Thoughtful, enterprising programming from Michael Houstoun performed with conviction and sensitivity

Posted on by Peter Mechen

Hutt Valley Chamber Music presents:
Michael Houstoun at the Lower Hutt Little Theatre

Music by CHOPIN, SATIE and SCHUBERT

CHOPIN – Four Impromptus
SATIE – Three Gymnopedies
SCHUBERT – Piano Sonata in G Major D.894

Michael Houstoun (piano)

Lower Hutt Little Theatre

Thursday, April 12th, 2018

I remember reading somewhere amongst the material advertising this Hutt Valley Chamber Music concert a passage quoting Michael Houstoun as saying he thought the choice of repertoire here had produced “the most perfect recital he had ever put together”. After listening to his strong, deeply considered playing of all three works, I felt bound to concur with his judgement, with each of his choices having some quality that seemed to either complement, disarm or resonate within aspects of the other pieces.

Those items affected most markedly by the juxtapositionings were the recital’s first-half pieces, Houstoun cannily placing each of Satie’s Three Gymnopedies in turn between the four Chopin Impromptus. Not only did this open up the somewhat “moments-per-minute” effect of the Impromptus’ richly-wrought imaginings (the pieces, incidentally, were not composed as a “set”, nor did the composer stipulate any such ordering in performance), but adroitly took the listener away from any superficial feelings of “sameness” between Satie’s delicately-wrought dream-like dances.

It was a masterstroke, really, enabling we in the audience to appreciate each of the seven individual pieces on their own merits, the Satie pieces helping to underlining the uniqueness of each of the very different Chopin works, which in turn gave each of the “Gymnopedies” the chance to refresh our listening-sensibilities in disarmingly different ways.

The overall effect on our reception of the Schubert work which made up the second half was a kind of activation of an open-hearted spirit towards time and space, wrought by the Satie pieces in particular, but also by the freely-ranging traversal of incident characterising parts of the Chopin works. With its long-breathed opening movement, the Schubert Sonata was not an experience to be treated either lightly or with any impatience – and Houstoun’s care for both detail and overall atmosphere throughout the first half had, I think, helped prepare us for the experience of what was to follow.

Beginning with the first Impromptu (Op. 29 in A-flat Major), the pianist got things under way with a whimsically teasing melody sounded over a quiet whirlwind of triplets, leading first to a haunting chromatic “dying fall” sequence like the sighing of the wind, and then to the theme’s excitable but brief ascent, Houstoun easing gracefully into a beautifully weighted chordal middle section before teasing the music back to the opening. In the wake of such frenetic note-spinning, the first of Satie’s “Gymnopedies” took us to “other realms”, the plaintive melody over measured steps drawing us away from “the busy beat of time” and into solitary contemplation.

The following Impromptu (Op.36 in F-sharp Major) warmed and enriched this mood with beautifully crepuscular colourings, and a melody whose decorated contourings led to a Liszt-like passage, almost religious in feeling. Houstoun then beautifully set in motion a quietly-voiced dotted rhythm which gradually  built up both tones and energies, becoming almost warlike, in anticipation of Liszt’s “Funerailles” (which it predated by a decade of years) before disarmingly returning to the opening melody, this time with a triplet accompaniment and swirling decorative impulses. Again I fancied we heard a Lisztian voice (redolent of the Italian Book of “Annees de Pelerinage”) before a couple of emphatic chords finished the piece. The second “Gymnopedie” again allowed our sensibilities some respite, Houstoun’s playing giving the piece’s barely-disturbed stillnesses a hint of human breath, rather than applying a cool, marmoreal finish – a quality which I thought touched on that state we call the “transcendent”, something still living yet elevated to a higher plane – remarkable.

Very much like the previous Impromptu’s F-sharp Major, the third Chopin piece (G-flat Major Op.51) possessed a similar tonal warmth, but rather more fluid movement, Houstoun bringing out the music’s subtleties of light and shade with great surety, and allowing us some almost voluptuous enjoyment of the harmonies at various points.  Such unashamedly indulgent richness of course found its antithesis in the Third Gymnopedie which followed – though, of the three Satie pieces, I’ve always found this one the least “remote”. It’s certainly been the one most often transcribed for different combinations of instruments, including the full orchestra. I thought Houstoun’s reading again imbued the piece with some feeling, even a certain tenderness, despite his own comments in the programme note regarding the music in general as being “definitions of aloneness”.

The fourth of Chopin’s Impromptus is something of a “sport”, being composed much earlier, and published posthumously – as Houstoun remarks in his progamme-note, it scarcely justifies the “Fantasie-Impromptu” title posterity has bestowed on it, but is ironically the most well-known of the four pieces (a flatmate of mine of former times claimed he knew only one classical music “tune” he could play on the piano, it being the melody making up the middle section of the work – admittedly, a tune that’s eminently singable!). Though a mite scornful of the piece on paper, Houstoun gave it as much meticulous attention as he did everything on the programme, capturing the “swirling” character of the outer sections, and playing the famous tune with wonderful eloquence, though I thought the coda’s tricky syncopations almost tripped his fingers up for the merest instant.

So, then, to the Schubert, the first half of the recital having, I felt, primed our sensibilities with plenty of varied expression. I had heard Houstoun play this work at Paekakariki a number of years ago (https://middle-c.org/2011/07/schubert-from-houstoun-at-paekakariki-matching-poesies/), and thought his performance for the most part “truly praiseworthy”, with only some slight reservations bothering me regarding the “stiffness” of some of his phrase-endings during the first movement. This time round I couldn’t say I was bothered by any such quality, the pianist giving the opening chords the spaciousness they needed to fully resound, nicely differentiating major and minor-key utterances, and setting the more animated sections beautifully in motion, allowing the decorative filigree voices plenty of room to fill out their phrases without sounding rushed. As the pianist did actually give us the important first-movement repeat, there were no critical gasps of shock, horror and disbelief from any quarter besmirching the ambiences!

The movement’s development section with its massive minor-key chordings galvanised our sensibilities, as well it ought, Houstoun’s attack here urgent and imposing, though he played the dancing episodes that followed almost defiantly, even cheekily! – the two moods sparred with one another until the onset of those heartbreaking sequences led the music away from the conflict and back to the music’s very opening, by this time seemingly a world away! I thought the pianist’s addressing of the music a shade tougher at the outset, here, stiffened by resolve through conflict, though the movement’s ending featured richly-wrought tones and spacious phrasing which left we listeners in thrall to the range and scope of the music’s journey.

The Andante movement (the description “slow” seems somewhat redundant in the wake of the first movement’s “heavenly length”) was given plenty of light and shade at a tempo which kept things flowing throughout the opening – I found myself thinking while Houstoun was playing that my mother (who was a piano teacher) would have loved what he was doing throughout this sequence in generating a combination of such warmth and clarity. Having charmed our sensibilities thus, Houstoun proceeded to give the music’s central section plenty of real swagger and muscularity at the outset, though still bringing out the lyricism of the minor/major key sequences that followed with real feeling. At its first return Schubert almost cheekily decorates the opening, in places with great finesse, underlining the music’s happiness/anxiety ambivalence, while after a repeat of the agitations, the opening proper reappears, undecorated, but with the melody suddenly taking flight, Houstoun here seeming to surrender to the music in an unguarded moment, giving to the movement’s end some delightfully flowing and lyrical playing, some of the most natural-sounding from him I’ve heard.

That impression continued throughout the Scherzo with its quirkily placed “grace notes”, some flailing about, and others sounding like mere impulses of droll wit. I loved Houstoun’s treatment of these (as I did previously), the pianist taking great care to both “sound” and differentiate their impact on the music, the forthright ones almost abrasive, and the softer ones impish and po-faced in a way that made me chuckle out loud! And what an effect Houstoun’s playing of the Trio wrought – like a sudden sleight-of-hand movement taking the sounds into an almost childlike world of happiness and contentment!

