offend. Just as swearing in public, on television and film no longer has the power to shock though I suppose there are still some who find it offensive just as some still find gross dissonance offensive. To me these passages were simply counterpoints or foils to the more conventional. The players gave every sign of commitment, persuaded that here was music that had something to say, music that was not imitative but which did not seek to be ‘original’ just to win academic brownie-points.

These situations are always interesting as some in the audience reacted with at least a little reserve, even disapproval. The second movement was faster, no less free with unorthodox harmony and darting, reckless rhythms. Sudden passages of meditative music, violin and cello bowing their way in adagio sequences; then rushing torrents, from high to low registers. One always searches for influences and these were hard to perceive; perhaps certain hints of Vasks or Pelecis came to mind, absurdly perhaps.

Shostakovich’s Piano Trio Op 67
Few pieces of chamber music in the 20th century pack the punch that Shostakovich’s 1944 piano trio does (unless it’s his Eighth String Quartet). I first came to know it through performances by the Turnovsky Trio (Sam Konise, Christopher Kane and Eugene Albulescu) in the 90s. The famous opening, starting with uncanny, false (or artificial) harmonics by using (with the cello) the thumb to shorten the length of sounding string, presaged an extraordinarily sensitive and expressive performance. One could dwell on the range of ‘effects’ employed by the piece, but it is better to consider the plain emotional impact of the music – a matter that should always come before academic consideration of the means by which it’s achieved.

Traditional descriptive musical language, Allegro con brio, hardly captures the real nature of the music, any more than the neutral moderato and poco piu mosso does of the first movement. Its brio isn’t altogether a mistake, but there’s a manic quality here, and with all the bite and energy these players adopt makes you sit bolt upright. It’s the third movement in which Shostakovich expresses the grief that war has plunged his country into, a sustained threnody which fades with dying piano notes to the piano’s grief-stricken staccato start of the last movement.

Though written presumably after the Siege of Leningrad had been lifted (January 1944; the composer had been evacuated from the city in October 1941) this movement remains one of the most graphic, emotional descriptions of war imaginable. And the playing varied from despairing to terrifying, to repetitive, violent passages interspersed with sudden pauses to reflect and regain one’s balance and equilibrium.

I found the whole programme, the choice of works and their committed and accomplished performance by these three senior lecturers in the School of Music totally engrossing. As I seem to say often, it deserved a far bigger audience; a few short years ago these concerts in the Ilott Theatre in the “How long must we wait?’ Town Hall used to attract a couple of hundred people, even in blizzard conditions.

 

Diverting Debussy-inspired trio charm a responsive audience at Lower Hutt

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Toru Trio: Karen Batten (flute), Sophia Acheson (viola), Ingrid Bauer (harp)
(Chamber Music Hutt Valley)

Debussy: Sonate pour flûte, alto et harpe (1915)
Bax: Fantasy Sonata (viola and harp, 1927)
Tabea Squire: Impressions (2018)
Wendelin Bitzan: Zoologischer Garten for flute and viola (2011)
William Mathias: Zodiac Trio (1976)

Lower Hut Little Theatre

Wednesday 16 May, 7:30 pm

Te reo Maori for the numeral 3 is toru; thus ‘Toru Trio’ is a redundancy. This instrumental trio comprises harp, viola and flute, modelled on Debussy’s war-time piece; all are players in Orchestra Wellington. All the pieces were composed in the last 100 years (though the Debussy himself was a couple of years outside that frame).

Their arrival on stage made a striking impression: Karen Batten in a dramatic gold dress, Ingrid Bauer a dress of more coppery gold, and Sophia Acheson wore a near luminous, black dress. And while the Little Theatre is an intimate space with a dry acoustic that leaves performances quite exposed, a distinct compensation is the players closeness. That means the audience could be diverted by three attractive, personable and versatile musicians who use their instruments to produce often unfamiliar sounds and visual experiences; in particular, the harpist’s manipulations of hands and feet on her formidable instrument were always intriguing.

Three of the five pieces engaged all three players while the Bax and Bitzen were scored for only two of them. The way the cards fell resulted in the omnipresence of Sophia Acheson’s viola in all five works.

The concert presented several unusual aspects: the uncommon instrumental combination, that only one piece was by a composer whose name would have been familiar to all the audience, that the trio had invited a young New Zealand composer to compose a piece for them, and that they were in the middle of a Chamber Music New Zealand tour to eight smaller towns and cities from Warkworth via Gisborne, Motueka, etc to Gore in the south.

Debussy creates a new musical form
Debussy started it all. At the beginning of the First World War, Debussy decided to write six sonatas, for different combinations of instruments referencing eighteenth century French musical traditions. Just as Ravel had done with his Tombeau de Couperin, Debussy wanted to make a patriotic French gesture in support of French soldiers facing the horrors of the war. He wrote only three of the six – for cello and piano, this one, and one for violin and piano: he died too soon. The other three were planned: Debussy had written in the manuscript of his violin sonata that the fourth sonata should be written for oboe, horn and harpsichord, the fifth for trumpet, clarinet, bassoon and piano, and the sixth for all the preceding instrument plus others.

For the sixth and final sonata, Debussy envisaged: “a concerto where the sonorites of the ‘various instruments’ combine, with the gracious assistance of the double bass”, making the instrumentation: flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, horn, trumpet, harp, piano, harpsichord, violin, viola, cello, double bass; it would have been a masterpiece. Debussy’s three non-existent works would, like this trio, have inspired scores of works for those new combinations.

In some ways it’s a risky business to combine three such disparate instruments, and to play in such an exposed acoustic as the Lower Hutt Little Theatre, poses an even greater challenge; it’s one thing to be able to hear with such clarity the distinct sounds of each instrument, but it’s something else to deal with the challenge of achieving real blending; and that might be a minor criticism of their playing. Debussy makes a feature of their utterly different sounds by asking each player to introduce her part in its characteristic way, exploiting quite interestingly the differences in compass and tone.

It creates striking effects, viola and flute pursuing very different ranges; early on the harp plays very high while the viola plays repeatedly a very low note. The sonorities are most curious at times; we are not very used, for example, to the viola playing alone over such long passages. The programme note usefully described each theme and their instrumental treatment, and drew attention to their repetition in a different order.

