Most accomplished performances of piano trios by Psathas and Brahms

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Glow-worm Trio
Laura Barton, violin; Daniel Smith, cello; Liam Wooding, piano

John Psathas: Island Songs
Brahms: Piano Trio No 2 in C, Op 87

St. Andrew’s on The Terrace

Wednesday, 21 February 2018, 12.15 pm

An ambitious chamber music programme by an enterprising and highly skilled trio was attended by a larger-than-usual audience, confounding the fears of organiser Marjan van Waardenberg, who thought the weather would put people off.  But no; by 12.15 it was just a normal Wellington windy day, with sunshine.

There were no programme notes, but two members of the trio briefly introduced the items, in turn.  However, it would have been an advantage to have been told the tempo markings for the movements.  And the opus number was incorrect; the Brahms’s trio, No 2, is Op.87, not 78 as shown in the printed programme.

These omissions aside, the performance was outstanding, with confident, fluent, relaxed players who were thoroughly in command, and at the end were given an enthusiastic and prolonged response by the audience.

Psathas
The Psathas work’s opening was slow and somewhat menacing in character, with short, detached notes from the strings, and continuous ripples on the piano, gradually rising to a crescendo, then dying back again.   There were pizzicato passages for the strings.  An increase in excitement followed, that fell away at the end.

The second movement started tentatively, with the cello playing entirely pizzicato.  Difficult cross-rhythms abounded, but were dealt with calmly by these accomplished musicians.

The final movement was forthright and insistent, but with considerable variation in dynamics, which made it interesting.  The work was written in 1999, originally for strings and clarinet.  The composer later arranged it for  piano and strings, for the Ogen Trio.

Brahms
Brahms’s Trio in C major is almost symphonic at times; a grand, confident work.  Its melodious opening (allegro moderato) was given beautiful, lyrical playing.  There was lovely control of tone and dynamics.  The music built to an affirmative, full-bodied close.

The andante con moto slow movement had a wistful yet gutsy character.  After various perambulations, the theme returned, this time sotto voce.  It was followed by an explosion into the theme, fortissimo.  A new, contemplative, quiet theme followed, shared by the instruments.  Finally there is a return to the opening theme.  All was played with sensitivity and panache as appropriate.

The third movement (scherzo: presto) had scampering figures on all instruments, and the most sumptuous lyricism.  The finale (allegro giocoso) was robust, syncopated, joyous, lilting.  These characteristics alternated with bold statements.   We heard gorgeous cello tone.  To end, there was a return to the opening theme of the trio.

The pianist used an i-pad (or similar) for the Brahms score, but relied on the page-turner to press the button rather than using a foot pedal.

A most creditable and accomplished performance was given by these players; two New Zealanders and an Australian, fellow-students at the Australian Academy of Music.

 

Atoll Records releases CD conspectus of Ken Wilson: Music For Winds

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Music for Winds by Ken Wilson

Atoll Records / CD

Concerto for Clarinet and String Orchestra (1963)
Patrick Barry and the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra strings, conductor Hamish McKeich
Wind Quintet (1965)
Zephyr Wind Quintet
Introduction, Theme and Variations (1965)
Adrianna Lis E flat flute, with string quartet
Duo for Clarinet and Bassoon (1963)
Peter Scholes and Ben Hoadley
Spiderweb for solo clarinet (1988)
Peter Scholes
Duo for Two Clarinets (2002), Duo for Two Clarinets (2004)
Peter Scholes and Andrew Uren
Two clarinet quartets: Slow Piece, & Variations on a Theme of Paganini (1963)
Peter Scholes, Andrew Uren, Donald Nicholls, Elsa T.W. Lam
Octet (1961)
STROMA (consisting of NZSO players), conductor Hamish McKeich

Monday 19 February 2018

A worthy addition to Atoll’s now substantial catalogue of recordings of music by New Zealand composers, this CD should delight many music-lovers.  That it is already doing so is proved by its place at number three on the RNZ Concert Classical Chart, on Saturday, 18 February.  They played an excerpt from Ken Wilson’s Wind Quintet of 1965.  This was recorded by Kiwi Records on LP in the mid-1980s, and much more recently appeared on CD.

On the new CD it is played by Zephyr Wind Quintet, made up of principal wind players from the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra.  It is a fine, crisp recording, as indeed are those of the other works on the disk.  Chief among these is the Concerto for clarinet and string orchestra, composed in 1963, which receives a marvellous performance from the NZSO with soloist Patrick Barry.

Ken Wilson’s music is great – its Poulenc-ish quirkiness is so much fun.  Also enjoyable is the more serious music.  For those to whom Ken Wilson is an unfamiliar name, it won’t be a surprise to learn that he was a clarinetist as well as a composer.  He was a teacher and mentor, and taught many New Zealand wind players, as well as young musicians in the USA, where he spent a substantial period of his life.

Other works vary from the Octet of 1961 (over ten minutes’ duration) and shorter pieces for clarinets in combinations, down to the ‘Spiderweb for solo clarinet’ (1986) at one-and-a-half minutes.  The most recent of the ten pieces is a Duo for two clarinets, written in 2004.  All exploit the clarinet in interesting and surprising ways, such that only a highly competent player could do.  The shorter pieces are played by a variety of performers, prominent among whom are clarinetist Peter Scholes and the bassoonist Ben Hoadley.  The Octet is played by  STROMA, the Wellington-based contemporary music ensemble.

This disk will be enjoyed not only by lovers of the clarinet, but all lovers of good music.

 

Michael Houstoun memorably opens Waikanae’s chamber music recital series

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Waikanae Music Society
Michael Houstoun (piano)

Bach: English Suite No 2 in A minor, BWV 807
Chopin: Four Ballades (Opp. 23, 38, 47, 52)
Mozart: Sonata No 8 in A minor, K 310

Waikanae Memorial Hall

Sunday 18 February, 2:30 pm

This is the season of series launches. The Waikanae Music Society, in contrast to certain other comparable chamber music groups, is in good shape, thanks to an immediately attractive programme of eight concerts, with no patronisingly-popular concerts that fail to touch those likely to be interested in real chamber music; plus an enticing ticketing policy that makes it cheap to subscribe and to attend most concerts.

And that’s compounded by a big population of older people, many of whom seem to be cultivated and musically inclined. The proof of their success lay in the huge audience – I’d guess around 600 – which was of course in substantial part because of Michael Houstoun.

To recruit Houstoun to launch the series was a very good move (and the society chair Germana Nicklin presented flowers and life membership of the society to patrons Sir Rodney and Lady Gillian Dean, in particular, for their help with this concert). It was Houstoun’s 15th recital for the society, and he marked that by playing the same Mozart sonata that he’d played at his first one in 1987: the A minor, K 310.

Bach English Suite
But the concert began with Bach’s English Suite No 2 in A minor (chosen to chime with the key of the Mozart?). Houstoun’s Bach sounded immediately comfortable in the acoustic of the big auditorium and he exploited fully the Fazioli piano’s warmth. Considering its minor key, it was full of positive energy and in complete sympathy with piano rather than harpsichord; Houstoun didn’t subject his playing unduly to the harpsichord’s subtle dynamic boundaries which can obviously be relaxed on the piano. The sparkling Prelude was perfectly conceived.