Houstoun launched the finale’s opening with playful-sounding gestures, the composer toying with impulses of energy as if deciding what to do next. Breaking into an infectious jogtrot got the music’s blood pumping, giving rise to those seemingly endless Schubertian sequences, the music modulating freely and joyously. A more sombre theme darkened the music momentarily, Houstoun’s powerful left hand keeping the darkness at bay to almost orchestral effect, before the jog-trot came to the music’s rescue once again, and brought everything back into the sunshine, for the opening sequences to return – Houstoun momentarily brought our hearts into our mouths by turning up the candlepower for the main theme’s sudden upward leap, before settling things back into a state of contentment for the coda’s brief but eloquent farewell.

A profoundly enjoyable and thought-provoking recital – all credit to Michael Houstoun for his inventive programming and his skills as an interpreter in bring his vision to us so successfully.

Engaging recital of obscure, quirky music on saxophone and harp at St Andrew’s

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Duo Eolienne: Genevieve Davidson (saxophone) and Michelle Velvin (harp)

Music by Debussy, Yusef Lateef, Britten, Bernard Andres, Satie, William Alwyn

St Andrew’s on The Terrace

Wednesday 11 April 12:15 pm

Here was a recital that seemed to fit the space acoustically and offered a range of mostly unfamiliar music that was yet approachable; many of the audience might well be happy to hear these pieces again.

The first piece was by a sixteen-year-old Debussy: Beau soir (beautiful evening). The words of the poem by Paul Bourget were printed and we were left to assume that the score, presumably voice and piano, had been arranged for saxophone and harp. In a shy, gentle triple rhythm it produced a peaceful mood as the poet employs the image of a stream flowing to the sea suggesting life ending in the grave. It worked well for and was played charmingly by both instruments.

Yusef Lateef’s piece, Romance for soprano saxophone and harp, was actually written for these instruments. It was a longer piece, featuring quirky solos: I was able to tell it had finished only when the next piece, Britten’s Six Metamorphoses after Ovid, for solo oboe (saxophone) began. Its moods varied: evocative, fanciful, imaginative.

Two of Britten’s Six Metamorphoses dealt with Pan and Phaeton. Obviously, the saxophone was well suited to Pan, and the impression of Phaeton who came to grief by riding on the sun’s chariot may well have been an accurate picture of that interesting bit of Greek mythology; they were slight though beautifully crafted pieces.

French composer and harpist Bernard Andrès obviously pursues the classical music rather than popular or jazz tradition. I have the impression that he is a major figure in the contemporary harp fraternity; he wrote a large number of solo harp Preludes and judging by the two he played (nos 12 and 14) owes much to the traditions of Chopin and Debussy. The harp in these Preludes suggested a piano influence, their feet firmly planted on the ground, in music of a formal spirit and shape. The second piece was much livelier than the first.

Satie’s Gnossiennes, Nos 1, 2 and 3, were originally piano pieces but their scoring for saxophone and harp came very close to whatever their classical source was, and these players offered a very convincing case for hearing them in this guise. Though less popular than the Gymnopédies, the Gnossiennes evoke a classical world rather well. There is more variety of melody and texture, and they suggest greater kinship with traditional classical compositional styles and spirits. Satie’s reputation has suffered through being seen, lazily, as little more than an odd-ball, eccentric who was mainly interested in mocking and satirising his contemporaries and the classical tradition. I have long felt that he is a much more important and interesting a composer than that. The plaintive character of the soprano saxophone suited this music; its nuances were a great contribution to the interpretation.

The recital ended with William Alwyn’s Little Suite for Oboe and Harp, obviously an excellent candidate for the switch to soprano sax. Alwyn was, as the programme note said, a rather neglected composer, perhaps because of his fecundity and the multiplicity of genres and styles he adopted. In large part his neglect is that of many composers who chose to remain in the main-stream classical tradition rather than adopt the doctrines of the avant-garde, and who devote themselves to writing for each other and for academic approval rather than for real music lovers.

The three dances were firstly, a Minuet of gentle charm, then a quicker Valse, strongly melodic with a surprise ending, and finally, a fast Jig, with a slower section in the middle and another surprise ending.

This piece in not of Mahlerian scale or moral depth or Boulezian complexity and intellectual bite, but it’s attractive and was played with levity and skill; it suggests that there’s other Alwyn music worth exploring.

So it was an enjoyable, stimulating little recital delivered by two excellent musicians.

Wellington Chamber Orchestra in interesting Alfred Hill exploratory mode

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Wellington Chamber Orchestra conducted by Donald Maurice, with Jian Liu (piano)

Brahms: Tragic Overture, Op.81
Alfred Hill: Piano Concerto in A (New Zealand première)
Richard Strauss: Symphony no.2 in F minor

St. Andrew’s on The Terrace

Sunday, 8 April 2018, 2.30pm

An adventurous and stimulating programme was chosen by the Wellington Chamber Orchestra for this first concert of 2018.  The works demanded, and received, almost a full symphony orchestra.  Whether the bright acoustic of St. Andrew’s can cope with this number of players, including brass (mercifully this time not in the sanctuary – it was occupied by the piano, and the percussion) is another matter.  A number of rows of seating had been removed front of the church to accommodate the 64 players.

The programme was planned around the linkages between the composer.  The young Alfred Hill, fresh from Wellington, studied in Leipzig from 1887 to 1891, saw Brahms conduct, and heard this early symphony of Richard Strauss.  Hill’s own work was composed when he was 72.  The excellent programme notes not only made these linkages, but also provided other interesting information.  ‘This programme, while having much stylistic similarity, clearly highlights the unique language of each of these three composers…’.  Neither Strauss nor Hill, despite living in a time of much change in musical language, departed much from the Romantic style of their youth.

Brahms’s overture was written in 1880.  Wikipedia calls it ‘…in essence a free-standing symphonic movement…’.  It has much more complexity and variety than most overtures.  There was plenty of life and feeling in this performance.  There were a few shaky notes, but in the main the playing was strong.  Winds were very good, for the most part.  Brahms’s luscious orchestration was given full expression.  The work’s serious themes, at times grand, were given full weight .

Alfred Hill, is a composer claimed by both New Zealand and Australia (he lived in both countries).  A review of Piers Lane’s recording of this concerto in 2016 (Hyperion) says: ‘Alfred Hill’s 1941 concerto has a breezy, sunny disposition, with hardly a dark cloud in the sky…’.  It was written when Hill was in his 70s, and had been largely lost sight of.  Donald Maurice, today’s conductor, has been a champion of Hill’s music, and has recorded (as violist in the Dominion Quartet) many of the composer’s string quartets, which feature the same cheerfulness as the concerto.

Hill named the movements thus: 1. The Question: adagio, allegro moderato; 2. Intermezzo (Fancies): presto; 3. Nocturne (Homage to Chopin): adagio con moto; 4. Finale (Contrasts): allegro.

After a short introductory adagio, the animated allegro arrived.  The questions were between the piano and the orchestra.  The movement became romantic; there were echoes of Rachmaninov.  A lovely oboe melody featured, beautifully played.  A brilliant piano part was expertly performed by Jian Liu.  Although the work must have been new to him, his assurance and subtlety in rendering it were impressive.  The orchestral writing, however, was sometimes rather pedestrian, though for the most part elsewehere, Hill’s orchestration was skilled and appealing.

The second movement’s Fancies were most imaginative.  The music of this short movement was imitative between piano and orchestra.  The third had a romantic, lyrical main theme.  There was piquant writing for percussion and woodwinds.  The gentle piano writing was indeed reminiscent of Chopin in places.

The finale was agitated, yet assured.  A fine bassoon solo was followed by a dramatic, extended piano solo, which I thought included touches of Mendelssohn.  Then we were into a grandiose tutti to end.  The audience gave the players, and particularly the soloist, a great reception.

In contrast with Hill’s age when writing his concerto, Strauss was only 19-20 years old when he wrote his second symphony, which Hill heard performed in Leipzig a few years after its composition.  Its first movement, allegro ma non troppo, un poco maestoso.  After its intriguing opening, great use was made of  the four horns (perhaps naturally, since the composer’s father was a professional horn player).