The minuet second movement, primarily in triple, minuet time imperceptibly changes to common time, at times misleading the listener, while the Finale returns to 4/4, and employ the harp at the start in a low register, rather murmuring. For the most part the playing was so sensitive and each player clearly paid such attention to what others were doing that the music began to sound inevitable. While I am familiar enough with it, I remember many years ago finding it elusive and tonally rather disparate. It’s one of those pieces – many of Debussy’s are – that slowly, deeply takes root, more in the instinctive mind than the intellect.

A Bax Fantasy
The Bax piece, for viola and harp, called a Fantasy Sonata, which had become a fashion after English musicologist and a notable compiler of a great encyclopaedia of chamber music, W W Cobbett (it’s near my desk), established a competition that seeking to revive the 16th century English musical form. Numbers of works were produced (Armstrong Gibbs, Bridge, Howells, Ireland, Britten).

Bax’s was perhaps more straight-forward melodically than Debussy’s trio; I didn’t know it, but it’s an attractive piece, and presenting less of an instrumental challenge. And again the players revealed a happy rapport handling dynamics sympathetically, idiomatically.

Tabea Squire is a young Wellington composer whose composing gifts have led to several commissions. This piece, for all three instruments, was not on a large scale and the task was to simulate sounds in nature: the contrasting colours of the kowhai, the image of children dancing in the rain, and a fantail fluttering among trees in the sunlight. While this kind of inspiration for music generally usually doesn’t seem very fruitful (to me); in fact I think it’s more likely to succeed as music without visual or literary or some intellectual construct. Its variety and the handling of parts for each instrument, individually or in ensemble, and the evidence of plain musical invention are enough.

Flute and viola then played a piece by a young (at my age, ‘young’ seems to refer more and more to anyone under 40) German composer, Wendelin Bitzan. This time, zoo animals in curious situations, but stimulating the composer to devise often amusing sonic imagery. Occasionally, the sounds were evocative enough, not to create pictures of the creatures named, but to be engaging nevertheless; moments that were amusing, even bizarre, both in concept and actualisation.

Astrology in music
Then a third piece that had an extra-musical origin: William Mathias’s Zodiac Trio which again presented a scenario that seemed to demand a lot from the imagination, if one sought useful characterisations from Mathias’s impressions of that nature of Pisces, Aries and Taurus. One of the players (I think, violist Sophia Acheson) claimed a Zodiac association with one of the three signs employed by Mathias; I can claim none, so I was able to listen without prejudice to the musical interpretations of these forces.

These three pieces might have been obscure astrologically, but as I wrote above, that was irrelevant; they were attractive musical creations, sometimes beguiling, occasionally droll and often musically inventive. Taurus did indeed suggest the force, energy and danger of a loose bull, as there were moments where these very disparate instruments truly came together in an integrated way.

Debussy’s trio has given rise to an impressive body of musical descendants and to as many threesomes devoted to their performance (look in Wikipedia). There is a rich and every-so-often very rewarding field for Toru to cultivate.

Given that this Hutt Valley concert was Toru’s only appearance in the Wellington region in the course of an eight-concert tour, its excellence deserved a bigger audience.

Wellington Youth Orchestra goes for broke with Beethoven

Posted on by Peter Mechen

Wellington Youth Orchestra presents:
BEETHOVEN, ELGAR and MOZART

MOZART – Overture “The Magic Flute” K.620
ELGAR – Serenade for Strings in E Minor Op.20
BEETHOVEN – Symphony No.5 in C Minor Op. 67

Wellington Youth Orchestra
Andrew Joyce (conductor)

Sacred Heart Cathedral,
Hill St., Wellington

Monday 14th May, 2018

This was, I thought, a well-nigh-perfect concert in terms of length and proportion – as well, it nicely varied the “standard” overture/concerto/symphonic work formula for classical orchestral concerts, one which doesn’t really cater for a particular kind of repertoire, which, as a result, is often overlooked. Elgar’s adorable String Serenade Op. 20 is a prime example of a piece of music that doesn’t easily fit in unless those in charge “dare to be different” in their programming. The result  here was enchanting – and how many other serenades, incidental music suites, symphonic poems and sinfoniettas would similarly enliven concert programmes, one would think, if given the chance!

One couldn’t really cavil at the opting for an overture to begin the proceedings – and though I seem to recall having heard Mozart’s Overture to “The Magic Flute” played in concert a number of times  over the past couple of seasons, I fortunately never actually tire of the music, even though there must be goodness knows how many other pieces which could theoretically kick-start an evening’s music-making just as excitingly and perhaps more enterprisingly. That said, the opening sounds were splendidly-wrought, with those three ceremonial chords at the beginning having a particularly rich and sonorous quality, their upward progression suggesting palpable “lift-off” thanks to the playing’s thrust and full-throated tones. Andrew Joyce’s direction kept the players focused surely on the music’s on-going “shaping up” to a point of release, which came with the allegro – here, the tempo was firm rather than frenetic, with the players given room to enunciate and phrase each entry, so that the notes generated strength and plenty of cumulative excitement. The winds added piquancy and poise, leading up to the return of the brass chords, dignified and somehow more ritualistic than at the opening.

The strings stole in again immediately afterwards, their intent more serious-sounding, and their purpose tested by brass-and -timpani irruptions, with the winds seeking to counter the troubles with rounded, liquid phrases. I thought the give-and-take between the orchestra’s different sections beautifully contoured, keeping the symbiosis of parts and the sense of growing excitement in check up to the point where a crescendo allowed the brass and timpani to raise their voices and  expend their energies in exhilarating fashion. I thought the conductor could have allowed his trombones to roar a little more exuberantly at the end, but the playing still managed to capture a wild fairy-tale-like climax of scene-setting excitement and rumbustion.

So deliciously removed from such festive splendour were the first few phrases of Elgar’s E Minor Serenade, one of the composer’s most beautiful and heartfelt creations. This performance didn’t at first wear its heart on its sleeve, but suggested forward-thinking purpose right from the beginning, instead – here was the confident stride of the countryman, setting the music on its inexorable course, though not without the occasional gathering-in of momentum and allowing of the music to “float” so very effectively and lyrically over a series of exchanges of dynamics in the ensemble. Those  between solo violin and the rest of the strings were particularly affecting, as if in contemplation of either the beauties of a local landform or natural phenomenon, or some other tender thought, before the instruments returned to the music’s original purpose. Joyce shaped these contrasts of expression with the players most sensitively, bringing out a surge of untrammelled feeling via a final flourish, before contemplation again took hold of the music at the movement’s end.