There are six movements (counting the two bourrées as one); the elegant calm of the Allemande quieted the emotion that the fluid Prelude had established. The varied dance-derived movements might suggest greater distinctness than actually emerges in these, and in most of Bach’s suites. The Courante returns to a mood of sparkling cheerfulness and the Sarabande, in very slow, chaconne-like triple time, sometimes a hard-to-discern rhythm; it’s by far the longest movement.

The last two (three) movements are based on livelier dances. Houstoun’s Bourée I seemed to climb cheerfully up the hill, and then relaxed coming down, at a gentle pace. The Gigue was far from a boisterous peasant romp, but flowed evenly and stayed within the dynamic limits already set.

Chopin Ballades
Chopin’s four Ballades make a thoroughly rewarding package, and the performances by Houstoun the instinctive Chopinist, never sounded simply like a hundred other more routine accounts. There were discreet tempo (No 1 started uncommonly slowly) and dynamic shifts that always seemed just what the composer might have had in mind. (Incidentally, Houstoun clearly intended them to be listened to in pairs, with no applause between Nos 1 and 2, as he remained seated, hands poised for the next: the message didn’t seem to penetrate the audience for clapping again separated Nos 3 and 4. These things are not recondite affectations; they are sought by the performer and the audience should watch body language).

I can never hear No 1 now without recalling the diverting account by amateur pianist-cum-ex-Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger (Play it again), of his year-long struggle to master it. Houstoun certainly made it sound rather easier than Rusbridger found it, but its mighty challenges were still, very evident.

Though they can hardly be heard as four parts of an integrated suite, with their very different spirits and narratives (Chopin apparently had narrative backgrounds, but never revealed them) it is rewarding to hear them all together; after all, Chopin chose to use the same word to describe all four. So No 2, in F major, is more sanguine and less tortured than parts of No 1, though its sudden shocks never fail to surprise no matter how many times you’ve been there. Long pauses were an interesting, very telling aspect of Houstoun’s performance.

Nos 3 adopts an easy triple rhythm, never quite a waltz: subdued, with less drama, though with a turbulent left hand that created a feeling of unease. And No 4, after its hesitant opening, led to an uneasy passage with its complex left hand underlay; Houstoun evoked its spirit of uncertainty, embroidered with insight and sympathy. Typically, after a long pause and a prolonged episode of indecision, it hurls itself into a short, tumultuous finale.

This was the end of the concert and Houstoun played an encore: a less familiar Chopin Nocturne, Op 15 No 1.

Mozart’s sonata K310
But the second half of the concert had begun with Mozart’s A minor sonata, one of the great ones which, in a 1950s performance by Walter Gieseking, introduced me in my late teens properly to Mozart’s sonatas. It entranced me (and yes, you can now find it on YouTube!). I have to get used to the reading of the opening bar with an acciaccatura (if I have the term right) rather than an appoggiatura, which seems to be the convention today; Houstoun’s account was considered and absorbing, appropriate to its description Allegro maestoso. In the slow movement, Houstoun’s occasional stretching and slight swaying of the rhythm accorded with the description ‘cantabile con espressione’, even though it might have seemed somewhat unMozartian. Such touches contributed to a performance of one of only a couple of Mozart’s sonatas in a minor key, as masterful, authoritative and beautifully poetic, fleshing out a recital that very obviously fully rewarded the large audience which almost entirely stood in admiration at the end.

 

Masterly playing of Bach’s first sonata and partita from Martin Riseley

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

St Andrew’s lunchtime concerts
Martin Riseley (violin)

J S Bach: Solo Violin Sonata No 1 in G minor, BWV 1001
and Partita No 1 in B minor, BWV 1002

St Andrew’s on The Terrace

Wednesday 14 February, 12:15 pm

It takes other professional and voluntary organisations a long time to organise a few concerts drawing mainly on New Zealand musicians. But impresario extraordinaire Marjan van Waardenberg probably spends a good deal of the summer, putting together something approaching 50 concerts – one a week – at St Andrew’s; perhaps more than all the other chamber music organisers in Greater Wellington combined. They have become an important institution in Wellington’s musical life, providing a down-town venue for students at Victoria University’s school of music as well as a way for established musicians to remain in the public eye.

I gather she has concerts pretty well finalised for the whole year.

As well as offering surprisingly accomplished student performances, we also get to hear top-class professionals in music that is often overlooked by the mainstream promoters.

Bach’s six solo violin works are a case; we hear the cello suites from time to time, and certain of the keyboard suites and partitas but the violin sonatas and partitas, apart from familiar ones like the 3rd partita, seem neglected.

Martin Riseley is Associate Professor and head of strings in the university school of music; in addition he has recently reconnected with Christchurch where he began his tertiary violin studies in the 1980s, becoming Concert Master of the Christchurch Symphony Orchestra.

Both the first and second violin sonatas and partitas are in minor keys which indeed seem to lend them a more solemn, less sunny aspect. But as with most music that has less immediate appeal, they all reveal their beauties and musical strengths, slowly, after a few hearings, and I guess my tally is far more than that.

The opening Adagio of the G minor sonata really set the tone of Riseley’s performance, not revealing much lyrical, legato character, but rather his care with detailed articulation that captured its intensely elegiac tone. Fugue is the title of the second movement; on the violin it is a counter-intuitive process, but his playing showed how clearly its fugal character can be heard as well as its strong rhythmic character. The third movement, Siciliana, is laid out to present marked contrasts between phrases on the G string and those on the high strings, which Riseley handled in an easy swaying rhythm. And he drove through the Presto finale, leaning on the first beat of the bar in clean, energetic playing.

Partita No 1, is fundamentally in four movements, but it becomes eight as each is followed by a ‘Double’, or a variation, though it’s sometimes hard to identify aspects of the basic theme since the Doubles dwell on the bass line of the movement itself. So this Partita is about twice the length of the Sonata. The first movement is an Allemanda (Bach uses French and Italian terms seemingly randomly) is marked by double dotted motifs, that explore the violin’s full range, and its complexity always strikes one as particularly profound; its ‘Double’ is brisker and more legato and flowing in style. The Corrente is faster, in triple time, and more sanguine than the first movement, but the real quick movement of the suite is its Double, that Riseley played brilliantly at almost twice the speed of the Corrente itself.

The slow movement is the grave, triple time Sarabanda with routine double stopping that sometimes seems de trop; the following Double is again quicker, more sanguine and flowing. Then comes the last movement, marked Tempo di bourée, a movement that is probably more familiar than most of the others. And its Double is in a flowing rhythm that doesn’t seek to startle, and Riseley handled its long-breathed lines unostentatiously, not attempting to mitigate the pervasive B minor tonality that has generally cast its sombre mood over the whole work.

Martin Riseley’s masterly playing has whetted our appetite to hear all six sonatas and partitas. I wondered to Marjan afterwards whether this was the first of three St Andrew’s recitals for Riseley to play all these great works; she thought not, for now, but agreed it should be done.

