CMNZ scores with brilliant clarinet and piano trio at the End of Time

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Chamber Music New Zealand

Julian Bliss (clarinet) and the NZ Trio (Justine Cormack, Ashley Brown, Sarah Watkins)

Brahms: Trio for clarinet, cello and piano, Op 114
Ross Harris: There May be Light
Messiaen: Quartet for the End of Time

Michael Fowler Centre

Thursday 28 July, 7:30 pm 

A programme of what, twenty years ago, might have been seen as a bit forbidding, drew a very good house at this concert, and at the end they responded very enthusiastically.

It may have been partly the fact that here was a conventional chamber group with the added interest of an extra player. It might also have been because audiences have come to accept that there is nothing to fear in Messiaen, even though he was in many ways, and still is, a radical composer who followed a unique path, all his own. In addition, Ross Harris’s music has gained more exposure in recent years; while it still sounds very ‘contemporary’, audience familiarity with much of his recent music, cast in traditional forms such as his six symphonies, has probably won him entry to the small group of new Zealand composers whose names are quite familiar, who are now considered mainstream, no longer too forbidding or incomprehensible.

Even though so far, I can recall only one of his symphonies, the second, being played by the NZSO – just a couple of months ago; there was a piano piece played by Emma Sayers last month and last year a piano quartet; and Requiem for the Fallen was played in 2014 – the year we were overwhelmed with WW1 stuff.

So it was perhaps a small surprise that Ross Harris’s piece, more than Messiaen, was now the most challenging listen, something of a retreat from the big public compositions of recent years, back to the sort of uncompromising composer of his earlier years.

The central piece was Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time. Harris’s There may be light was commissioned by Chamber Music New Zealand with the suggestion that it might be related to the Messiaen piece. In many ways, sonically rather than doctrinally, it inhabited a similar world, using the same four instruments, but while Messiaen’s writing generally remains within the normal technical scope of the clarinet, Harris had made use of its eccentric possibilities such as multiphonics – creating more than one note at a time, exploiting the instrument’s harmonic resources.

English clarinetist Julian Bliss, who was born in 1989, has already built a notable reputation in the world of music festivals and prestigious venues. He was on stage for all three pieces. He talked about multiphonics before the performance, but it was hardly central to the music; instead, to have introduced the audience to the actual musical ideas might have been more useful in creating a receptive hearing. As a result, there was little chance to absorb themes or motifs or to follow an argument that might have woven the music’s fabric.

Its main impact was unease, mystification, restlessness, produced by scrambling sounds, elusive slivers of melody that quickly evaporated. Clarinet and strings tended to carry most of the fragmentary musical ideas with a sense of purpose, while the piano’s gestures were reflective and struck me as somewhat incidental. Nevertheless, one was undeniably caught up with the piece, with its interesting, unaccustomed, even evocative sounds; and though I abhor saying this, as it’s like a confession of incompetence, another hearing could be illuminating.

The Messiaen performance was quite superb; the first time I heard it, perhaps 40 years ago, I found its widely disparate elements and Messiaen’s unique voice (or voices) bewildering, yet today it sounds as normal a part of the chamber music repertoire as the Brahms Clarinet Quintet. Every one of the eight movements was vividly sculpted, and yet created, as a whole, a mosaic that spoke of the situation of the work’s composition and first performance, as well as feeling still relevant to the human condition today, perhaps even more.

The spotlight moves from place to place, from one kind of religious imagery to another, from all four to pairs of instruments or just one, like the extraordinary third movement, Abîme des oiseaux, where the clarinet alone took us on an astonishing and awful (as in ‘full of awe’) journey through disparate spiritual landscapes. (I heard Murray Khouri play it in total darkness in a memorable performance in Whanganui some years ago). The conspicuously spiritual fifth movement, Louage à l’éterinté de Jésus, is an opportunity for an arresting duet between cello and piano (the one movement without the clarinet); steady, ritualized piano chords underpinning one of the (surely) profoundest musical creations for the cello. The two were in perfect accord.

The association of the brilliant NZTrio and one of the today’s most gifted young clarinetists produced an unforgettable performance.