How beautifully the players caressed the slow movement’s repeated upward-reaching opening phrase – not with absolute unanimity, but still with sufficient beauty of tone to capture the composer’s impulsive flight of feeling.  And how tremulously the ensemble then breathed the first phrases of a melody whose repeated sequencing borrowed from this same upward-reaching opening idea – a masterstroke of organic creation! The third and final ascent of the tune’s hushed contourings produced a real frisson of breath-catching beauty, one which gave added poignancy to the minor-key recitatives that followed, and to the more full-blooded return of the same sequenced ascents, the full-bodied tones of the playing imparting a great warmth of spirit to the composer’s outpourings.

The finale’s warm, resonant open-string gestures at its beginning suggested something free and wind-borne, encouraging playing whose repeated upward thrusts had an infectious exuberance – the lower strings dug particularly trenchantly into their notes, creating resonances all round, and a rich sense of well-being. Something of the striding manner of the first movement then returned, heralded by the opening figure. Joyce and his players caught both its stoic, valedictory aspect and a barely-disguised regretful feeling of having to let go of a treasured moment of happiness – I thought it all a lovely, sensitive performance.

After the interval came Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, a mountain-like work that every orchestra occasionally climbs as a matter of course, a kind of self-defining act – but a work which also happens to convey like no other piece of music the indomitable human spirit, a creative act of affirmation and defiance at one and the same time. Though modern professional orchestras can now probably play the music accurately almost in their sleep, the music’s greatness easily exposes any such lack of real commitment to its message – Beethoven’s own maxim, ‘“The idea counts more than its execution”, unequivocally tells all interpreters of this work what their priorities in performance ought to be!

Andrew Joyce and his players stayed not upon the order of their going, but tore into the music, giving us directly urgent opening declamations free from any rhetoric, and purposeful trajectories, the repeat of the opening dealing with “first-time round” thrills and spills to even more thrilling, more sharply-focused effect. Beethoven’s string writing here, and throughout the first part of the development here simply leapt off the page at all times, inspiring the winds to exchange phrases in kind, and goading the horns into urgency when announcing the oncoming recapitulation. Not every note was cleanly reached, but in the urgency of the music’s cut and thrust no one cared, everybody, audience included, taken up with what was about to happen next! The oboist enjoyed his sonorous lyrical moment, but the respite was short-lived, as the conductor drove his bright-eyed and determinedly resolute players onwards to the  driving, stamping measures of the last few pages, the lower strings a tower of strength as the dance seemed to turn into a kind of demonstration, winds, strings and timpani punching home their phrases with gusto.

The slow movement’s opening phrases almost danced their way into the argument, the tempi sprightly and the interchange between strings and winds a joy, before an orchestral irruption burst out and awakened the brass, who brought forth stentorian utterances of splendour. The many exchanges throughout the movement continued even-handedly, sections “holding their own” right up to the movement’s coda, here jaunty and detailed, the conductor keeping things moving until the strings and winds brought a kind of Apollonian glow to the music, though the brass kept us in touch with sterner realities with their brief first-movement “reminder” at the end.

Drama and portent dominated the scherzo movement’s ominous-sounding opening, the horns here bursting out impulsively with the rhythmic “motto”, and the strings matching them in intent – and then, what tremendous playing there was by the lower strings in particular, in the fugue-like trio! – muscularity and precision! The famous “Great Goblin” (E.M.Forster) sequence then walked “quietly over the universe from end to end” – and suddenly we were held in the throes of the throbbing transition to the work’s finale, tapping drumbeats and sotto voce strings seemingly caught in the throes of making a decision to act, which the whole orchestra did with a vengeance, preparing the way for the finale’s first grand statement.

As with the first movement of the work Joyce encouraged the players to bring out the music’s urgency and dynamic force, which they did, assuming a “take no prisoners” attitude, which whirled us through the different sequences, again making light of the “thrills and spills” aspect while drawing the strands of the whole together in an exhilarating, “driven” way. Ultimately the performance’s fervour carried the day, and brought the work to a suitably festive conclusion. What a privilege, I confess to feeling, to have made that journey under the auspices of so many talented young musicians! All credit to Andrew Joyce, whose performance stewardship of the orchestra over these vast spans of music never flagged and resulted in a memorable and colourful concert.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Impressive and stylish performance of Bach’s great Mass in B minor celebrates choir’s 50 years

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Celebrating 50 years: The Bach Choir of Wellington, conducted by Peter Walls

Bach: Mass in B minor

With Nicola Holt (soprano), Maaike Christie-Beekman (alto), Lachlan Craig (tenor), Simon Christie (bass), Douglas Mews (organ) and the Chiesa Ensemble

Sacred Heart Cathedral

Sunday, 13 May 2018, 3.00pm

A handsome A4-size printed programme with a good size of typeface greeted the almost capacity audience at the concert.  Inside was a potted history of the choir, and good programme notes, credited to the internet source, plus entire libretto of the Mass, with English translations.

This work, one of the pinnacles of the choral repertoire, is Bach’s only Mass, though made up partly of a number of earlier pieces, written independently.  It is fraught with difficulties for all participants.  Scholarship has waxed and waned somewhat over the 50 years of the Bach Choir’s life, as to the ‘correct’ techniques for singing and playing this baroque repertoire.  However, with baroque expert Peter Walls at the helm, the style was consistent and the performance was vigorous and stylish.

A large part of the success of the performance was due to the Chiesa Ensemble.  This orchestral ensemble was made up of professional players from the NZSO and Orchestra Wellington, 21 in number.  Their playing was always good, and often brilliant.  The team of soloists was also very fine, and thoroughly in tune with the demanding requirements of their roles.

The 50-strong choir acquitted itself well, for the most part.  It began in fine form with the Kyrie clearly enunciated – ‘k’ is a difficult consonant to get over when singing, but there was no doubt about it here.  It only took a moment for me to think ‘Now we’re in for a good time’.  Excellent bassoon playing soon made itself felt (Robert Weeks, David Angus), conversely, as so often with amateur choirs, the tenors were somewhat weak at this stage.

However, above all, the sheer majesty and complexity of Bach’s contrapuntal writing is mind-blowing.  Confidence and accuracy built up after a bit, and soon the singing became as resplendent in its grandeur as was the score.  Christe eleison is a duet for soprano and alto.  The voices of the two women matched amazingly well, while the accompanying string-playing was notably fine.  Here and elsewhere during solos the choir got to sit down – the men at the rear of the sanctuary, the women on seats along the sides of the church.  They moved quickly and unobtrusively in and out of position each time, as the soloists in turn moved in and out of their respective positions.