National Youth Orchestra’s summer concert a brilliant showcase for cellist Balzat in Elgar concerto

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

NZSO National Youth Orchestra conducted by Guy Noble with Matthias Balzat (cello)

Beethoven: Leonore Overture No 3, Op 72b
Elgar: Cello Concerto in E minor, Op 85
Dvořák: Symphony No 8 in G, Op 88

Michael Fowler Centre

Saturday 3 February, 7:30 pm

To start the year, neither Peter Mechen nor I was prepared to forego hearing the National Youth Orchestra and debated the question of authoring a review. We settled by both giving up something we each hated being deprived of – that is, the entire concert.

The compromise: I cover the first half and Peter, the second.

Much as one attempts to avoid repetitious expressions of amazement at the remarkable accomplishment and musicianship exhibited by the National Youth Orchestra, and talented young musicians generally, those qualities of talent and insight are drawn out by gifted mentors and conductors and cannot be ignored.

Though the MFC was at least half full, these concerts deserve full houses. Professed music lovers should never miss them; there, as well as hearing thoroughly rehearsed performances, they will often be exposed to great music that seems to get overlooked in regular concerts. Dvořák’s earlier symphonies are a case.

Leonore III
The first half of this concert was rather more familiar, for the Elgar cello concerto gets a fair amount of exposure, and Leonore 3 is probably the most played of Beethoven’s four overtures for his much revised opera Fidelio, and more than his several other great concert overtures.

Guy Noble is an Australian conductor who has a reputation for popularising and demystifying classical music, often working with young people, hosting educational programme and collaborating with musicians in the pop world. The effect of his easy manner on the players quickly became clear in the opening bars of the overture.

Leonore Overture No 3 was the overture for the first revision of Fidelio in 1806; it’s generally considered the most substantial of the four overtures, using material from the opera, including famously, the trumpet call announcing the arrival of the minister, Don Fernando in the nick of time, releasing the illegally imprisoned Florestan. It’s sometimes played in Act II of opera performances.

Just a musicological aside: there were other operatic interpretations of the actual event during the French Revolution. The programme note referred to two French settings: only one was French: Pierre Gaveaux (Léonore, ou L’amour conjugal, 1798). Two later settings by Italian and German composers in 1804 just preceded Beethoven’s: L’amor coniugale by Donizetti’s famous teacher Simon Mayr, and Ferdinando Paer’s Leonora, ossia l’amour coniugale.

The opening, after the big call to attention, proceeded with the exquisite hushed first phrases on strings bearing a secretive message that set the tone for the whole performance – in turn restrained, suspenseful, heroic, joyous…, moving with an unusual secretiveness till the lovely rising triadic theme from principal flute Matthew Lee (and he shone again with the main theme later) signalled the beginning of the drama. The music rose confidently, dwelling not on the events in the opera’s first act but inspired mainly by Leonore’s bravery and her ultimate triumphant rescue of her husband. Its performance, marked by careful balance between strings and brass whose playing was particularly dynamic, though timpani was occasionally too strong. It certainly left one aroused, rather hoping that the entire opera would follow.

Elgar’s Cello Concerto
A few years ago I suffered Elgar cello concerto over-exposure, and Dvořák’s too, through regular attendance at the Christchurch cello competition inspired by late, lamented Alexander Ivashkin. The Adam International Cello Competition ran from 1995 to 2009 and its end was a result of the Christchurch earthquakes, perhaps one of the most lamentable losses due to the earthquakes.

This performance by Matthias Balzat, last year’s winner of the National Concerto Competition and a number of other important competitions,  awakened me again to its very special character, its deeply pensive musical inspiration, far from the character of Elgar’s earlier, ‘imperial’ symphonic works.

The cello, together with an orchestra that proved comparably sensitive to the unique spirit of the music, produced a totally arresting performance right from the cello’s other-worldly opening with merely hesitant gestures from other strings. The cello part’s handling by the 18-year-old Waikato University graduate (a James Tennant pupil) of the gorgeous main theme of the first movement Adagio set the tone for the heartfelt, melancholy music, which permeates the piece, especially the third movement – also Adagio.

Those two movements are filled with a profound meditative spirit which can be ascribed to its composition after his wife’s death, the First World War and presentiments of the end of Empire; cello and orchestra captured its spirit, exquisitely, in perfect unity.

In the brief but arresting second movement – Molto allegro – Balzat exhibited a fully-formed, virtuosic confidence, sustaining a feeling of trembling expectancy. He coped with all that ferocious demi-semi-quaverish tremolo with energy that would have won the admiration of Jacqueline du Pre. And the last ten minutes or so – Allegro – Moderato – largely rids the scene of the lingering grief, at least in the orchestra. The cello’s sometimes wild ride was subdued with spacious, beautifully phrased passages where some of the Adagio’s depth of emotion resurfaced.

Perhaps it’s taken some time for my appreciation of the concerto to recover from the Christchurch competition’s over-exposure: this performance by a very gifted young cellist and an orchestra under a conductor who emerged as rather more than merely a good front man and colourful advocate for classical music, accompanying in the most apt, sensitive and unobtrusive way, restored this great concerto’s place in my musical pantheon.

(Peter Mechen’s continuation, covering the Dvořák symphony, follows below….)

Dvorak – Symphony No.8 in G Major
A truly Bohemian symphonic musical experience – one of Dvorak’s masterpieces
by Peter Mechen

After the interval, conductor and orchestra returned to the platform to tackle one of the most adorable of romantic symphonies, Dvorak’s G Major Eighth Symphony. For many years concert-goers and record collectors knew the work as No.4 (a number of the composer’s earlier symphonies having not been published and numbered, as it were). Dvorak had previously made a breakthrough as a symphonist with his Sixth Symphony (the first one to be published), a work whose outer movements were unashamedly (and fascinatingly) modelled on Brahms’ Second Symphony. He followed that with the stern, and in places tragic tones of his Seventh Symphony (originally labelled No.2), which, though obviously a greater, more original work, is in a sense, the least “Czech” of all his symphonies, owing little to ethnic dance elements or melodic expression.

With the Eighth, the composer declared that he wanted to write something completely different, “with individual ideas written out in a new manner”. The result was a work which, more successfully than any other the composer had produced, spoke with a truly distinctive voice, expressing easily and naturally within a symphonic framework those ambiences and rhythms we most readily associate with Bohemian music. Apparently Brahms, who was one of Dvorak’s most avid supporters, was not impressed with the work, considering its ideas “attractive but fragmentary”, and lacking the symphonic focus required to give an impression of strength and true seriousness.

But Dvorak was by this time more than ready to be his own man as a symphonist, and where one finds, in the previous symphony, plenty of “strength and true seriousness”, here in the eighth there’s a joyous exuberance added to the symphonic argument which brings it all to life in a far more characteristic central European way. Everything flows in a thoroughly uncontrived manner, though still beautifully crafted and characterfully detailed. Like Shakespeare’s Cleopatra, this is music which for me “age cannot wither….nor custom stale…..”

So it was with some initial concern that I listened to conductor Guy Noble’s direction of the work’s introductory bars with his young players, the melancholic opening phrases seeming to me pushed along and not allowed much chance to properly “voice” the turns of their phrases. Fortunately, things started to “flesh out” – the succeeding episodes were given more space for the players to build and shape their tones, the strings relishing their accompanying triplets beneath the winds’ soulful utterances, and gathering strength and momentum as they pushed upwards towards their climaxes, with everything excitingly capped by the brasses.