This was complex music in places, and it showed in rather more out-of-tune playing in the strings than had been apparent in the earlier works.  Some of the music revealed the presence of Wagner.  The maestoso passages had me expecting to see Siegfried pop out at any moment.  The brass in full flight were somewhat overwhelming, as they played a majestic melody with strong underpinning orchestration; their sound completely covered whatever it was that the woodwinds were playing.  The music was highly rhythmic.

The scherzo: presto movement began on violas; its sprightly character featured gorgeous flutes floating above the strings.  I thought I detected Mendelssohn here, in the characterful figurations.  The lighter mood was overtaken by more ponderous passages, then a repeat of the lighter section arrived; the movement ended with pizzicato.

Marked andante cantabile, the third movement was initially calm and serious, with an oboe solo over broad harmonies, later joined by the other woodwind instruments.  The music was rhapsodic in a solemn manner.  Horns intone, and all instruments develop the theme.  Perhaps it would have sounded more cantabile in a different acoustic from  St. Andrew’s.  It was certainly quite different in character from Tchaikovsky’s famous movement.  There was some choice clarinet and flute playing.  Some of the writing seemed excessive; brevity could have sustained the interest more.

The final movement (allegro assai, molto appassionato) seemed to be rushing somewhere, with its grand march-like theme and chromatic figures.  A lightening of the mood with pizzicato passages was followed by portentous chords, with timpani.  Again, Wagner seemed to raise his head.  This was surely the molto appassionato; it was fast and furious.  Calls from the horns introduced the final bars of the symphony, with some interesting discords among the pomposity and final flourishes.

I would not be rushing to hear this work again, but it is amazing for a 19-20-year-old!.  This was a demanding concert of contrasting but linked works, in the main well played.

 

Rachmaninov’s Vespers richly resound with Inspirare and Mark Stamper at St.Mary of the Angels

Posted on by Peter Mechen

RACHMANINOV – All Night Vigil (Vespers)

Maaike Christie-Beekmann (alto soloist)
Chris McRae (tenor/priest)
Ben Kubiak (bass/deacon)

Inspirare
Lisa Harper-Brown (vocal and language coach)

Mark Stamper (director)

St.Mary of the Angels Church
Boulcott St., Wellington

Saturday, 7th April

Rachmaninov’s somewhat cumbersome title for this work (The Most Important Hymns of the “All Night Vigil”) though literally accurate, epitomises the composer’s characteristic self-effacing attitude to all of his musical undertakings. Fortunately for its deserved popularity, the piece has come to be commonly known as the “Vespers”, pure and simple (in the manner of Monteverdi’s similarly-titled work), however incorrect as a description – in fact Rachmaninov’s work contains settings of hymns from both Vespers and Matins in the Russian Orthodox Divine Service for the Feast of the Resurrection.

Matters of nomenclature apart (and far more importantly), this work provides a listening experience which touches on a number of fronts – aesthetic, visceral, emotional and devotional are words which come instantly to mind – and whose qualities leave little room or option for anything other than through-and-through involvement, especially in a live performance of this quality. I couldn’t help thinking of a similar kind of transportation of delight and wonderment I’d experienced in this same church with the aforementioned “Vespers” of Monteverdi, when performed in 2010 by home-grown forces, authentic instruments and all! Here, my feeling were replicated by a wondrous evocation of devotional intensity from a set of forces recreating a vastly different time and place, if with similarly mesmerising spiritual and emotional force.

For those who think of Rachmaninov’s music as consisting almost wholly of late-romantic throwback gestures belonging to and lamenting the passing of a bygone era, this work would come as a something of a surprise, indicating the extent of the composer’s intrinsic feeling for far older traditions than those of the nineteenth century. In fact the composer’s musical identification with the tradition gives a clue to the individuality of his work as a whole, its aspect of “continuous melody”, the sinuous nature of his themes, and their fervour and volatility. All of these characteristics can be found here interwoven with the actual traditional chant melodies used by the composer in the work, but in a way that results in a seamless exchange between tradition and originality.

The work was written at a time when sacred choral music was enjoying something of a renaissance in Russia – in fact a “New Russian School” of choral composers, including Kastalsky, Gretchaninoff and Chesnokov, inspired by the enthusiasm of the pedagogue and musicologist Stepan Smolensky, had created a new native style of orthodox church-inspired music. The latter had also been Rachmaninov’s tutor at the Moscow Conservatory, and was responsible for introducing him to the beauties of ancient Russian liturgical chant, which inspired the composer to dedicate his Vespers to the memory of Smolensky after completing the work in 1915.

Nine of the fifteen movements in the work are based on actual chant melodies, Rachmaninov drawing from three ancient chant traditions – “Znammemy” (the oldest form), Kiev School and Greek School. For the remaining six, the composer created what he called “conscious counterfeits”, original material based on the style of the existing chants. The text is in “Church Slavonic”, which is the Orthodox Church’s liturgical language. Incredibly the work was finished in the space of two weeks, and performed in 1915 as a benefit concert for war relief. According to my sources, it was performed on a number of further occasions that year, due to its initial success.

Having not heard the work “live” previously, I had recourse to recordings to prepare for this concert, principally to one I’d owned for a number of years, and generally regarded as a “classic” – this was the 1965 Melodiya recording featuring the USSR State Academic Russian Choir directed by Alexander Sveshnikov.  I wondered whether playing my LP repeatedly by way of familiarising myself with the work was going to do my reaction to Wellington’s Inspirare Choir any favours, especially as the Russian recorded performance had several instantly impressive qualities – a marked fervour of utterance expressed by way of an incredible dynamic range and a certain direct “raw” vocal quality which sounded like no other choir I’d heard, along with the deepest and richest sonority I could have imagined, thanks to those incredible Russian bass voices!

Rachmaninov himself made particular reference to these bass sonorities, replying to concerns expressed by the work’s first conductor, Nikolai Danilin, who reportedly told the composer that “such (bass) voices were rare as asparagus at Christmas” – to which Rachmaninov replied that he knew the voices of his countrymen, and that such basses could be found. This exchange was prompted by the fifth of the composer’s settings, one frequently occurring in European church music and known as “Nunc Dimittis”, and here concluding with a slow downward scale finishing on a low pianissimo B-flat. In fact the Inspirare basses at St.Mary’s on Saturday evening gave a creditable account of themselves in this passage, reaching the cavernous depths asked for by the composer, and holding onto their tones tenaciously, if without quite the resonance commanded by my recording’s Russian basses.

For the rest, I thought the performance by the Inspirare choir and the three solo singers truly magnificent, expressing the work’s breadth and depth with a beauty and solidarity of tone that itself paid ample tribute to the quality of the voices involved and the all-embracing direction of Mark Stamper. This was a performance which gave due attention to the ritualistic quality and context of the settings, using two solo voices in turn (deacon and priest) to begin the sequence, and tubular bells to introduce almost every one of the individual movements. And we in the audience were made to feel we shared the same similarly-lit spaces as the voices, which further enhanced the capacities of the performance to draw us into the music.

Besides the sonorous bass voice of Ben Kubiak as the deacon, and  the wondrously plangent tones of tenor Chris McRae, both of whom made various contributions at other places during the work, alto Maaike Christie-Beekman brought to her solos in “Blagoslovi, dushe moya, Gospoda” (Bless the Lord, O My Soul) unwavering, worshipful and warmly-projected tones, confidently mediating the exchanges between the beautiful, wind-blown voices of the women and the deep, almost oceanic undulations from the men.

As for the choir itself, from the very first surge of fervent impulse immediately after the beautifully floated opening “Amin”, with “Priidite Poklonimsya tsarevi nashemu Bogu” (Come, let us worship God, our King), we were drawn into a sense of worshipful communion with the voices, the ebb and flow of their tones gorgeously expressed and finely controlled by Mark Stamper. In the third hymn “Blazhen Muzh” (Blessed in the Man), I loved the growing intensities of the repeated trio of Alleluias, and the radiance of “Slava Otsu I Synu I Svyatomu Dukhu” (Glory to the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit) burst out most tellingly at the piece’s climax.