The repeat of the Kyrie began with basses, making a solid sound, though they were not as flexible as the women’s voices.  This section was more harmonically interesting than the first iteration.

The Gloria featured a wonderful brass opening section; the trumpets of Mark Carter, Barrett Hocking and Toby Pringle sounded splendid in this responsive acoustic.  The movement was taken quite fast.  Lilting passages helped to convey the meaning of the words, such as ‘…on earth peace to men of goodwill’.  Continuously florid passages were handled superbly well by the choir.  The trumpets celebrated with great élan.

Next came the beautiful solo aria: Laudamus te.  It was sung at a faster pace than I have heard it before, but all the florid twists were beautifully negotiated.  Accompaniment from strings and organ was splendid.  Though not playing baroque era instruments or modern copies, the strings played in baroque style.  The chorus’s Gratias agimus tibi was magnificently sung, with trumpets and timpani (Laurence Reese) again to the fore.

Then soprano and tenor soloists sang the lovely duet Domine Deus, with a gorgeous flute obbligato (Kirstin Eade, Nancy Luther).   Lachlan Craig proved to have a very pleasant voice, while the flute playing was wonderful; the whole effect was most uplifting.  The choir returned for Qui tollis, which appropriately employed a lower pitch, and subdued and even anguished tones.  The musical lines conveyed this, while contemplatinh Christ’s redemption of man’s sin.  Significantly, the final chord resolved back into a major key.

There followed a solo for alto, Qui sedes ad dextram.  Maaike Christie-Beekman’s words were very clear.  Every run and turn was beautifully executed.  Bass Simon Christie followed with Quonism tu solus sanctus.  He sang this difficult aria most competently, with conviction.  The choir returned to sing the final chorus in this movement, and in this half of the performance: Cum Sancto Spiritu, in very lively and joyful fashion, with a brisk pace.  It was rhythmically strong, and tenors acquitted themselves well here, however the sopranos were not fully in agreement on the top note.  The final ‘Amen’ was sung with an emphatic flourish.

After the interval came the Credo.  It had a calm opening.  The choir’s intonation was a little rusty after their break, in Credo in unum deum.  It took a little time to get back into full fettle.  The two women soloists excelled in Et in unum Dominum.  They had a delightful orchestral accompaniment, featuring particularly the sumptuous oboes of Stacey Dixon and Louise Cox.  This was one of the finest moments of the afternoon.

The chorus Et incarnatus est began with smooth, reassuring music, but soon changed at the Crucifixus.  The intervals and chords employed expressed suffering and anguish, only to be abruptly overtaken by Et resurrexit’s joy and jubilation.  There were so many strands in the chorus’s line Cujus regni non erit finis – perhaps depicting the many souls in heaven.  The chorus contribution was very grand.

Simon Christie sang the splendid bass aria Et in Spiritum Sanctum, with lovely back-up from oboes and bassoons.  Perhaps a bigger voice would have made more impact, but Christie sang with great clarity and accuracy, and pleasing timbre.  Confiteor unum baptisma had a flowing style, but the choir sounded a little uncertain in places, and also in Et expecto resurrectionem.

Bach gave the Sanctus a rousing and imposing character, unlike the text’s treatment in numerous other masses.  At the beginning it was treated harmonically rather than contrapuntally; it had the weight of majesty about it.  As it proceeded, the music became more florid; Pleni sunt coeli haa a fugal setting, very fast.   An exultant Osanna ended the movement.

Benedictus was sung by the solo tenor accompanied by a gorgeous flute and continuo.  It was very gracefully sung.  The choir did not start together in the repeat Osanna, and the singers were almost overwhelmed by the brilliant trumpets and organ (mainly, Douglas Mews played a quiet nd tasteful continuo).

The Agnus Dei  was an aria for alto, and was sung exquisitely by Maaike Christie-Beekman with marvellous strings accompanying.  The final chorus Dona nobis pacem had grandeur about it; the jubilant Amen ended the concert with the choir still singing very well.  It takes stamina to last the distance; all performers and especially Peter Walls, had it in spades.  The audience applauded with great enthusiasm.  Well done, all, but especially J.S. Bach.

 

 

Vivaldi triumphs in the NZSO’s Italian celebration

Posted on by Peter Mechen

The New Zealand Symphony Orchestra presents:
VIVALDI – The Four Seasons Op.8 Nos 1-4 *
BERLIOZ – Roman Carnival Overture Op. 9
RESPIGHI – Pini di Roma (Pines of Rome) 1924 **

Angelo Xiang Yu (violin) *
Brett Mitchell (conductor)

New Zealand Symphony Orchestra
Members of the Wellington Brass Band**

MIchael Fowler Centre,
Wellington

Saturday, 12th May 2018

What a boringly predictable world it would be if everything in it turned out as one anticipated! I sat pondering this earth-shattering truism during the interval of Saturday evening’s NZSO concert in the wake of the most inspiring and life-enhancing performance of Antonio Vivaldi’s “The Four Seasons” I’ve heard since first encountering New Zealand violinist Alan Loveday’s now-legendary recording of the work with Neville Marriner’s Academy of St.Martin-in-the-Fields, from the 1970s. Just as that performance blew away the cobwebs and reinvented the work for its time, so did Angelo Xiang Yu’s absolutely riveting playing of the solo violin part and the NZSO players’ galvanic response do much the same for me on this occasion, in the concert hall.

In fact I was expecting very little to come from this, my latest encounter with the work, for the simple reason that I’d heard it played on record so many times and, of course, misappropriated over the years in a thousand different ways – could I face the prospect of those Bremworth Carpet TV ads of the 1960s coming back to haunt me yet again? I felt somewhat “jaded” at the thought of it all, and had difficulty imagining what yet another performance would bring to the music that could be of any new and compelling interest.

My focus in the concert itself on this occasion was firmly centred on what I expected would be the evening’s highlight, Respighi’s Pini di Roma (Pines of Rome), a work I’ve remained violently in love with ever since being “blown away” by my first hearing of the work in concert, some time during the 1970s. And Berlioz’s music, too, had become something of a passion for me, ever since my somewhat bemused initial encounter with an LP containing a number of “Overtures” all of which seemed distinctly odd-ball, the music volatile and angular, though strangely compelling – I persisted, and grew to love their idiosyncrasies, attracted by the composer’s uninhibited use of dynamic and spontaneous contrasts between sheer brilliance and ravishing beauty.