The detailings came thick and fast from this point onwards – a lovely flute phrase lead to a heart-warming partnership with the violas, one replicated by the violins and oboes, the horn barely able to contain its excitement as it summoned the rest of the orchestra to arms, leading to a thrilling and resplendent climax, in the wake of which sounded the dulcet tones of the cor anglais. The music’s volatility kept things moving, clarinets buoyed along by the lower strings’ rhythms, and thoroughly galvanized by the strings’ brilliant, gleaming ascent, answered by the brasses, and driven to an exciting ending, the timpanist splendidly on the ball with his rapid-fire detailings.

I thought the slow movement’s performance particularly successful, everything deeply considered and beautifully shaped, with the minor-key irruptions properly volatile and dramatic. And what a stunning contrast was afforded by the trio section’s dancing rhythms, the violin solo plaintively singing, and urging the rest of the strings on. Nothing was stinted, here, the strings fervent and fiery, the timpani strong and unremitting, and the solo trumpet gleaming at the snow-capped climax.
How confidently the players moved from episode to episode here, under their conductor’s beautifully-paced direction, with the horn and then the strings inviting groups of winds to forcefully having their say, and make something strong and virile of the exchanges.

But I particularly enjoyed the strings’ heart-on-sleeve manner with the dance-tune’s reintroduction, their tones saturated with warmth, and the horns chuckling with pleasure in their accompaniments. What a tremendous moment it therefore was when the music darkened unexpectedly once more, brass and timpani making their presence felt while the strings strove to keep the agitations within control, allowing the disturbances to pass and put themselves to rest.

The scherzo exuded grace and confidence, the instrumental detailings having enough thythmic elbow-room to sing and deliciously dance at the same time, not perhaps as indulgently as some performances I’ve heard, but still with beguiling effect. And in the trio, firstly the winds and then the strings flooded the textures with feeling and sentiment, the strings adding a touch of portamento, making for an ambience so very beautifully realized. The coda then properly galvanized our sensibilities, rousing us from our reveries in preparation for the work’s finale.

Trumpets splendidly called the opening, echoed by throbbing timpani and dark- browed winds, before the strings ambled in, the violins particularly bright and focused when counterpointing the lower strings, and then incisive and muscular when the allegro kicked-started – a lovely airy wind-and brass exchange contrasted nicely with the more “boots-and-all” sections – all very rustic and vigorous and exuberant.

I greatly enjoyed the “skin-and-hair” excitement of the middle-section, especially the shouting brass, with the trombones and tuba making telling contributions, and thought the quieter variation sequences worked the music’s contrasts to perfection – what lovely playing from the individual instruments here – flute, clarinet, oboe, horn, bassoon, all underpinned by strings so beguilingly. It made the final stamping, cheering payoff all the more effective, with the final brass clamourings tumultuous!

Obviously I find it difficult to contain my love and enthusiasm for this music when writing about its performance – but here, the players’ enthusiasm and the conductor’s steady and unflagging hand combined with the composer’s natural exuberance to give a truly joyous overall effect. I forgot to mention that I noticed ‘cellist Matthias Balzat (the soloist in the first-half concerto performance) sitting with the other cellos during the symphony’s performance, enjoying the music-making as much as any, and delighting those of us who noticed him there all the more.

I thought the music-making remarkable under the circumstances, continuing with the strong impression the first half of the concert made upon my reviewing colleague, Lindis Taylor. I hope people will find our sharing of this first Middle C orchestral review of the season to their taste, and look forward to it all coming together for you to read.

NZSO opens the musical year with Bach, Rameau and Locatelli

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, led by Vesa-Matti Leppänen

Bach: Brandenburg Concertos nos. 1 in F (BWV 1046) and 3 in G (BWV 1048); Air from the Suite no.3 in D, BWV 1068
Locatelli: Concerto in E flat, Op.7 no.6 ‘Il Pianto d’Arianna’
Rameau: Suite from Dardanus

Wellington Cathedral of St. Paul

Friday, 2 February 2018, 7.30pm

The orchestra made a start to the New Year that was rather different from usual.  A band without conductor, but led from the violin, that was made up of between 12 and twenty-five players, depending on the work being played.  Unusually, the players stood to perform, except of course the harpsichordist (Douglas Mews) and the cellists; the horns and percussion had chairs to sit on in those movements where they were not playing, in the Rameau Suite.  The men’s dress was black shirts, business-style suits and dark ties, not full penguin-rig.

It was a thoroughly refreshing performance; I heard audience members expressing this sentiment as they walked away afterwards.  I was fortunate to be sitting at the front of the church, and so did not suffer from the effects of the long resonance time which may have affected people sitting further back in the packed venue.  However, I could see and hear well and my fears about fast baroque music sounding jumbled in this venue were unfounded.

What I heard was crisp, vital playing.  The string players for the most part adopted baroque bowing technique, played with greater detachment of the notes than they would employ in playing Classical or Romantic music, and rendered stress and phrasing in a baroque manner. The wind instruments were all modern ones; their greater force than had their ancestors in the Baroque period meant that they were sometimes a little too loud for their string colleagues.  Nevertheless, their contribution was tasteful; there was no attempt at vibrato, and notes were frequently slightly detached.  The playing was in a straightforward manner.  However, when the winds were playing, the harpsichord could barely be heard.

The concert began with a fanfare from two trombones placed in the side gallery, near the front of the church.  They were unannounced and their contribution was not to be found in the printed programme.  When Leppänen spoke to the audience following the first Bach concerto he mentioned the fanfare as a celebration of the opening of the 2018 NZSO series, but did not name the composer.  Two of the musicians whom I asked thought that it was Monteverdi, which seemed not only likely, but appropriate, being brass sounding from a high gallery à la St. Mark’s in Venice.  It sounded great in this acoustic.

Brandenburg No 1
The first, and longer, Brandenburg Concerto, was played stylishly.  The contrasts between Minuet, Trio, Polacca, were delightful.  The concertino players: Leppänen, plus three oboes and two horns, were admirable.  Leppänen’s leadership of the ensembles was effective throughout the concert.

The Locatelli work is seldom heard.  It is described as a short opera without words, but sad in theme (‘pianto’ is Italian for tears, weeping), depicting the sufferings of Arianna, deserted by her lover, a story much beloved of writers of opera.  The composer’s dates were 1695 to 1764.

This work was performed by a smaller ensemble.  After an andante-allegro movement, came a largo with a singular and appealing violin solo, followed by an even slower grave movement.  Throughout, the instruments depicted the drama.  Another allegro led to a final largo; an unusual way to end an orchestral work, but appropriate to the tragedy of the operatic story; mournful for the sad end of Arianna.   Again, there was beautiful playing from Leppänen.  The music could not be said to be as inspiring as that of Bach, nor as lively as Rameau’s offering to come.

Rameau
After the interval came another unusual work, by baroque French composer Jean-Philippe Rameau.(1683 to 1764).  The suite consisted of 14 movements, but some of these were repetitions.  Dardanus was an opera by Rameau written in 1738 but greatly revised in 1744.  A very sprightly Overture was followed by ‘Air gracieux pour les Plaisirs’, and gracious it was, featuring flute.  Then we heard percussion, consisting of a traditional (not modern) timpani (strictly timpano, in the singular) and a tambourine, expertly played by Thomas Guldborg and Leonard Sakofsky respectively, in a movement, repeated, named for the instrument: ‘Tambourin’.