We heard the choir’s basses to telling effect in “Svete tikhyi” (Gladsome Radiance), the hymn introduced by Ben Kubiak’s bass solo, and beginning with high tenor voices, followed by the women, a lovely “layered” effect. The basses then initiated a stunningly low organ-pedal-like note, which then rose to mingle with the other voices  as the solo tenor burst forth fervently with “Poyem Otsa, Syna, I Svyatago Dukha” (We praise the Father, Son and Holy Spirit), Chris McRae’s vibrant timbres having to my ears a touch of authenticity in the context of this work. And how resonantly the choir’s voices held the slowly-devolving lines of the final “Tem zhe mir Tya slavit” (Hence the world glorifies Thee), with the basses making every ounce of breath tell.

Rachmaninov wanted the “Nunc Dimittis” from this work (No.5 – “Nyne Otpushchayeshi”) sung at his own funeral, professing it to be his favourite number from the work. After the tubular bells preluded the hymn, the women’s voices setting up a rocking motion, over which the tenor sang his plaintive melody, in places impassionedly, and to profoundly engaging effect. The basses then began a kind of canonic sequence at “Yezhe yesi utogoval” (Thou hast prepared) which gradually lit up all sections of the choir. After this, the sopranos then beautifully sounded an exposed “Svyet vodtkroveniye” (A light to shine upon…”) before returning, with the rest of the voices, to the rocking motion, and accompanying the tenor throughout his final sequence, the basses making their famous descent to a low B-flat, some actually completing the journey! In experiencing a performance such as this one could hear why Rachmaninov prized the work so much – most sadly his wish to have the work performed at his funeral was unable to be realised.

Sometimes separately performed, the “Ave Maria” (“Bogoroditse Devo, raduisya”) was here floated beautifully into being, the women’s voices effortlessly orbiting in different contrapuntal directions before the rest of the choir opened the choral floodgates and saturated the church with sound. A joyful bell phrase introduced “Slava v vysnikh Bogu” (Glory Be to God), the sopranos decorating the mezzo’s melody with bell-like entries of their own, the sounds gathering into a kind of cascade which dissolved as quickly as it formed, leaving rapt, prayer-like utterances mingling with the ensuing silences.

In the following “Khvalite imya Gospodne” (Praise the Name of the Lord”) I enjoyed the impression of listening to the voices of the Cherubim and Seraphim on high, as below, on earth, the faithful (the remainder of the choir) lift up their hearts with strong, definite statements, punctuating their utterances with Alleluias, the whole concluded by a peaceful, beautifully-rounded and long-breathed cadence. Rather more complex and narrative a structure was “Blagosloven yesi, Gospodi” (Blessed be the Lord), the text an annotated account of Mary Magdalene (unnamed) discovering Jesus’ tomb opened and inhabited by an angel on the first Easter Sunday morning, the music free and spontaneous-sounding, and the performance of both the tenor soloist and the choir filled with voiced wonderment and joy.

“Voskreseniye Khristovo videvshe” (Hymn of the Resurrection) was imbued with a sense of fresh hope, alternated with wonderment and fierce exultation, the performance giving us an abundance of varied intensities, the voices for the most part energetic and thrusting, while in places thoughtful and tremulous. Even more compelling was the following “Velichit dusha moya Gospoda” (Magnificat), which was a miracle of light-and-shade in its performance – the lower voices began the famous prayer  slowly and meditatively, after which the soprano voices here beautifully lifted their tones to the skies describing the “Cherubim and Seraphim-like exultations” with dance-like figurations, enchanting in their effect. Throughout the hymn, these angelic voices alternated with more earth-bound tones, heaven thus seeming to bestow approval to mankind through the Virgin’s prayer – the sequence ended with heavenly voices joining those on earth in quiet, worshipful rapture.

How rich and varied was the “Slavoslovive velikoye” (Gloria in Excelsis) here, with the lower women’s voices beginning the chanting and the soprano voices floating in over the top. The men’s voices continued the prayer at “Sedyai odesnuyu Otsa” (Thou who sits at the right hand of the Father), before the women’s voices took up the chant again after the “Amen”, reaching a lovely point of hiatus at “Budi, Gospodi, milost Tvoya na nas” (Let Thy mercy, O Lord, be upon us), and becoming almost recitative-like over the mesmerising repetitions of “Svyatyi” (Holy), which continued to the end.

Three short hymns brought the work to a close, the first an intense, richly-wrought outpouring, “Dnes spasenye miru” (The Day of Salvation), followed by a questioning bell sequence that seemed to require an answer from the voices! This came with “Voskres iz groba” (Thou didst rise), a serene outpouring of faith and confidence, the singing like a great exhalation of breath, truly depicting the text’s affirming statement “Thou hast given peace to the Universe”, a world drawn by the sopranos’ soaring, steadily-held line and the basses’ deep, rock-bottom tones. Finally,  heralded by an imposing extended bass solo from Ben Kubiak, the women’s voices appropriately took the lead for “Vzbrannoy Voyevode”  (O victorious leader), a Hymn to the Mother of God, the mezzo lines rich and energetic, and the sopranos gleaming, as throughout, richly upholstered by the lower voices, and concluding the whole work with a joyous outpouring of mellifluous tones and tingling energy.

Very, very great credit to all concerned with the venture, to Mark Stamper and his Inspirare singers and cohorts – what a work, and what a performance!

 

De Waart and NZSO: Brilliant Mozart two piano concerto and epic Mahler performance

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

New Zealand Symphony Orchestra conducted by Edo de Waart
Piano duo: Christina and Michelle Naughton

Mozart: Concerto for Two Pianos in E flat, K.365
Mahler: Symphony No. 5

Michael Fowler Centre

Friday 6 Apr, 6:30 pm

For me, two of Mozart’s most beguiling works have adjacent numbers in the Köchel catalogue: the Sinfonia Concertante for violin and viola (K 364) and the Concerto for two pianos (K 365), meaning that scholars believed they were written about the same time, 1779. Certainly, they have both been deeply embedded in my affections, perhaps through the performances I first heard.

This was a little before Mozart’s leaving Salzburg for Vienna (around the same time as he wrote the flute concertos, the Coronation Mass, the Posthorn Serenade, Symphony No 33, the Solemn Vespers). It was the last piano concerto, numbered 10, written in Salzburg; next came the first three in Vienna, Nos 11, 12 and 13, in 1782, the first of the 17 truly mature and immortal piano concertos.

Mozart’s instrumentation varied. What we heard from the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra under  their music director Edo de Waart, was Mozart’s original score which he played with his sister, Nannerl; it involved, as well as usual strings, only pairs of oboes, bassoons and horns. Mozart revised it later when he played it with a pupil, adding pairs of clarinets and trumpets. The string numbers were interesting too: instead of the usual declining numbers through violins to basses, De Waart employed eight each of first and second violins, and violas; I couldn’t see all the cellos but suspect there were 6, and probably 2 basses. I wondered whether De Waart had employed these numbers to create a fuller sound in the middle range, to balance with the weight of two pianos.

The orchestral introduction was elegant and deeply felt, with flowing rhythms; its character was complementary to the pianos which entered boldly, but quickly subsided to a delicate, rather affecting mood. Rather than pitting them against each other, the main feature of their playing is an almost uncanny interweaving of lines, sharing the music with beguiling charm, often taking over from each other mid-phrase, and ensuring that it was never possible to feel that one was the ‘primo’, the other ‘secondo’, as is usual with duets.

The major attraction was of course, the piano duo, Christina and Michelle Naughton: twin sisters, aged 28, born in Princeton, New Jersey of European/Chinese ancestry. They grew up in Madison, Wisconsin and their musical education was at the Juilliard School and the Curtis Institute. They occupy the sort of place among duo pianists enjoyed for several decades by the Labèque sisters. They lack nothing in musicianship, technical skill and interpretive insight.