“Lord, what fools we mortals be…” wrote some obscure playwright or other; and my expectations of what I would cherish from the experience of hearing this particular concert were completely confounded, almost right from the first note of the Vivaldi work. I listened to the thistledown-like opening, and straightaway pricked up my ears at its wind-blown, spontaneous-sounding quality, replete with inflections of phrasing and dynamics that suggested the musicians seemed to really “care” about the music.

Both Angelo Xiang Wu and conductor Brett Mitchell readily encouraged the playing’s “pictorial” effects suggested by the music’s different episodes, which followed the descriptions written in a set of poems, presumably also by the composer, which were intended to give listeners precise detailings of what the music is actually “about” – unfortunately these weren’t reproduced in the written programme. I thought I’d go a little way towards making good the omission, by including the English version of the verses that accompanied the opening Concerto, “Spring”.

Allegro
Springtime is upon us.
The birds celebrate her return with festive song,
and murmuring streams are softly caressed by the breezes.
Thunderstorms, those heralds of Spring, roar, casting their dark mantle over heaven,
Then they die away to silence, and the birds take up their charming songs once more.
Largo
On the flower-strewn meadow, with leafy branches rustling overhead, the goat-herd sleeps, his faithful dog beside him.
Allegro
Led by the festive sound of rustic bagpipes, nymphs and shepherds lightly dance beneath the brilliant canopy of spring.

Thus we heard the brilliant birdsong, shared and echoed between the soloist and the leaders of each of the two violin sections  – enchanting! The “thunderstorms” were allowed their full dynamic effect, with the playing almost “romantic” in its flexibility of phrasing and pulse, very free and spontaneous-sounding. In the slow movement, the exquisitely-moulded ensemble textures beautifully “caught” the rustic beauty of the “leafy branches” over the “flower-strewn meadow”, with a doleful, repeated viola note depicting a dog’s disconsolate barking besides its sleeping master. Angelo Xiang Yu’s delicious and freely “pointed” solo playing then beautifully complemented the “festive sound of rustic bagpipes”, the playing by turns jaunty and gently yielding in its “end-of-day” ambience.

From this the playing and its “engagement factor” simply went from strength to strength throughout each of the remaining concerti. The opening of “Summer” brought forth sounds whose charged, anxious quality was almost portentous in its impact, which the furious beginning of the allegro vividly supported. Together with Andrew Joyce’s solo ‘cello-playing, Xiang Yu’s violin vividly conveyed the restless quality engendered by the heat, and the growing fearfulness caused by the oncoming storm, the players relishing the adagio/presto alternations of the middle movement, depicting flies, gnats and the oncoming tempests. And the concluding presto was quite simply a tour de force of sound and fury, the notes flailing and stinging in a tremendous display of both virtuosity and focused interpretative intent.

“Autumn” afforded us considerable relief on this occasion, the opening jolly and bucolic, the interactions between solo violin and the ‘cello again delightful with  Xiang Yu’s playing exhibiting such characterful humour in places (in fact I couldn’t help chortling out loud at his impish hesitations at one point, which, I’m sorry to say, startled my concert neighbour!). And while, throughout the slow movement, we got nothing like violinist Nigel Kennedy’s infamous “nuclear winter” realisation in his 1989 recording (he’s recorded a more recent version, incidentally, called “Vivaldi – the New Four Seasons” one even more “interventionist”, for those who crave adventure!), the “sleep without a care” sentiments of Vivaldi’s poetry was certainly given instrumental voice from all concerned. Afterwards, as befitted the refreshment sleep gave, the music awoke to plenty of bounce and energy – fortunately, the musical depictions of the hunters harrying their unfortunate prey weren’t as graphic and piteous as the poem’s words suggested.

Came Winter, with its bleak, spectral timbres suggesting snow and ice – I loved the palpable “shudder” with which Xiang Yu concluded each of his opening “shivering” solo flourishes, and enjoyed the dramatic crescendi generated by both the violinist and the ensemble as the movement ran its course. The Largo gently scintillated via delicate pizzicato strings and Douglas Mews’ crisp harpsichord continuo playing, as the violin sang of the joys of contented rest by the fire, though the final movement returned us to the elemental fray, via the “icy path” and the “chill north winds”,  if not without some brief reflection on winter’s “own delights”. However, those same chill winds had the last word, the soloist conjuring up a mini-tempest which the ensemble catches onto, driving the music to a brilliant, no-nonsense conclusion!

I never expected to write so much about this performance, but I simply had to try and convey something of the thrill of engagement with the music-making that I felt, all the more telling for me through its unexpectedness, of course! After deservedly tumultuous applause, Xiang Yu came back and played us, unaccompanied, some Gluck, the Melodie from Orfeo et Euridice, the playing evoking its own unique world of stillness and resignation.

Undoubtedly the stunning impact of this first half went on to play some part in my reaction to what followed – and I did think that, for all its merits, the performance of Berlioz’s most well-known Overture , Roman Carnival (Le Carnaval Romain) never quite attained that level of focused intensity which made the Vivaldi such a gripping experience. For me the most memorable moments were the lyrical sequences which dominated the overture’s first half, including a lovely cor anglais solo, played here by Stacey Dixon – whose name wasn’t listed among the NZSO players in the programme. The more energetic episodes in the piece’s second half were delivered with skill and polish, but I felt that the music’s dangerous “glint” and sense of “edge” hadn’t entirely escaped the comfort zone, so that we weren’t lifted out of our seats and carried along amid waves of wild exuberance – the efforts of the percussion, for instance, I thought wanted more ring and bite (though partly a fault of the MFC’s acoustic difficulty in  effectively “throwing” the sounds from the rear of the orchestral platform up and into the audience’s spaces).

Having said all of this, the spectacular opening of Respighi’s Pini di Roma (Pines of Rome), had plenty of impact, conductor Brett Mitchell keeping the music’s pulses steady, thus allowing the players space in which to generate plenty of weight of tone, and flood the ambiences with that barely-contained sense of excitement suggested by the opening Pines of the Villa Borghese. As the tempi quickened, everything came together in a great torrent of sound, as overwhelming in its insistence as tantalising in its sudden disappearance, leaving a vast, resonating space of darkness and mystery.