The Pleasure ended, with the ‘Entrée pour les Guerriers’.  The movement was indeed martial, with drum in a very lively march.  It was followed by a repeated rigaudon, a French dance of lilting quality.  It began with strings only, then woodwinds joined in.  The next movement, ‘Air’, was slow and piquant in character.  Minuets were elegant and yet bright, with a change to the minor key for contrast.  The ‘Tambourin’ returned, but with piccolo adding a sparkling quality.

‘Air Tendre’ opened with a cello solo, soulfully played by Andrew Joyce, then flute entered.  There were notable passages from Leppänen’s violin.  The final ‘Chaconne’ featured oboe, and later bassoon joined in.  The mood was jolly and sombre by turns, and completed a delightful suite that was lively and interesting at every turn.

Brandenburg No.3
We returned to Bach for his Brandenburg Concerto no.3, probably more popular than the no.1, as the audience showed by their prolonged applause at the end.  A smaller ensemble performed it, in a very energetic and rhythmic style, the allegros being faster than one often hears.  Again, it was a complete contrast with the preceding work.  In this music I was aware of the vibrant and rich viola tone.  The adagio was short and solemn, before a return to liveliness for the last allegro.

Leppänen spoke again, saying that the encore had been included in the printed programme: the firm favourite known as ‘Air on the G string’ (Air from Bach’s Suite no.3 in D, BWV 1068).  A larger orchestra played this final item.  The pizzicato on cellos and double bass was most effective, and the beautiful melody was fully exploited, without any un-baroque excess.

All in all, a most satisfying concert to open the year’s NZSO season.

 

Gaudete at St Mary of the Angels with Baroque Voices and Palliser Viols

Posted on by Peter Mechen

Baroque Voices and Palliser viols present:
Gaudete

Music by Anon, Tompkins, Byrd, Gibbons, Hume and Ross Harris

Baroque Voices (directed by Pepe Becker)
Pepe Becker, Rowena Simpson (sopranos), Milla Dickens, Alex Granville (altos) Richard Taylor, Phillip Collins (tenors), Isaac Stone, David Morriss (basses)

Palliser Viols (directed by Robert Oliver)
Lisa Beech, Sophia Acheson (treble viols), Jane Brown, Andrea Oliver (tenor viols), Imogen Granwal, Robert Oliver (bass viols)

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

Wednesday 20th December, 2017

This was a beautifully devised and presented programme, appropriately given the name “Gaudete” as a kind of seasonal evocation, an enjoining spirit of joyfulness, as well as a reflection of the sentiments proclaimed by both words and music throughout the evening, such as with an eponymously-named work written especially for these musicians by New Zealand composer Ross Harris.

The term “verse anthem” is the English equivalent of the German “cantata” and the French “grande motet”, the form being originally for voices and viols or organ. In an entertaining and illuminatory note accompanying the concert’s programme, Palliser Viols director Robert Oliver elaborated on the development and popularity of the form, and its use by the greatest composers in England of the day, William Byrd, Orlando Gibbons and Thomas Tomkins.

We also learned about Oliver’s regard for the solo viol music of Tobias Hume, which the former had played and loved ever since he bought his first bass viol 50 years ago. Here, Hume’s work, though actually written for two instruments, demonstrated to us both a composer’s and a virtuoso performer’s skills. Hume’s advocacy of the viol even occasioned a brief war of words with fellow-composer John Dowland (who favoured the lute) over the respective merits of their chosen instruments, Dowland going so far as to having his views published!

Merely the act of entering and sitting within the breathtakingly beautiful interior of St Mary of the Angels at a time of day when the stained glass windows were still activated by the light served to give rise to feelings of well-being both spiritual and secular. We were thus disposed mightily towards the prospect of hearing “sweete musick” by the time the instrumentalists and singers appeared.

They came bringing tidings of great joy from various sources, the first a setting by William Byrd of verses by one Francis Kindlemarsh, “From Virgins wombe this day did spring”. Beautiful though this opening setting was I though the vocal line too low for Pepe Becker’s normally radiant voice, and thought that an alto’s tones would have better suited the melody’s range in each of the verses – the setting “came alive” in the sections enjoining us to “Rejoice, rejoice”, the ensemble’s voices inviting the words to exult and dance, which the viols also did of their own accord in an introduction to the second verse.

The accompanying Pavan and Galliard for six instruments gave the Consort a turn to demonstrate its skills, the sounds in this acoustic taking on a “bloom” which liberated any hitherto confined spirits and allowed them air and space, the gently-insinuating rhythms having both a solemnity and a carefree aspect which held us in thrall. After this, the Galliard enlivened our enchantment with its evocations of dance and gaiety and high spirits.

Following the relative restraint of Byrd’s “From Virgins wombe”, we were somewhat galvanized by the weight of tone from the whole ensemble at the beginning of Thomas Tomkins’ “Rejoice, rejoice and singe”, the voices sounding like a great throng in comparative terms. Each verse featured invigorating exchanges between individual voices, soprano and tenor in “For Happy weare the tidings”, and the line being tossed from singer to singer in “Blessed is the fuite”, the piece finishing after the men and women alternated between “For beholde, from henceforth” and “blessed, blessed virgin Marie”, before concluding on a tremulously sweet chord, to angelic effect.

Just as captivating was, I thought, Tomkins’ Fantasia for six instruments, the Consort of viols beginning with a modern-sounding phrase whose tonality seemed to shift uncannily, before a series of chromatic descents focused the strangeness of the terrain even further. I loved the sensation of simultaneous movement and stasis in the music, the energies gradually unlocked and pulsating, a sequence which led to a gorgeous overlapping figure building up and intensifying the textures towards the end – music of blood-flowing emotion!

Orlando Gibbons’ “Behold I bring you glad tidings” reiterated excited, hopeful voices at the phrase “glad tidings”, the joy occasionally leavened by seriousness at “A Saviour which is Christ the Lord” and purposeful repetition at “Unto us a Son is giv’n”. Then all was uplifted at “Glory be to God on High” with a great ascent, given rich weight at its base by the men’s tones – everything nicely controlled. Lovely playing by the Consort, both resonant and clearly-focused at one and the same time in this acoustic, brought us the Fantasia which followed, the music cleverly “fantastic” with lines both ascending and descending at once in places, and followed by beautifully “charged” withdrawals of tone into modal-like realms of the kind loved by Vaughan Williams.

In the wake of these iconic-like pieces came Ross Harris’s “Gaudete”, the fruit of the composer’s desire to write something for this actual concert, after having written separate piece for each ensemble previously. A tumult of voices and instruments at the beginning conveyed the excitement of the news of the Saviour’s birth, the cries of “Gaudete, Christus est natus” reiterating at intervals during the piece, providing some contrast with the relatively sombre “road journey” of the verses, at “Tempus adest gratia” (The time of grace has come), and later, “Ezekielis porta Claus petransitur” (The closed gate of Ezekiel has been passed through). I was given the whole time the sense of a journey from darkness to light, from ignorance to enlightenment, from fear to hope, the music’s trajectories conveying a kind of direction and purpose punctuated by revelations expressed with utter joy. I thought the work heartwarming and the performance exhilarating!