The second movement, Andante, prolonged the sense of elegance, the pianos often elaborately decorating and echoing the orchestral lines through the long melodies. Till the pianos eventually came to dominate in an extended cadenza-like episode in which the orchestra re-joins just before the end. It seemed like a magical introduction to the spirited, optimistic mood of the Rondo with its long curving lines that the two pianists adorned with tasteful ornaments. They led the confident fugal passage in a playfully rhetorical fashion, that seemed to mock the expectation of a portentous finale.

The whole was far more than the sum of its parts however, as it was obvious throughout that we were hearing a couple of immaculate pianists who performed, as was repeated in promotional material, as if one, each seeming to process her part through the same mind and hands, neither seeking pre-eminence, and creating the feeling that each felt as if merely a half of a single instrument.

Their encore was something of a curiosity and a surprise. No doubt encore pieces for piano duo are thin on the ground: this was Variations on a Theme by Paganini for two pianos – based Paganini’s 24th Caprice, by Lutosławski. The other pianist when it was written in 1941 was composer Panufnik who had also remained in Warsaw during the war and they played it in the city under horrendous German occupation (read Panufnik’s gripping autobiography, Composing Myself). They survived the terrible months in late 1944 when Soviet forces remained passively on the east bank of the Vistula, making no move to defend Warsaw while the German forces destroyed the city; it suited Soviet anti-Polish policies.
One YouTube listener to a performance of the piece by Argerich and Kissin remarked “époustouflant!” The Naughton sisters played it from memory; “époustouflant!” indeed!

I was surprised to see a few empty seats after the interval (it had looked a very full house before), as the Mahler approached. Fancy forgoing the chance to hear, not just an ordinary performance but what emerged after 70 minutes as a superb, emotionally elaborate and intellectually sophisticated creation.

There are trumpet fanfares and trumpet fanfares, and this was the latter, if you see what I mean. Michael Kirgan was flawless: flamboyant perhaps, but arresting, heroic, while at the same time relaxed. The fanfare foreshadowed the spirit and narrative of this, perhaps most familiar of all the symphonies. Then the grand yet melancholy tone of the strings prompted anticipation of the momentous epic that was to follow.

Mahler linked the first two movements as Part I, and he treated the last two similarly, as Part III. Apart from the thematic connections between movements that might have been fairly uncommon before his time, there seems little reason today to think of the work as other than in five movements.

The second movement is marked Sturmische bewegt, mit grosser Vehemenz; De Waart opened with ferocity and vehemence as instructed, while later his orchestra depicted an extraordinary calm, with feathery emotions dominated by beautiful woodwinds, alternating with passages from strings expressing a returning disquiet, and turbulent passages that probably taxed the brass but emerge flawless.

The middle movement, Scherzo: Kräftig, nicht zu schnell (Strong, not too fast) hardly complied with the instruction to express strength; its scherzo character, its luminosity seemed to predominate, and there are charming dance-like episodes of string pizzicato, dreamy horns and woodwinds. Its triple time certainly lends itself to suggestions of the Ländler and the Waltz: whether that it amounts to ‘social commentary on excess’, as the programme notes suggest, bears consideration…

The audience seemed to sigh at its recognition of the arrival of the beautiful Adagietto; and its mood was indeed one of inconsolable sadness, while never losing itself in weakness or lacking in a feeling of profound humanity. Scored for only strings and harp, there were many beautiful passages for those instruments to express poignancy and reflectiveness.

The last movement, Rondo, follows the course prescribed by Mahler: Allegro-Allegro giocoso. Frisch (lively); and there is much delicate, pastoral scoring, initially for strings, gently becoming ‘giocoso’ with horns, oboes, trumpets and the rest, all immaculately played. And a longish fugal section that is the vehicle for dancing and gaiety rather than for musical seriousness.

Not only was this a wonderful performance that would have converted any Mahler sceptic (and the slight thinning of the audience suggests they still exist), but would have left even the most confirmed or blasé listener with a renewed feeling of wonderment and optimism, overcoming for the moment, disquiet at all the world’s increasing turbulence and horrors. Mahler might have lived during a period of relative international peace and temporary personal happiness, yet there was, nevertheless, in this most sanguine, as well as tumultuous of symphonies, material for listeners to this magnificent performance a century or more later to experience a huge range of external and personal emotions, both grieving and ecstatic.

 

Polish and Shakespearean themes lead fine St Andrew’s lunchtime recital

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Music for voice and solo piano

Eleanor McGechie, mezzo-soprano (item 1))
Gabriela Glapska (piano – accompanist and items 2 & 3)
Will King. Baritone (item 4)

André Tchaikowsky: Seven Sonnets of Shakespeare  (two songs)
Chopin: Preludes, Op.28 nos. 7-12; Ballade in F minor, Op.52 no.4
Gerald Finzi: Let us garlands bring, Op.18

St. Andrew’s on The Terrace

Wednesday, 4 April 2018, 12.15 pm

Shakespeare ‘book-ended’ the programme, with two sets of songs, separated by Chopin.  It made an interesting programme, featuring mainly the piano, but with pleasing songs to begin and end.

The pianist and composer André Tchaikowsky was not, we were told in the pianist’s introductory remarks, related to the great composer of the same name.  I remember him visiting New Zealand to play with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, a long time ago.  He was Polish, and died in 1982, at only 47 years of age.

He was apparently a great fan of Shakespeare.  The first sonnet, ‘To me, dear friend, you never can be old…’ was preceded by a long piano introduction.  Eleanor McGechie proved to have a rich voice, and especially gorgeous low notes.  She was well up to singing the wide range of pitch demanded by the song.  The second song, ‘So are you to my thoughts as food to life…’ had a calmer quality.

The song was moody in temperament at first, but later became sprightly, particularly in the piano part.  Both singers in the concert are students at the New Zealand School of Music – and therefore could be excused for using the scores rather than singing from memory.

The Chopin Preludes were skilfully and passionately played (though I counted five, not six).  The link here was Polish nationality, not only of André Tchaikowsky but also of Chopin and of our pianist at this concert.  There were both depth and sparkle in her playing, despite technical difficulties in the Preludes, and the Ballade, which apparently held no fears for her, though the Ballade was not faultless.  All Gabriela’s pieces were played without use of a score.

The Ballade began beguilingly, with poetic, beautiful passages.  The middle section is demanding and very fast, requiring great dexterity – which she has.  Her playing brought out the contrasts very well.  The latter part of the piece was also very fast; the notes shimmered, while maintaining the melodic line, power and forward movement   The pianism was very intense in this intricate music; an impressive performance despite the few flaws.

Gerald Finzi was a litterateur as well as a composer; his love of Shakespeare is depicted in his exquisite song cycle Let us garlands bring (the last line of the song ‘Who is Sylvia’) illustrates his superb word-setting.  The songs, with the plays in which they appear, are:

‘Come Away, Come Away, Death’ (Twelfth Night, Act II, Scene 4)
‘Who is Silvia?’ (The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Act IV, Scene 2)
‘Fear No More the Heat o’ the Sun’ (Cymbeline, Act IV, Scene 2)
‘O Mistress Mine’ (Twelfth Night, Act II, Scene 3)
‘It Was a Lover and His Lass (As You Like It, Act V, Scene 3).

Will King enunciated the words very well, and he projected them with a lovely tonal quality.  The effect was magical in places.  In the first song, the opening chords on the piano presaged something ominous.  The next song was a complete contrast; ‘Who is Silvia’ has a cheerful mood.  The delightful running accompaniment adds to its endearing quality, especially the ending.

The performers did justice to this inspired song cycle.  Each word had its proper emphasis and phrasing.  The accompaniment’s dynamics were just right – Gerald Moore’s famous book title (‘Am I too loud?’) did not need to be uttered here.

Will King’s voice was fine, apart from some strain and rawness when singing fortissimo.  After the rather sombre ‘Fear no more the heat of the sun’ there was  return to joy with ‘O mistress mine’.  This could have been sung in a slightly lighter style and tone, and the piano could have done with less pedal for the sprightly final song.  Nevertheless – bravo to all three performers!