It’s probably just as well that the charming Brahms trio was placed at the beginning. I was slow in coming to love it but it has taken its place, perhaps somewhere below the quintet and the two clarinet sonatas, but it still delights. If some early parts are less than commanding in terms of musical inspiration, the whole was lovingly and rapturously played, and the last movement, quite short, was a wonderful meeting of minds and hearts.

 

Woodwind students deliver a delightful variety of lunchtime music at St Andrew’s

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Works by New Zealand composers (mainly)

Woodwind students of Te Koki New Zealand School of Music; accompaniments by Hugh McMillan (piano)

St. Andrew’s on The Terrace

Wednesday, 27 July 2016, 12.15pm

Head of Woodwind at NZSM, Deborah Rawson, introduced the students taking part in the concert, and said she had asked them to find suitable works by New Zealanders.  However, the unavoidable absence of a few students meant that several played more than one piece, the latter ones in each case being by other composers.

Perhaps the cause was the rather more esoteric nature of the programme, but there was a smaller audience than is often the case at these lunchtime concerts.  First up was Winter for saxophone and piano, by Natalie Hunt.  It was performed by Kim Hunter.  The saxophone part was interesting, employing the full range of the instrument, but I found the piano part rather tum-te-tum; the overall effect of the piece was somewhat dreary – perhaps the composer’s view of winter.

Next came one of the several clarinet players: Laura Brown, playing Sonatina for clarinet and piano, by Douglas Lilburn.  Laura explained that the piece was not played frequently, and that Lilburn himself had decided that he did not like it, and put it aside.  Here again, the accompaniment was not very interesting, though it livened up in the second movement.  However, the composer exploited most of the considerable range of the woodwind instrument and its capabilities.  After a quiet opening, the sonatina developed into a tuneful and expressive work.  There were gorgeous effects and fresh-sounding melodies. The sudden ending was a surprise.  Laura Brown played with excellent phrasing.

After Lilburn, we had a performer-composer; in fact, we witnessed a world premiere: Peter Liley’s ‘Trees’, for solo saxophone.  Peter was the only male among the day’s performers.  The piece was unaccompanied, and moved through several short episodes, which the composer explained to the audience.  (It was good to see all the players using the microphone, so that their descriptions could be clearly heard).  The episodes were to do with birds, insects, the fantastic woods, and a great beast.  Peter’s sound was bigger and more brassy than that of the other sax player.

He introduced into his piece extended techniques such as over-blowing, thus producing different and multiple tones.  However, I found that the practice of starting each phrase of the melodies on the same lower note became a little tedious.  Very loud sounds were followed by high chirping bird-like tones.  Considerable musical gymnastics were performed as part of the piece.

Next up was clarinettist Leah Thomas, playing Gareth Farr’s Waipoua, a contemplation of the great kauri forest, and especially of the giant Tane Mahuta.  It was an attractive piece, played in a controlled but evocative manner.  There was good interplay between clarinet and piano.  Dynamics were handled very well.

The only bassoon on show was played by Breanna Abbot. She gave us ‘Three Pieces’ by Edwin Carr.  The first was contemplative, the second bouncy and impetuous, but rather like an exploratory journey, while the third had features of both the other movements.  They were played with clarity, and pleasing tone.

Kim Hunter returned to play ‘A flower who never fully bloomed’ by Michelle Scullion, a New Zealand flautist (or flutist, if you prefer), composer, and multi-tasker in the arts.  Although Kim’s instrument was again the alto saxophone, this piece began with the lower register of the instrument, giving quite a different effect.  The unaccompanied piece again demonstrated the player’s excellent control of dynamics and lovely tone.  Suiting the title, the piece had a mournful character.

We then turned to the classics: firstly, the appassionata movement from Brahms’s Sonata Op.120 no.2, played by Laura Brown.  It has to be said that the confidence and experience of this great composer was most obvious in this gorgeous piece.  Rippling passages on both instruments were a notable part of the movement.  The piano was in no way left in the background; it was essential.  There was an attractive variety of tonal colours and dynamics from both players; a thoroughly satisfying performance.