After the interval came one of those treasurable “Pepe Becker” moments, with music which admirably suited her voice – this was the anonymously-written 17th Century Christmas song “Sweet was the song”, an angelic soprano voice accompanied by a single viol, the sounds again given a certain bloom by the acoustic to memorable effect. Just as remarkable was the enchantment of four viols accompanying the song’s second verse, voice and instruments conveying an overall sense, in the sound’s pure quality, of something eternal.

Following these celestial outpourings the instrumental consort music of Tobias Hume brought us back to terra firma, but delightfully so – here, instead, were earthy, characterful tones, in places attractively nasal, while elsewhere the timbres were sweet and ingratiating. These were two duets whose titles – “Sweet Music” and “Musick and Mirth” – suggested contrasting pieces were in store, the first vocal in character, and the second dance-like. The performances’ rhythmic control and subtle variation of pulse was a joy, the trajectories breathing easefully at all times, while the accenting meant that one never knew what next to expect – razor-sharp tones were followed by full, rich vocal lines, the music moving easily and excitingly through eventful contrasts. The “Musick and Mirth” section had a gigue-like character at the beginning, one which seemed to “morph’ into something rather more four-square and even more ruminative, before suddenly accelerating! – the players splendidly put across the music’s exploratory quirkiness to wonderful effect.

The anonymous, carol-like “Born is the Babe”, was the perfect foil for the instrumental pieces which surrounded it, bright, melodic and meditative, with its final line “who cured our care by suff’ring on the cross”. Then, as with Tobias Hume’s piece, William Byrd’s Fantasia for six instruments was filled with imaginative touches, beginning wistfully as if day-dreaming, before gathering more and more tonal weight with the lines overlapping, with lots of “echo-phrases” for our delectation. Rhythms began to throw out accents, enlivening the textures, and leading us towards a joyful dance variation, before rushing to an exhilarating conclusion.

For us in the audience it all felt and sounded fun to perform, as did the same composer’s “This day Christ was born” with its “lively rhythms”, and its magnificent peroration, gloriously put across by the musicians, the voices reaching upwards with “Glory to God on High” and the concluding Alleluiahs. As a kind of “Christmas bonus” the group treated us to a repeat performance of Ross Harris’s “Gaudete”, even more resplendently given this time round – the Monteverdi-like energies of the opening declamations, the almost Sibelius-like rhythmic trajectories of the repeated instrumental figures accompanying “Tempus adest gratia”, denoting the irresistible forces of change and enlightenment, as “the closed gate of Ezekiel” was left behind, and the soaring vocal lines riding the waves of expectation, leading to a final, confident and joyful “Gaudete”.

It all left we in the audience feeling joyful and expectant, and with a sense of wonderment and thankfulness at music’s power of transformation, as well as gratitude to those who performed it all so splendiferously! – omnes laudate!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Legal choristers and instrumentalists in anniversary class action supporting child cancer campaign

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Crown Law Presents: Counsel in Concert: Musical Anniversaries; in aid of the Child Cancer Foundation

Items by Monteverdi, Telemann, Haydn, Gershwin, The Beatles

Lawyers’ choir and orchestra, with soloists. Conducted by Owen Clarke

St. Andrew’s on The Terrace

Tuesday, 19 November 2017, (12.15pm); 5.30pm

It was heartening to see such a large bunch of lawyers who enjoy making music – and the large, mainly young audience who came to hear their second performance.  The 38-strong orchestra included some 21 players from the NZSO and Orchestra Wellington, but only one lawyer – the indefatigable Merran Cooke, who rehearses the performers and organised the concert.  The choir consisted of 53 singers.

The composers selected were a heterogeneous bunch, chosen for their anniversaries this year.  The programme notes gave details: 450 years since the birth of Monteverdi, 250 years since the death of Telemann, 250 years since the composition of Haydn’s ‘Stabat Mater’, 80 years since the death of Gershwin and 50 years since The Beatles’ ‘Sergeant Pepper’ album.

The first item, which included a harpsichord continuo, was the opening movement from Monteverdi’s Vespers of 1610: ‘Deus in adjutorium’.  Those opening words are intoned in plainchant, followed by the magnificent ‘Domine…’ from choir and orchestra, each part singing on its own single note for a couple of pages.  The heightened drama of this effect is resolved in triumphant fashion when all parts shift on the word ‘Alleluia’.  It was a very effective performance, even if the splendid brass almost drowned out the choir at times.  It made a great opening for the concert.

Next was a welcome from the Solicitor-General, Una Jagose.  She spoke of the health and social benefits of making music in groups.  Telemann’s Der Tag des Gerichts, or The Day of Judgement (appropriate for legal professionals to perform).  Two choruses from this religious work were given: ‘Schallt ihr hohen Jubellieder’ and ‘Die rechte des herrn’.  Only a slight knowledge of the German language is needed to deduce that the first was about sounding jubilant songs, while the second deals with another suitable subject for lawyers – the rights of men.

A line-up of five soloists from the choir sang well in these excerpts, particularly Amanda Barclay, soprano, apart from starting slightly off-key.  Then the choir gave Telemann all they had, in a very vigorous performance.

The soloists sounded more comfortable in Monteverdi’s ‘Beatus vir’, a setting of Psalm 122 from his Selva Morale e Spirituale of 1640.  It is probably his best-known choral piece.  Four of the five soloists from the Telemann appeared again, with the addition of two other male singers.  The women on the whole acquitted themselves better than the men, and again, occasionally the choir and soloists were drowned by the orchestral sound.  However, with strings only, we heard more from the soloists.  The choir sang well, with plenty of lung power; the orchestra played with appropriate style.  Rhythm and articulation were good, and the beauty of the woodwind playing stood out particularly.  The choir parts were clear and confident.

Owen Clarke has conducted the annual concert for a number of years, even after moving to Auckland, and now Australia.  He spoke briefly to the audience about how he enjoyed taking part in this annual event.  He was followed by Lara Cooke (no relation to Merran Cooke), a teenager who has suffered two major bouts of cancer.  She spoke clearly, fluently and unemotionally about her experiences, and the help she and her family had received from the Child Cancer Foundation.  It was a moving experience to learn a little of what she had gone through, including having to move to Christchurch and Auckland at different times to receive treatment.

A medley from George Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess followed; an arrangement by Ed Lojeski.  ‘I got plenty o’ nuttin’ opened for the orchestra, and the wind players certainly opened their lungs.  Anna Rowe sang ‘Summertime’, amplified, to excellent effect – although in St. Andrew’s acoustic I did not think that amplification was necessary.  The choir came in too, and piano and percussion were added.  The choir reiterated the opening number, using the pronunciation ‘nothing’.  Then there was ‘It ain’t necessarily so’, with Ken Trass an excellent soloist, along with the choir.  ‘Bess, you is my woman now’ had similar treatment.

Idiomatic, well-rehearsed singing of a good standard were the marks of the entire medley, with clear words.  There were some delightful clarinet passages before the medley ended strongly with ‘O Lord, I’m on my way’.