 

 

Tudor Consort successfully aligns Easter concert with ending of World War I

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

The Tudor Consort, conducted by Michael Stewart, with Milla Dickens, soprano, and Richard Apperley, organ (As the leaves fall)
‘Music for Holy Week: Eternal Sacrifice’

Purcell: Hear my Prayer, O Lord
Parry: Songs of Farewell (Six Songs. or Motets, interspersed throughout)
Byrd: Miserere mei, Deus
Harold Darke: As the leaves fall
Gibbons: Drop, drop, slow tears
Weelkes: When David heard
Poems by Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon

Wellington Cathedral of St. Paul

Saturday, 30 March 2018, 7:30 pm

As Michael Stewart explained in his pre-concert talk, in considering music for the yearly Good Friday concert, he had the idea of aligning music for Holy Week with music marking the end of World War I. Therefore he chose appropriate music written during that war, and interspersed it with music of earlier times written by English composers, and with poems written by two poets of the Great War. All this made for a very interesting programme.

Hubert Parry has perhaps tended to be regarded as a minor figure: very much of his  age – late Victorian and Edwardian, and the composer of the famous Jerusalem (‘And did those feet in ancient time…’), the lovely hymn tune Repton (‘Dear Lord and Father of mankind…’), the anthem I was glad, composed for King Edward VII’s coronation, and other choral pieces well-known in Anglican choirs. Tonight was quite a revelation – of the range, skill, and modernity of his choral writing.

Parry became director of the Royal College of Music in London, and professor of music at Oxford University. Stewart (and Grove’s Dictionary) stated that Parry had revitalised music in the United Kingdom, which had reached a low ebb. He was involved in teaching, among others, Ralph Vaughan Williams and Gustav Holst, both of whom made a huge contribution to British music. Another claim to fame was his  assistance to George Grove in 1877, in the compilation of the latter’s massive Dictionary of Music and Musicians.

Given a small choir performing, able to use the resonance of the cathedral to its advantage, there was not the problem with clarity of words that there can be with a larger body of singers.

As one who had studied in Germany, to Parry, war between Britain and Germany was unthinkable. When it occurred, with its tremendous loss of life, including among music students of his, he was deeply shocked and horrified. This is reflected in the Songs of Farewell, written between 1916 and 1918, the year of his death, not least in the poetry he chose to set..

As usual, printed programmes were on A4 paper, with print large enough for the words to be read during the concert, thanks to sufficient lighting. Dates for all the composers and poets were given, and the words of the songs were printed. (Other choirs please copy these exemplary practices).

​The opening Purcell Psalm verse was grave and quiet, with exemplary tone; dynamics were beautifully managed. The poem Anthem for doomed youth by Wilfred (not Wilfrid) Owen was read immediately after, giving point through the well-known opening words: ‘What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?’ And the last line: ‘And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds’.

The first two Parry songs followed, the first a setting of the wonderful poem by Henry  Vaughan, one of the 17th century, metaphysical poets: ‘My soul, there is a country Far beyond the  stars’, which I memorised when a student. Its emphasis on peace was very telling in  this context. While the words have their own beauty, the unaccompanied setting did  not take from this euphony. Especially at the beginning, the piece was rather typical  English part-song – but no worse for that – the setting of words was very fine.

The next song, I know my soul hath power to know all things was attractive and  expressive, in a homophonic setting, in contrast to the greater intricacies of the first  song. It was followed by Byrd’s Miserere. (The more famous Allegri setting had  been on the radio that afternoon, as had Tudor Consort’s Good Friday concert from  2017). The superb polyphony was brought out by the singing, nevertheless all the  voices were skilfully blended.

Another Owen poem followed: ‘Greater love’, then the next Parry song Never weather-beaten sail, with words by Shakespearean-era poet Thomas Campion. The  setting was appropriate for these words and their period. It differed in mood from the earlier songs, and featured lovely harmony. The second verse’s words about ‘high Paradise’ were set to soaring phrases; a glorious song.

The last work before the interval was the only one featuring extended vocal solo from Milla Dickens, and also organ, by Richard Apperley. Harold Darke, who died in 1976 after a long life, was a well-known British organist and composer. He is widely known mainly for his setting of the carol In the bleak midwinter. The poem As the leaves fall was written in 1916 by Lieutenant Joseph Courtney, as a very young man. Heart-wrenching it is, particularly in the words addressed to mothers and maidens, for the loss of the male youth. The song began with a long organ introduction. Throughout, the organ part was interesting and varied.

Choir and solo soprano alternated, and sometimes sang together, reaching a climax in the final section, triumphantly proclaiming confidently ‘There is no death…’. This was quite an unusual, lengthy work that had considerable impact.

After the interval, Gibbons’s simple but sublime Song 46: Drop. Drop slow tears was simply gorgeous. (There is also a beautiful anthem on these words by New Zealander Richard Madden.) It was followed by a tragic wartime poem by Siegfried Sassoon: ‘Suicide in the Trenches’. Back to Parry, and There is an old belief. This received a very imaginative setting, and gave the impression of being difficult to sing. While expressing hope in heaven, the nineteenth-century poet John Gibson Lockhart seemed unsure about the hope, ending his poem ‘Eternal be the sleep If not to waken so’ (i.e. waken in the creed of life ‘Beyond the sphere of Time’).

​

Hearty lunchtime fare at St.Andrew’s with Beethoven and Gershwin

Posted on by Peter Mechen

St.Andrew’s Lunchtime Concert Series presents:
BEETHOVEN – Kreutzer Sonata (Violin Sonata No.9 in A Major Op.47)
GERSHWIN (arr. Heifetz) Summertime / It Ain’t Necessarily So (from “Porgy and Bess”)

Carolyn van Leuven (violin)
Catherine Norton (piano)

St.Andrew’s on-The-Terrace

Wednesday 28th March, 2018

Guest reviewer – Christina Wells

Wednesday’s lunchtime saw a good crowd at St. Andrew’s Church, all looking forward to hearing a performance of the superlative “Kreutzer” Sonata by Beethoven, for violin and piano. We were warned at the outset by violinist Caroline van Leuven that it was “vigorous stuff” and that we were to “hold onto” our hats!

The sonata was delivered with plenty of fire from the violinist and matched in spunk and spirit by pianist Catherine Norton. From the opening strings’ double-stopping, answered by the piano, the expectancy was created, and then the tentativeness shaken off – and so we were away!

In places it was a bit of a rough-round-the-edges ride, with the violin’s intonation not always completely secure, especially in the instrument’s upper reaches – nevertheless this was more than made up for in intensity and physicality of expression. We heard various instances of rapt stillness in places in the first movement, the ghostly withdrawn passages coming off with a particular depth of feeling – and at the other end of the spectrum, we enjoyed the stylish elan of the pizzicato playing to match the showy piano displays. Overall the violin part was resplendently delivered and caught the spirit of the piece, while Catherine Norton’s playing was strong and sensitive by turns throughout, delivering cascades of sound and colour.

The piano-only introduction to the second movement was notable for the care with which every note was sculptured and “placed” by Norton, the phrasing strongly-focused and sensitively shaped. This introduction formed the basis for a set of variations to follow. The first was playful, while the second featured a quirky jog-trot rhythm, each rendition, while not entirely tidily delivered, giving pleasure in its characterisation. Then came a lovely variation in a minor key with beautifully weighted question-and- answer exchanges. Both pianist and violinist exhibited a winsome feeling for the thoughtful mood of the sequence, giving us in places some singing tones and beautifully-sustained sounds.

The violinist was occasionally challenged by the difficulty of the rapid figurations in other places, but sustained the grander moments with conviction, aided by the steadfastness of her partner. Beethoven’s volatile invention took us from jollity to playfulness through wonderment and deep sonority. With such roistering physicality created by the players’ exchanges, this became a true partnership sonata.

The third and last movement carried this style forward, with scampering violin passage work matched by demanding, deftly-played piano figurations. Phrase was answered by phrase, with a whole world of expression created by the composer, here sensitive and suggestive, and in other places bold and boisterous. We marvelled at the energy and drive of it all, the thrills and spills of the execution matched by the obvious impression that the performers “knew how the music should go”. It felt like a true achievement, and the audience responded with enthusiasm and approval when all was done.