Conductor and players here enabled those spaces to be filled with properly subterranean sounds of breath-taking quality, as if the earth itself was softly resonating with its own music – strings, muted horns and deep percussion allowed winds to intone chant-like lines as if we could hear the voices of dead souls who were continuing to plead for salvation, music of Pines near a Catacomb. An off-stage trumpeter (Michael Kirgan) delivered a faultlessly beautiful recitative from the distance, just before the chant-like music seemed to us to swell up from underground and raise a mighty edifice of sound, capping it with a terrific climax!

From the fathomless gloom of the aftermath came pinpricks of light in the magical form of piano figurations, awakening the chaste limpidity of a clarinet solo, floated with fairytale enchantment by Patrick Barry and carried on by the oboe and solo ‘cello amid great washes of impressionistic hues and colours – Holst, Debussy. Ravel and Richard Strauss were all there, amongst the Pines of the Janiculum! – the reappearance of the clarinet brought forth the nightingale’s song to charm and enthrall us just before the onset of distant warlike sounds, a steady, remorseless tramping of marching feet whose purposeful trajectories announced the coming of the Emperor’s legions, passing the Pines of the Appian Way en route to the Capitoline Hill.

For this performance the NZSO enjoyed the sterling services of a number of players from the Wellington Brass Band, whose body of tone with that of the full orchestra’s at the piece’s climax had an almost apocalyptic (I almost wrote “apoplectic”!) effect! A pity, though, I thought, that those first distant trumpet calls couldn’t have been that much more more spatially placed, perhaps made from offstage, to give an even greater sense of distance and expectation and impending glory at the climax. As he’d done throughout, Brett Mitchell controlled both momentums and dynamics with great tactical and musical skill, holding the legions in check until they actually swung into view in the mind’s eye, and came among us, amid scenes of incredible splendour and awe. Respighi actually wanted the ground beneath his army’s feet to tremble with the excitement of it all, and conductor and players triumphantly achieved that impression over the piece’s last few tumultuous bars! Bravo!

 

Spectacular centenary concert for Leonard Bernstein from the NZSO

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

New Zealand Symphony Orchestra conducted by Brett Mitchell with Morgan James – vocalist
Bernstein at 100

Three Dance Episodes from On the Town and two songs
Peter Pan: ‘Dream with me’,
On the Waterfront: symphonic suite
Candide Overture and ‘It must be so’, and ‘Glitter and be gay’
West Side Story: The Balcony Scene (‘Tonight’) and Symphonic Dances

Michael Fowler Centre

Friday 11 May 2018, 6:30 pm

Faced with an auditorium less than half full for a concert to celebrate a hundred years of one of the most famous (I carefully refrain from using ‘greatest’) composers and conductors of the 20th century, raised interesting thoughts. One was that I had expected about this sized audience; that, before I’d seen the NZSO offer of big ticket discounts.

I’ve no doubt that everyone interested in classical music and broadly defined popular music recognises the name Bernstein, and would agree that he was a famous and important figure. Name his best known music! Well, of course West Side Story, and, mmm… and some might add Candide, the two Broadway musicals and the ballet Fancy Free, and a few would have heard Chichester Psalms (Orpheus Choir about a year ago), or Mass, and there are three symphonies, aren’t there??? Who’s heard them? And the attentive might recall Orchestra Wellington playing a couple of pieces in 2013 (the Serenade after Plato’s Symposium and Fancy Free), and a brave concert performance in 2012 of Candide from Orchestra Wellington and the Orpheus Choir.

But he doesn’t conform easily to the usual characterisation of a classical composer. Where are the piano sonatas, the other operas, the chamber or choral music? And for that matter, why aren’t his Broadway musicals or his orchestral music, other than what was on this evening’s programme, familiar?

The Symphonic Dances from West Side Story hasn’t been absent from the Wellington concert halls. The NZSO under Miguel Harth-Bedoya played them in October 2012.

On the Town
The pieces from the Broadway musical On the Town of 1944 (a search in the Middle C archive shows the dance episodes were performed by the then ‘Vector Wellington Orchestra’ in July 2009) comprised the three dance episodes and two songs. They opened the concert and brought soprano Morgan James to the stage to sing ‘I can cook too’ and ‘Some other Time’. American conductor Brett Mitchell who I’d heard in a lively, Broadway-style interview on Upbeat at midday, entered and immediately launched into a startling performance of Dance of the Great Lover, the first of the three dances from On the Town which rather astonished me for the super-raunchy, trumpet-attacks from nowhere, then throaty trombones, cutting clarinets (two guest clarinets, David McGregor and John Robinson, in the lead positions I noticed). There was nothing symphonically genteel about it and Mitchell exclaimed at its end, “the NZSO can swing!” I have sometimes dismissed remarks from conductors tackling this genre of American music, that the orchestra has a great feeling for its brazen energy, the rhythms and attack, as if the entire band had served its musical apprenticeship on Broadway. Here such praise seemed totally justified.

Then Morgan James arrived, in the first of four different costumes, each capturing the spirit of the songs she sang. She sang two from On the Town: ‘I can cook too’ and ’Some Other Time’. Of course, she was amplified (I doubt that the 1944 performances were? – miked voices on Broadway only became common in the 1950s. She is a Juilliard graduate and had of course learned how to enrich and project her voice properly. Though she has clearly learned how to use the microphone to advantage, why not let us hear the excellent, unmanipulated voice? Why all the pains to reproduce what Bernstein actually wrote in his score for the orchestra but falsify the voice?).

James’s vocal colours and command of dynamic variety were indeed spectacular and the combination of authentic orchestral sound and a voice that has roots deep in the worlds of Broadway, jazz, most areas of popular music, as well as the traditions and techniques of classical music, was both arresting and flashy. The contrast between her two songs was vivid: the self-confident attack of the Broadway ‘belting’ style of her first song, and her ‘Some Other Time’ that expressed a casual acceptance of the impermanence of a fleeting, shallow romance. And her tour de force, ‘Glitter and be gay’ from Candide, was her parting number; though it was touchingly followed by her encore: ‘There’s a place for us’ from West Side Story.

Likewise, the orchestra created entirely different moods with the other two dances from On the Town: muted trumpets, more prominent oboes and cor anglais, alto saxophone and a great variety of highly polished percussion.