Three Beatles songs concluded the programme, the music arranged by Daniel Hayles, a New Zealander who teaches jazz at the New Zealand School of Music here in Wellington, the skilled arrangement being commissioned for this concert.  The soloist was Mauricio Molina, a Wellington singer originally from Argentina.  I found his amplified voice too loud in the first song, in the St. Andrew’s acoustic.  The choir also sang, in Sergeant Pepper, Penny Lane  and All you need is Love, but in the first song they could hardly be heard.  Things were much better in the gentler Penny Lane.  The soloist was not too loud, his words could be understood, and the choir could be heard.  The triumphant ending of the last song had the audience joining in clapping the rhythm.  The beginning and ending of the song features phrases from La Marseillaise – a great effect.

Sponsors contributed to the cost of the concert; all audience donations would go to the Child Cancer Foundation. I trust this was a considerable sum; the musicians worked hard for it.

 

 

 

Organist Bruce Cash momentous performance of Messiaen’s La Nativité du Seigneur

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Rejoice!

Olivier Messiaen (1908-1992): La Nativité du Seigneur (1935)

Bruce Cash (organ)

St. Mary of the Angels Church

Sunday, 17 December, 3pm

To hear a splendid work of meditation for organ on the fine organ of St Mary of the Angels with its marvellous acoustics and its ambience since its recent restoration, was a treat in itself; to hear Bruce Cash play it so well was the icing on the cake. Bruce Cash had described the work in his interesting pre-concert talk, which was accompanied by slides. They included two of the wonderful, tall, narrow, stained glass windows of Sainte-Chapelle in Paris and by audio examples from the work, from a recording of Messiaen’s organ at La Trinité church in Paris (where he played for over 60 years), and on the piano. Bruce Cash spoke of the Greek verse rhythms and Indian rhythms Messiaen employed.

Messiaen’s work is in nine parts; each part was introduced by titles and Biblical texts which he used, read in French by Robert Oliver. In what follows I will give the titles in English.

First was The Virgin and the Child. The magical opening passage with its distinctive descending figure, was a euphony for the Epiphany, with clear, repetitive melodies in different scales/modes. The music was subtle and unhurried. Perhaps an impulse of wonderment, of characterising Mary regarding her child. Beautifully clustered notes created a warbling melody, the child peacefully brought into being in the midst of hustle and bustle. The middle section sounded like a great outpouring of many-voiced joy, rhapsodic and free, with an ostinato carillon on the pedals – ecstatic stuff! The music returns to the opening, reiterating the descending figure – everything in cool colours; the music generating contrasting orange and yellow hues. As Bruce Cash said in his pre-concert talk, Messiaen was one of those who saw colours when he heard music.

Second was The Shepherds, which began with separated chords – were these the angels appearing? Some of the melodies were particularly song-like, or chant-like. The music exploited the huge range of sounds available on this organ, including those echoing the shepherds’ pipes. Clustered tones of wonderment, gentle rocking rhythm on reeds, hypnotic in effect and connecting with a greater peace from ages beyond understanding. Registrations were fresh and beautiful.

Third, Eternal Designs, had a broader, fuller sound, slow and grand. Was this an aural picture of God? Again, an interesting scale/mode was employed as the basis, and unusual harmonies were featured. The deep pedal notes gave the music a mysterious, other-worldly mood. Lovely long, rich, dark, solemn, deep undertones, reedy textures suggested relief and light, the bass reaching to the earth’s bowels.

The Word is the title of the fourth section. God declares ‘You are my Son’ to a discordant opening, then there are strident pedal sequences. There are rapid rhythmic figures and thickly clustered chords. A high, shrill melody was succeeded by a return to strident pedals, with shimmering ululations behind. This section was in two parts, the second having a more mellifluous melody appear, in meditative character, calm in its effect after the declamatory mood.

No. 5, The children of God, had a more disturbed, more excitable sound of clustered sonorities. The music developed loud expostulations, but with more conventional harmonies, then dissolved into reassurance. It was a short movement.

No.6, The Angels, featured spectacular galaxies of sounds. There were high and spiky fanfares and cascades, retreating at the end. The programme notes speak of a continuous peal of joy.

Jesus accepts the suffering was the title of no.7. Harsh reeds and blustering utterances contrasted with lighter, higher tones. The effect was like a conversation between two opposing forces – one bluff, angry, and the other mild, conciliatory. Then diapasons brought the voice of acceptance between the opposing ideas. The long final chord was at full volume.

No. 8, The Magi, or Wise Men brought music that was appropriately exotic. There was a travelling character to its rhythm and notation. A recurrent melody could be a song from the East. A more peaceful sequence followed – perhaps the visitors reaching the stable? There was a quiet chord to end. But I did not detect the star overhead that the programme notes described. Simplicity rather than grandeur was the mood.

The final part, No 9, God in our midst, opened loud and spiky, with ponderous pedals. This was followed by a mild sequence (the Virgin Mary utterance of the Magnificat); then angular sounds with rapid, high-pitched figures built momentum. Crashing chords and a brass voice blared forth before a triumphant Widor-like toccata ended the work.

Peter Mechen, who was also at the concert, offered his notes to me; he ended with “an unbridled frisson of energetic outpouring, the music descending spectacularly before winding up and growing like a vortex of cosmic proportion, heading inexorably towards the musics’ great final chord over a descending bass”.

This performance was an amazing tour de force; music played to perfection. What a composer! What an organist!

 

A Consort Christmas: Tudor Consort assembles brilliant and diverting package of words and music

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

The Tudor Consort directed by Michael Stewart

A Consort Christmas; carols and secular and liturgical pieces by Jean Mouton, Matteo Flecha ‘El Vielo’, Tallis, Francisco Guerrero, Byrd, Sweelinck, Praetorius, Peter Cornelius, Rachmaninov, Healey Willan, Howells, Poulenc, Richard Madden, and Gregorian chant  
and readings on Christmas themes from Robert Easting and Bryan Crump

Wellington Cathedral of St Paul

Saturday 16 December, 7:30 pm

Given The Tudor Consort’s splendidly rehearsed and executed array of carols, chants, liturgical and secular songs connected with Christmas, one had to wonder whether the unusual quantity of Christmas-related music over the past few weeks had brought about some aural fatigue resulting in a smaller audience than I would have expected.

And so, to remind you of all the Christmas-like concerts over the past three weeks, look at the end of this review.

First came a Gregorian chant, Puer natus est nobis, which the programme described as the Introit for the third mass of Christmas Day, which sounded from the back (west end) of the church as choir members walked slowly up the centre aisle with music director Michael Stewart in their midst. Its spirit was one of optimism and joy.

A variant on that subject followed: Hodie Christus natus est by Jan Sweelinck, recorded in the programme as the Antiphon for Vespers of Christmas Day. Here emerged a marked characteristic of the choir’s performance – glorious, high sopranos, including voices that would be soloists in the Tallis Missa puer natus est nobis and elsewhere.

Readings: Robert Easting
After the Sweelinck, erstwhile choir member Robert Easting, Professor Emeritus (English language and literature) at Victoria University, delivered a splendidly orated recital of the 16th century ‘carol’ The Carol of Jolly Wat, replete with convincing contemporary pronunciation and profane histrionics.