The Gershwin was a change of pace entirely, the first piece “Summertime” delivered with a suggestive and ladened style of a blues violinist. The playing was sultry, languid and expansive, and took the instrumentalists’ sounds into entirely new regions. Catherine Norton’s accompaniment was suitably slow-breathed and patiently controlled, in tandem with her partner.

“It Ain’t Necessarily So” was also delivered with plenty of awareness of the original’s atmosphere and context. Sleazy and insinuating at first, the music caught us up in the rapid-fire middle section. here delivered with plenty of volatility. Both musicians seemed to occasionally have to jump through hoops in their pursuit of the transcriptions’ Janus-faced depictions of both messenger and message, but each carried it off right to the end.

Brilliance and feeling from the Mazzoli Trio at Lower Hutt

Posted on by Peter Mechen

Chamber Music Hutt Valley presents:

MAZZOLI STRING TRIO

Julie Park (viola), Sally Kim (‘cello), Shauno Isomura (violin)

SCHUBERT –  Trio in B-flat Major D.471
A. RITCHIE – Spring String Trio (2013)
FRANCAIX – String Trio (1933)
MISSY MAZZOLI – Lies You Can Believe In (2006)
HAYDN – Trio in G Major Op.53/1
DOHNANYI – Serenade Op.10

Lower Hutt Little Theatre,

Monday, 26th March 2018

Formed in 2015 by students from the University of Auckland and the Pettman National Junior Academy of Music, the Mazzoli Trio, so the story goes, took its name from that of a composer of a piece of music which was one of the first the trio of musicians had prepared. They had fallen in love with the piece, one called “Lies You Can Believe In”, written by up-and-coming New York composer Missy Mazzoli, and thereupon contacted her to ask if she would allow the Trio to use her name, as well as perform her music. And so a new and vital ensemble was born, with its first major assignment in public an invitation to perform at a concert at the 2nd International Pacific Alliance of Music Schools’ Summit in Beijing, China, an occasion which brought them much acclaim regarding both their playing and the repertoire chosen.

Monday evening’s concert at the Lower Hutt Little Theatre was one of a number of appearances by the Trio throughout the North Island organised by Chamber Music New Zealand. The programme seemed a judiciously chosen selection of works both familiar and intriguing, with the Trio’s “signature work”, by Missy Mazzoli, promising to be one of the evening’s particular fascinations. Interestingly, both halves of the concert had their order as per programme changed, which left me to wonder whether there had been a simple misunderstanding between the musicians and the printers, or, alternatively represented a significant rethink by the musicians of a previously existing order. Whatever the case, it made not the slightest difference to our anticipated enjoyment and receptivity of the concert.

So, instead of beginning the evening’s music with Anthony Ritchie’s “Spring String Trio”, we heard instead Schubert’s B-flat Major Trio D.471, a work in a single movement, which was played with such freshness and simplicity of wide-eyed wonderment that our hearts were instantly captured. What struck me instantly about the playing was that, despite the Trio’s obvious youth the music-making was imbued with such character. Part of this came from the players’ awareness of the interactiveness of the different instruments, each ready to assert and then give way, beautifully dovetailing the various musical arguments, and delighting the ear in doing so. We enjoyed the “shape” of the piece, its vivid contourings through the opening’s lyricism and contrasting dynamism, and the music’s intensification throughout the development, before the eventual “unravelling” of these tensions, instigated by the opening’s reprise via its warmth and familiarity. I thought the playing most importantly caught that unique Schubertian mix of charm, sunniness and tension which characterises his music.

I must admit to being intrigued at Anthony Ritchie’s work having been, according to the programme, the result of a commission concerning none other than (Sir) Robert Jones, somebody about whom I have very few positive feelings – however, I suppose composers have to earn a living! Banishing all thoughts of the association from my mind I settled down to enjoy the music, and was straightaway drawn into a dark-browed world of almost Shostakovich-like angst, a kind of “charged calmness”, out of which grew structured, contrapuntal exchanges almost baroque-like in their ordering, with everything creating a real sense of expectation, both in a formal and emotional sense.

This feeling bore fruit with the players’ energetic launching of vigorous, almost hoe-down-like passages, which in places either “took to the road” or drew from the irresistible momentum of a steam train (the music’s motoric quality not surprising in a composer with avowed admiration for Shostakovich’s music), a sequence which, after taking us places most exhilaratingly suddenly ceased its physicalities and became thoughtful and even melancholic. By this time, I was completely at the mercy of the music-making, drawn in by these musicians’ concentration and focus, the instrumental tones here given increasing weight and strength as to achieve a splendid kind of apotheosis, with the composer seemingly bringing the work’s essential elements triumphantly together at the conclusion, before cheekily throwing the last bars to the four winds! – great stuff!

Even cheekier entertainment was provided by French composer Jean Francaix (1912-1997), whose music was described most aptly in the programme as having “wit, lightness and a conversational interplay”. Writing his first pieces at the age of six, he once remarked that he was “constantly composing” and over the course of his long life wrote over two hundred pieces in a variety of styles and genres. His String Trio of 1933 began with hide-and-seek scamperings expressed in largely will-o’the-wisp tones, the instruments occasionally showing their faces and striking attitudes in mock-seriousness, before grinning impudently and skipping out of reach once more, the movement finishing on a po-faced pizzicato note.

The Scherzo presented itself as a wild, lurching waltz, replete with impish mischief and surprising orchestral-like effects, such as sharp-edged pizzicati that made one jump! The musicians entered into the music’s spirit with great relish, bringing out both the contrasting episodes of melancholy hand-in-glove with their humorous undersides – at one stage the sounds resembled instruments duelling with pizzicato notes – “Take that! – and that! – and THAT!”. The Andante which followed made a wistful, melancholic impression, with the violinist’s instrument singing disconsolately, while being rocked and comforted by the viola and ‘cello.  The melody was taken over by the cello and counterpointed by the viola, giving rise to sounds and feelings of a great loveliness – for whatever reason I was put in mind of Vaughan Williams’ music, by way of imagining the music written with the viola as the leading voice.

The Rondo finale, marked “Vivo”, wasted no time in making its presence felt, with great dynamics at the outset, and the composer’s singular invention regarding the accompanying rhythms leaving us wondering what to expect and where to be taken next! A bout of upper-register exploration left the music momentarily frightened by its own angsts, before emerging, albeit a little cautiously, from its own melt-down, the viola taking the initiative and restoring control and morale, leading the music into and through a mock-march of triumph, with (one senses) no prisoners being taken!

After the interval, we were told of another “running order” change to the programme, the last being made first this time round, with the piece written by the Trio’s namesake, Missy Mazzoli, divertingly called “Lies You Can Believe In”, beginning the concert’s second half. Called by its composer “An improvisatory tale”, the music draws from what the composer calls “the violence, energy and rare calm one finds in a city”. Written in 2006 for a Milwaukee-based ensemble, Present Music, the piece seems to throw everything within reach at the listener by way of introduction, the rhythms fierce, driving and syncopated, the lines both focusing and blurring the laser-like unisons, which disconcert by unexpectedly melting into warm and fruity expressions of melancholy. The Trio’s total involvement with this material swept our sensibilities up into its maelstrom of variety, with all the aforementioned characteristics the composer required of the piece’s presentation.

In tandem with the driving rhythms and spiky accents come lyrical instrumental solos – one for the ‘cello at first and then another for the viola – contributing to the music’s volatility and echoing the ambiguities of the piece’s title. There’s even a “twilight-zone” sequence of eerie, other-worldly harmonics, as the instruments move the music through a kind of wasteland, one which suddenly explodes into life with “Grosse Fugue-like” driving syncopations, the cello playing a sinuously exotic, decadently sliding theme as its companions push the repeated notes along. In characteristic fashion it all comes to an end as the rhythms become disjointed and break up, taking their leave of us with a rhythmically curt unison gesture. Whether we’d made sense of what we’d been through suddenly seemed less to matter than the experience itself, as Alan Jay Lerner put it in “My Fair Lady”, a heady sample of “humanity’s mad, inhuman noise”.