On the Waterfront
The much-played symphonic suite from On the Waterfront employed most of the same characteristics as On the Town with occasional striking solos – from principal horn, from timpani, from tom toms, vibraphone and xylophone, and frequent opulent chorale-like passages from trombones and tuba. Again, there were all the hallmarks of a fine classical composer, a brilliant orchestrator, and above all an orchestra and conductor with all the swing and swagger of popular Broadway.

The overture to Candide has become one of Bernstein’s best known pieces, a compounding of Offenbach and the Chabrier of L’étoile, not to mention Broadway itself. And rather unlike the low-powered performance of Berlioz’s Carnaval romain overture the next evening, the utterly quintessential comedy overture.

Between ‘It must be so’ from Candide and ‘Tonight’ from West Side Story Morgan James spoke interestingly about her musical values, and ended with an almost disembodied top last note.

West Side Story
The Symphonic Dances from West Side Story is a more standard concert work that captures the vitality, violence, anger and occasional calm lyricism (‘Somewhere’ and the Finale) of the score and the orchestra’s playing exhibited all those characteristics with tremendous energy and unflagging precision. Finger-clicking, a shrill whistle… Nowhere more vividly than in the riotous ‘Mambo’ where the only missing element was the dancers.  And then the calm after the long, grieving flute solo brought the suite to a lovely conclusion.

The clamorous applause belied the impression of a small audience.

Piquant and entertaining programme from guitar and viola d’amore at St Andrew’s

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Jane Curry (guitar) and Donald Maurice (viola d’amore)

Music by Locatelli, Hindemith, Bruce Paine, Pablo de Sarasate, Ciprian Porumbescu and Miroslav Tadeć

St. Andrew’s on The Terrace

Wednesday, 9 May 2018, 12.15 pm

I heard these two musicians last year, and once again I can only say that their playing is highly skilled and utterly delightful, and the repertoire charming.

A sizeable audience, including numbers of young people, heard them play a diverse range of music, not all of it composed for precisely this instrumentation, but all of it well worth hearing and apt for the combination.

The Locatelli Sonata Op.2, no.4 was enchanting.  Originally written for flute and continuo, it worked very well in this instrumentation, the guitar performing the continuo part, amply producing a sound closer to the harpsichord than the piano would in an arrangement that exists for violin and piano.  The sweet tone of the viola d’amore in the hands of a thoroughly competent musician is a treat to hear.  The movements, adagio-allegro-largo-allegro were beautifully contrasted, the subtle nuances and variety of tone of the viola d’amore giving everything character and life.

Paul Hindemith was one of the first of the modern composers to write for the old instrument; his Kleine Sonata Op.25, no.2 was indeed short.  There was much lively interplay between the two instruments, and discordant passages part of the humour of the composition

Bruce Paine is an Auckland =based guitarist and composer.  His Finchdean Duet is named after a peaceful village in England, and was originally a solo piece.  Maurice employed the deeper, richer tones of his instrument in this work, which I found attractive but not adventurous.

Pablo de Sarasate was a nineteenth century Spanish violinist and composer.  He wrote many pieces based on Spanish dances, for his instrument.  ‘Playera’ was one in a collection of such dances for violin and piano – though according to my Spanish dictionary, the word literally means ‘canvas shoes’.  It was appealing music.

Romanian composer Ciprian Porumbescu had a short life, and his ‘Balada’ was  probably written in confinement to his home region, where his political views kept him.  He contracted tuberculosis, which accounted for his early death.  It was a sad piece (written for violin and piano), but eloquent and plaintive.  It had these two instruments sounding so well together; the effect was lovely, and elegant.

The final offering in the concert consisted of two ‘Macedonian Pieces’ by Miroslav Tadeć, a Serbian now resident in the USA.  He is a prolific guitarist, composer and recording artist.  Maurice’s parts in ‘Jovka Kumanovka’ and ‘Cajdarsko Oro’ were originally written for flute.  The first one was rather wistful but folksy in character.

The second sounded like a folk dance, fast and very rhythmic.  The viola d’amore made it sound quite skittish. It rounded out a piquant and entertaining programme.

 

 

 

 

 

Pianist Tony Chen Lin’s debut CD for Rattle a must-hear….

Posted on by Peter Mechen

Rattle Records presents:
DIGRESSIONS – Tony Chen Lin (piano)

BARTOK – Piano Sonata BB 88 (Sz.80)
JS BACH – French Suite No. 5 in G Major, BWV 816
TONY CHEN LIN – Digressions (Meditation on R.S.)
SCHUMANN – Humoreske Op.20

Rattle RAT DO80 2018

My first encounter with Tony Chen Lin was in 2008 at Kerikeri’s International Piano Competition, in which he was awarded what I’ve always regarded as a “too close to call” second place to his friend Jun Bouterey-Ishido. Since then I’ve heard each of them some years afterwards give separate recitals in Wellington; and while appreciating the unique excellence of each, I’m still unable to pronounce either of them the other’s superior. Most recently I heard Lin perform at St.Andrew’s, which was less than a couple of years ago, in September of 2016  (the review can be read at the following link – https://middle-c.org/2016/09/tony-chen-lin-piano-evocations-visions-and-premonitions-in-st-andrews/ ), and two of the items he presented on that occasion are now included on this, his first CD, appearing on the Rattle Records label.

The CD’s overall title “Digressions” is borrowed from one of these two pieces, in fact Lin’s own composition. As its subtitle Meditation on R.S. suggests, the piece is a kind of reflection on Robert Schumann’s Humoreske, the work that concludes this recording’s programme. The opening tones of Lin’s piece seemed conjured out of the air, with occasional “impulses of delight” enlivening the self-communing character of the whole, the lines becoming more and more declamatory and detailed to a point where the music seems to turn in on itself and exclaim “Now, what was that work I was going to play? – ah, yes!….” – and from the resonances, the opening notes of the Schumann sound, in haunting accord with the pianist’s musings.

Before this, however, the disc’s contents take us well-and-truly to “other realms” (as Schumann was fond of saying), in the form of music firstly by Bartok and then JS Bach, the latter’s French Suite No. 5 in D Major being the “other” work previously performed at the 2016 St.Andrew’s recital.  One might think that the Bach piece, with its supremely ordered sensibilities, would make an excellent “starter” to any concert – however, we’re instead galvanised in a completely different way at the outset by one of  Bartok’s pieces. In Lin’s hands, the composer’s 1926 Sonata makes an arresting beginning, with its hammered repeated notes and three-note ascending motif, the whole peppered with irregular phrases and brusque punctuations. Amongst these, Lin still manages to find moments of light and shade, as well as in places giving the rhythms a disconcertingly irregular (almost “dotted”) pulse, creating a somewhat precarious, even “slightly tipsy”, effect, and adding to the droll humour. A sudden headlong sprint and a whiplash glissando, and the movement brusquely takes its leave.