(Introducing his verses, Easting mentioned the death this week of another distinguished Wellington academic at Oxford, Douglas Gray. It brought back memories: Gray was Dux at Wellington College in my third form year. By the time I was studying English at Victoria, he was junior lecturer in Professor Ian Gordon’s English Department, and I recall his lectures and seminars in stage II in Middle English and/or Anglo-Saxon. A further pedantic offering: one of our text books was Kenneth Sisam’s classic Fourteenth Century Verse and Prose, still somewhere on my shelves. Sisam too was a distinguished New Zealand scholar at Oxford).

You’ll find the carol in Helen Gardner’s New Oxford Book of English Verse. The idiom of this late Middle English, popular verse seemed to lie between the literary language of Chaucer and Langland, and the early Tudor poets who are still broadly comprehensible to our ears.

Readings: Bryan Crump
There were three later readings, by Bryan Crump who is familiar as an RNZ news reader. The first relating to a Christmas at Scott Base from a journal of Harry Jones, with amusing observations; the second, Marsden’s account of the first Christmas celebration in New Zealand, in 1814: a bit revelatory, especially in light of later exposure of Marsden’s violent proclivities; and finally a delightfully droll letter to Mark Twain’s (Samuel Clemens) daughter from Father Christmas.

The ‘serious’ music was interspersed by traditional carols in which the audience was required to join: God rest ye merry, gentlemen (in the programme, victim of common mis-punctuation – the comma before ‘merry’); Silent Night; Good King Wenceslas; Silent Night.

Tallis: Missa puer natus est nobis
The ‘composed’ music was by all those named in the heading. Tallis ‘Christmas Mass’, Missa puer natus est nobis, was divided into three parts and sung at three points in the programme; so it set the concert in what might be considered the heartland of Renaissance choral music. It is regarded as untypical of the Tallis known in most of his other music, perhaps because it was composed as the Catholic monarch, Mary, came to the throne in 1553, after the reigns of Henry VIII and Edward VI, offering a much more friendly climate for Catholic musicians, as Tallis was. The absence from the score of soprano voices is attributed to Mary’s marriage to Philip II of Spain (the same Philip who features in Schiller’s and Verdi’s Don Carlos) whose Chapel Royal which was resident in England with the king seems not to have used high treble voices.

Bits of the mass had been published in the monumental ten-volume Tudor Church Music series in 1928 but no satisfactory performing version was known till 1961, when additional sections were discovered. Though the Mass remains incomplete (most of the Credo is still lost and some of the other movements have missing voices), it has now had several impressive recorded performances; it is now regarded as one of the great masterpieces of the Tudor era. A scholarly edition appeared in 1977 (these details from an article in the Musical Times, on the Internet).

Its characteristics
It has no Kyrie, but begins with the Gloria. As noted in Michael Stewart’s comment below, it follows the shape of Taverner’s Missa Gloria tibi trinitas which was sung by the Tudor Consort in February last year; I reviewed it but had forgotten that detail. I’d noted there that the Kyrie was not regarded as part of the Ordinary of the Mass before the Reformation; though I’m not sure that’s altogether correct. Further, Tallis scored his mass for seven voices; seven soloists led it while the rest of the choir (as far as I could tell, sitting some way back) contributed wonderful richness to the Gloria, in which men’s voices dominated initially, while the high voices soon entered creating a luminous quality above the wonderful polyphony of the middle vocal lines.

I had wondered about references in other sources to the scoring, for seven voices, but no sopranos. When I contacted Michael Stewart to clarify it, he told me he’d mentioned it in his pre-concert talk, which I had missed; he explained: “The sopranos were singing ‘mean’ parts, which had a lower range than the ‘treble’ parts that one would expect from earlier music such as the masses of John Taverner… Compare the tessitura of the Tallis compared with the very high lines the sopranos had to negotiate in last year’s performance of Taverner’s Missa Gloria tibi trinitas for instance. The mass would undoubtedly have been performed lower and with falsettists singing the women’s parts, but that necessitates men who can sing very low and very high, and would preclude the sopranos involvement!”

The second part of Tallis’s ‘Christmas Mass’ opened the second part of the programme: Sanctus and Benedictus. The solo sopranos (Chelsea Whitfield and Phoebe Sparrow) were also conspicuous in here. (The other soloists were Megan Hurnard – alto, Philip Roderick and Garth Norman – tenors, David Houston and Simon Christie – basses). The elaborate counterpoint, taking the text on interesting journeys in the Sanctus; the Benedictus lowered the dynamic level distinctly, giving the sopranos a hushed, ecstatic quality. The Agnus Dei was sung towards the end of the concert, slow and placatory, rhythmically complex, and harmonically dense.

Other Renaissance and later music
Much of the other music was also from the Renaissance, consolidating our feeling for the variety to be found in the early period (Mouton’s Nasciens Mater and the two more secular Spanish pieces, with peasantish, dancelike suggestions), and later composers (Byrd’s English setting of This day Christ was born and Praetorius’s In dulci jubilo).

Particularly striking were two liturgical settings by composers primarily known for orchestral and instrumental music: Rachmaninov and Poulenc: the best-known section from Rachmaninov’s Vespers (‘All night Vigil’), deeply felt, employing idiomatic-sounding Russian, Bogoroditse devo; and Poulenc’s O magnum mysterium the first of his ‘Four Motets for Christmas’.  It was a sumptuous, yet delicate performance that to me remains a fine model of mid-20th century music that is engaging and accessible and at the same time inventive, and sounding clearly of it age.

Music of the 19th and 20th centuries filled most of the second half: two distinct pieces entitled ‘The Three Kings’ (set to different poems), by Healey Willan (a curious yet interesting setting of a poem by Laurence  Housman – brother of A E H), and Peter Cornelius (better known perhaps as an opera composer – The Barber of Bagdad, still heard occasionally in Germany), with a very taxing solo part from Simon Christie.

Finally, pieces by Herbert Howells and Richard Madden. Howells’ ‘Here is a little door’, a curious, childlike text set to music that always strikes me as the quintessentially English, religious manner. While that was an a cappella piece, a 15th century verse, ‘I sing of a maiden’ by still-living Richard Madden was accompanied by Chelsea Whitfield at the organ, with solos by Phoebe Sparrow and Philip Roderick.

The pair of Spanish songs returned us to the 16th century, with composers Matteo Flecha ‘El Vielo’ and Francisco Guerrero: Guerrero’s A un Nino Llorando, with opportunities for well-contrasted female soloists to be heard (Whitfield, Melanie Newfield, Jane McKinlay, Andrea Cochrane and Amanda Barclay); and the latter a peasant-like, Christmas-related song in Riu riu chiu which offered a chance to hear other than seriously liturgical Spanish music of the period (with three good bass soloists – Christie, Houston and Thomas Drent).

 

Christmas (mainly) choral concerts of the past three weeks  

Vox Serbica
Cantoris
Supertonic Choir
A Soprani Christmas (Duo of singers Paloma Bruce and Ruth Armishaw)
Wainuiomata Choir
Baroque Voices in Monteverdi (not strictly Christmas)
Wellington Young Voices
Metropolitan Cathedral Choirs and Orchestra
Tudor Consort
Orpheus Choir and NZSO Messiah
Bach Choir
Festival Singers and The Northern Chorale
Nota Bene:

And to come:

Messiaen’s La Nativité – organ Brian Cash
Counsel in Concert (not strictly Christmas)
Baroque Voices with Palliser Viols