Perhaps some eighteenth-century sensibilities thought much the same of some of Josef Haydn’s more original manifestations of creativity, such as with his String Trio Op.53 No.1 (actually a transcription of the Piano Sonata Hob.XV1:40/1). At the outset the music breathes out-of-doors country pleasures, the aristocracy amusing themselves at play, though the music’s minor-key change midway the first movement readily suggests “trouble at mill”, with its range of outward emotion, the players here making the most of the contrast between whole-hearted expressiveness and near-furtive withdrawal of tones. When the graceful dance returned I thought the cellist so very expressive in her music-making gestures, bringing it all so vividly to life, as did her companions during the music’s precipitious return to the previous agitations, and the gentle gathering-up of fraught sensibilities – wonderfully soft playing from all concerned!

The second movement’s scampering presto immediately reminded me of the finale of the composer’s C-Major ‘Cello Concerto, the musicians’ soft, rapid playing a tantalising joy! Of course these would have been brilliantly effective on the keyboard as well, but the extra colour and textural contrasts afforded by the trio brought special delight, with the rhythmic syncopations deliciously underlined. In this way, the work was brought to a rousing conclusion which we in the audience thoroughly relished.

There remained of this well-stocked programme a work by Ernst von Dohnanyi, best-known to an earlier generation by his work for piano and orchestra “Variations on a Nursery Theme”, but more recently for his chamber music. Feted as a virtuoso pianist in his youth, Dohnanyi soon took up composition, influenced mostly by the work of Brahms and the German romantics, though he was to promote the music and activities of his fellow Hungarian composers, Bartok and Kodaly while teaching at the Budapest Academy. Differences with both pre- and post-War regimes in Hungary forced him into exile, firstly in Argentina, and then in the United States, where he took out citizenship and remained for the rest of his life.

His five-movement Serenade for String Trio, dating from 1902/3, was one of the first works in which Dohnanyi felt his own voice had properly sounded, rather less in thrall to late-Romantic models, and with touches of the “real” Hungarian folk-music influence that Bartok and Kodaly would soon begin to explore in earnest. Right at the beginning of the opening March, the music sounded like a Hungarian Brahms, with rather more of the former than the latter, flavoursome folk-fiddle treatment of the material from violin and ‘cello, and a drone-accompaniment from the viola. A soft pizzicato dance accompanied a beautifully folkish, Kodaly-like melody from the viola, the instrument then accompanying its companions’ heartfelt dialogues with evocative arpeggio-like figurations  resembling those of the solo viola in Berlioz’s “Harold in Italy”.

Mischievous fugal-like scurryings of different lines from all three instruments began the scherzo, which occasionally brought the voices together in fierce unisons. The trio section’s graceful, song-like measures, reminiscent of Schubert’s music for “Rosamunde” in places featured some affectionately-sounded dovetailings, reflecting the music-making’s warmly co-operative aspect.

In the slow movement’s Theme and Variations, the opening was presented to us as “a special moment gone somehow wrong”, the melody attempting to keep its poise and grace, but darkening in mood at its end. The variations exhibited plenty of character and differently-focused purpose, seemingly running the emotional gamut from agitation and fright to tremulous melancholy. After these angsts we needed the jollity of the finale’s opening to return us to our lives – and here the playing brought out both the girth and the grace of the dancers, as well as excitingly varying the pulse and pace of the music. Eventually the sounds cycled all the way back to the work’s richly Magyar opening, thus binding the work and its singular ambiences of unique expression together. What playing from these people! – so very youthful and energetic, while commanding responses to the music of such warmth and understanding and character.

 

New Zealand String Quartet at Waikanae deliver major works with assurance, passion, delicacy

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

New Zealand String Quartet (Helene Pohl, Monique Lapins, violins; Gillian Ansell, viola; Rolf Gjelsten, cello)
(Waikanae Music Society)

Schubert: String Quartet in C minor, “Quartettsatz”
Debussy: String Quartet in G minor, Op.10
Beethoven: String Quartet in E flat, Op.127

Waikanae Memorial Hall

Sunday 25 March 2018, 2.30pm

How fortunate we are to have such a fine quartet performing to us frequently!  They are national treasures – worth their weight in gold.  And that is how they appeared at this concert: in new, gold encrusted outfits.  In Rolf Gjelsten’s case it was restricted to his tie, but the women’s tops were much more flashy – but not so much as to be a distraction from the wonderful music performed.

The order of the works was changed from that printed in the programme, and began, rather than with the Beethoven, with the shortest item: Schubert’s lovely single movement quartet.  As always with Schubert, this was a highly melodic work.  The extent of his invention leaves one astonished.  The players also astonished, with the delicacy but clarity of their pianissimo playing.  Every delicious detail was brought out by these highly accomplished musicians.  The lyrical music was mainly in a joyous mood, but tinged with melancholy.  The short, lovely quartet is a great introduction for people not familiar with chamber music.

The Debussy quartet was in quite a different language.  Use of modes and of gamelan influences are among his innovations.  The latter (gamelan) music he would have heard at the great Paris Exhibition of 1889, four years before the quartet’s composition.  This was quite a distance from the German music which had dominated European music for most of the century.

This year is the centenary of the composer’s death, so a lot of his music is being programmed and broadcast.  The first movement of his only quartet, marked animé et très décidé, is based on a single melody; indeed, it is used throughout the work.  After an emphatic, concerted opening, many refined elements appeared on individual instruments, varying from delicacy to firm and strong, to excited.

The second movement, assez vif et bien rythmé, begins strikingly with a repetitive melody on the viola and a pizzicato accompaniment from the other instruments.  The first violin then took over the melody, followed by the cello.  A mysterious quality came over the music, which had been quite emphatic, sliding chromatically.  Bold statements intersected a shimmering accompaniment, then the pizzicato returned for all players.  The movement was enchanting in its effect.

The slow movement is marked andantino, doucement expressif.  A slow, thoughtful movement, it featured the use of mutes early on, and again towards the end.  There were frequent viola solos based on the quartet’s main theme.  Use of the deepest cello notes was significant.

The finale is marked très modéré.  It illustrated again how different are the musical colours, rhythms and textures in this work from those in the compositions of Schubert and Beethoven.  The movement had a level of gaiety not apparent in the earlier movements; in fact, it became frenetic at times, despite the tempo marking.

These musicians all play with assurance and deep familiarity with the music.  The playing is in no way pedestrian; all is pointed, intense and significant.  The lovely final chords completed this stunning performance.

Beethoven’s late quartets are pinnacles in music history; their profundity, moods, melodies and unflinching confrontation of despair and infirmity are without precedent – or successors.  This, the first of these late quartets, like its fellows, larger in scale than previous compositions in this form.

As with the other works, the brief spoken introduction by a member of the quartet (this time, Rolf Gjelsten) was informative and illuminating, without being too long.

As a portent of its scale and solemnity, the first movement is marked maestoso – allegro.  The majesty of the opening soon gives way to an allegro of interweaving parts; the opening passages return several times.  This was playing on a grand scale, with splendid tone.  It had great impetus, constantly driving forward, yet with subtle variation of dynamics and tone.

The slow movement, adagio, ma non troppo e molto cantabile, is a set of variations, but not in an obvious way – these were subtle and indirect in their manner; shifting harmonies accompanied beautiful, contemplative melodies.  While mainly restrained and elegant, the music was passionate at times, including a contrasting short, jolly, highly rhythmic dance-like middle section..

This was a long movement, with its variations on the main themes.  The return to the sombre mood came with the melody initially on the first violin and staccato accompaniment.  Then the viola takes it up, followed by a return to the violin.  It is intense yet eager music, full of twists and turns.

At last the scherzando vivace third movement arrives, to relieve our dark mood.  Its playful dance is quick; its rhythm creates a liveliness that makes the music less profound than that in the other movements.  It is still complex in places, however.

The finale is fast, with a positive and emphatic mood.  It makes its way through different keys and tempi, and grand statements, to proclamations of great confidence, a virtuoso ending and jubilant final chords.