Like some Dr.Coppelius-like clock, tolling bell sounds usher in the second movement, the piano’s repeated chords augmented by an insistently anguished single right-hand note, Lin’s clean, steady playing allowing the grim austerity of the scenario its full effect. Though this “tolling bell” rhythm persists throughout, Bartok creates whole worlds of culminative angst and desolation over the widest possible range of colour and dynamics – a particularly magical moment in Lin’s performance sounds at 4’01”, with the constant stepwise rhythm suddenly hushed, almost sinister, as the right hand’s spaced-out pinpricks of light flicker disconsolately through the gloom.

The “rondo with variations” third movement features a pentatonic melody given all kinds of different rustic-like treatment, with songs and dances, fiddles and flutes, in the midst of great merriment and energetic spirits. Lin evokes all of these strands of colour and timbre with seemingly indefatigable energy, by turns invigorating and startling our sensibilities with his playing’s strength, flexibility and incisiveness. Throughout he’s served by a recording which reproduces every contour, scintillation and whisper, making for listeners as much a properly visceral as a musical experience.

After this, the music of JS Bach evokes a somewhat different world, though, as with Bartok’s work, Bach’s forms often incorporated dance styles and rhythms familiar to his contemporaries. The French Suites, for example, contain examples of well-known forms such as Allemande, Courante, Sarabande and Gigue, along with other dances such as the Gavotte, the Minuet and the Bouree, both courtly and rustic in origin. To my ears, Tony Lin’s treatment of these pieces open them all up to sunlight and fresh air – the opening Allemande moves directly and assuredly along a trajectory whose modulations go with the terrain, registering both impulse and reflection along the journey, though without impeding the flow, Lin animating the repeats in what sound like entirely natural and spontaneous ways, compelling my attention with every bar. How joyously the Courante leaps forward from all constraints, its canon-like voicings in places between the hands bubbling with energy and humour – and , in response, how dignified and visionary seems the stately Sarabande, the pianist’s way with repeats illustrating Lin’s ability to create time and space within the realms of a steadily-moving pulse.

I loved how the music seemed to then pick up its skirts/coat-tails for the Gavotte, and trip insouciantly through its paces, the pianist’s lightness of touch never descending to any kind of  “pecking” or jabbing at the music. The engagingly garrulous Bouree acted as the perfect foil for the succeeding Loure, with its sedate, but teasingly-patterned 6/4 rhythms, so very flexibly voiced. And in conclusion, the Gigue danced its way through the soundscape, Lin making something wide-eyed and wondrous of the inversions of the theme in the dance’s second half – a performance which so warm-heartedly brought out the music’s life-enhancing character for one’s listening pleasure.

Once the brief though entraptured musings of Lin’s own “Digressions” had prepared the way, I was more than ready for Schumann’s Humoreske. The composer meant the title not as “humour” in the accepted sense of the word, but as a kind of portrayal of the contradictory and volatile nature of the human condition. Lin’s playing gives the opening a beautifully thought-borne quality, something seemingly to exist both “in the air” and within the realms of the listener’s imagination, at once elusive and all-encompassing in its poetic effect – the composer’s “rhapsodising” about his Clara, and his expressions of love for her here given poignant utterance, obviously somewhere between the “laughing and crying” confessed to by Schumann in a letter to his beloved. At the beginning, the way the melody seems to be “revealed” as if already mid-course is beautifully brought about by the pianist, as is the spontaneous leap-forward of the quicker material, the left hand’s accompanying figurations allowed some tripping, angular quality, imparting a character of their own in tandem with the right-hand’s melody, the effect boyish and engaging! After the extended dotted-rhythm section quixotically dances through fanciful modulations, Lin masterfully eases the music back through its journeyings, returning to the first of the quicker episodes, and then, magically, dissolving such energies into the opening, as if the song we heard at the outset had been meanwhile singing to itself while awaiting our return.

Further fancy awaits the listener in the inspirational, often volatile second movement, during which succeeding moods appearing to “cancel each other out” with breathtaking rapidity. Lin’s traversal of the music is remarkable for its chameleon-like aspect, its ability to “go with” whatever impulse the composer’s fancy follows, while constantly keeping in mind something of what Schumann called an Innere Stimme or “inner voice” (a quality he also referred to concerning his Op. 17 C-Major Fantasie). So while Lin rings all the composer’s seemingly random changes of momentum and mood, he keeps us close to the music’s spirit with an all-pervading concentration on some unspoken and indefinable, but palpable “centre” around which all the “humours” revolve.

By comparison, the third piece, Einfach und zart (Simple and delicate) seems straightforward enough, interpretatively, a poetic opening, with a contrasting Intermezzo – rapid semiquaver figurations, including right-hand octaves at one point so as to set the pianist’s pulses racing! Here, the notes tumbled over one another jovially, Lin’s playing giving the octave passages a kind of fierce joy in their unbridled energies, before returning to the simple lyricism of the beginning. The Innig
(Heartfelt) section is here delivered by the pianist with a born poet’s sensibility, and the energetic Sehr lebhaft which followed then works up a proper head of steam as to convince us of the music’s inevitable “shower of brilliance” summation in Lin’s hands, only to suddenly (and characteristically) transform into a portentous march!

All the listener can do is gape in astonishment and “go” with the strains of the music as it struts into yet another realm of expressive possibility, muttering to itself as it fades into the following Zum Beschluss, one of the composer’s beautiful “epilogue-like” valedictions, an extended amalgam of song and recitative, here, as with so much else along this journey of Lin’s, most eloquently expressed. It remains for a series of swirling chromatically step-wise descents to rudely awaken one’s imaginings from this final reverie for a “return to life”, leaving this listener with “What a journey, and what a guide!” kinds of reactions! – Tony Lin’s ever-spontaneous and boldly adventurous playing seems to me to have most assuredly penetrated the spirit of the composer’s most fanciful, yet deeply-felt outpourings. In all, it’s a disc well worth seeking out and hearing.