Last was Poulenc; like so many French composers, he was a lover of woodwind.  His allegro con fuoco was the last movement of his Sonata for clarinet and piano, which was one of the last works he wrote, in 1962, the year before he died.  Leah Thomas treated it as typically spiky Poulenc, fast and jolly and one could imagine Poulenc playing this in a Paris night club.  There was plenty of variety in the piano part as well as in that for the clarinet:  lots of fun and the players gave it life.  It made an excellent ending to an interesting and varied concert.

Beguiling concert of French chanson, torch songs, café and cabaret songs by Magdalena Darby and friends

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Lunchtime concerts at St Marks, Lower Hutt
Café Européen – Songs of Passion

Magdalena Darby (cabaret singer, chansonneuse) with Ian Logan (piano), Gary Stratton (accordion), Alistair Isdale (bass)

Torch songs, chansons, café music; French and derivative styles

St Marks church, Lower Hutt

Wednesday 27 July, 12:15 pm

Magdalena Darby’s bio begins with her studies at the Conservatorium of Music in Utrecht, but shies away from dates, early education, or when she came to New Zealand; one assumes she was born in the Netherlands. Before coming to New Zealand she lived in Mexico and presumably Paris. Her bio refers to performing in Paris as well as London and elsewhere in Europe (can we still assume that ‘Europe’ includes Britain?).

Throughout, her career has been a combination of teaching and cabaret-style singing. Her publicity refers to ‘torch songs’, perhaps not very familiar to the musical generalist, but it describes songs of broken love affairs, of lost love (which tends, I suppose, to be a major element in music of all kinds). The expression to ‘carry a torch for’ someone relates to the word in this context.

Paris was the biggest element in her repertoire, even if there were songs from several other parts of the world. That tone was set as the instrumentalists played Michel Legrand’s theme song from the much-loved film Les Parapluies de Cherbourg featuring Catherine Deneuve (which you can find in the Wellington Public Library). The three instrumentalists were clearly very comfortable in music of this style and era (mostly the 50s to 70s) and lent sensitive support to the singer.

Nearly half of her songs were French, by French singers or sung in French: names that appear in my ‘other self’s’ collection of LPs and CDs, like Serge Gainsbourg, Sidney Bechet (the jazz, soprano saxophonist), and Jacques Brel, but also Piazzolla’s Rosa Rio which she sang in French.

What has always attracted me to the French chanson has been the intellectual, heterodox, often politically dissident, even anarchic quality of their subjects, in addition of course to the edgy, rebellious or pathetic character of the love-songs.

Darby’s voice, exploiting the microphone with finesse, didn’t express just the pain of lost love in Gainsbourg’s songs (Les amours perdues, Les yeux pour pleurer and Indifférente), but an awareness of a fractured, lonely world, with a warmth and seductiveness that seems unique to French singers. Though Indifférente was deceptively upbeat and Les yeux pour pleurer an unusual story of cruel loss and the sudden appearance of a new love.

So one enjoyed hearing echoes and tones of voices like Piaf, even Josephine Baker, Françoise Hardy and males like Yves Montant, Jean Sablon, Charles Trenet…

Bechet’s Petite fleur was of course written for himself and his soprano sax, but lyrics were put to it later, giving it a perfectly Gallic chanson character. Here and throughout, one was seduced by a voice and a control of that voice that captured the idiom of the languages and utterly belied her years.

Darby’s clarity of diction and ability to capture the style of other cultures became clear in Spanish songs such as Carlos Almaron’s Un historia de un amor and Nino Rota’s Theme from The Godfather (the love theme with words by Larry Kusik); she sang the latter in its English version, with some in Italian (if I wasn’t fooling myself).

Her singing of the Second World War song Can’t get out of this mood (words by Loesser, set by Jimmy McHugh) succeeded in demonstrating how deeply a European style of lyric and music affected American popular music: Nina Simone was one of the most famous interpreters of that song in the late 50s, and later, Darby sang her But remember me which displayed her warm, low register, that so perfectly leapt into a high head voice in dealing with the spread of the song’s melody.

There was a break for accordionist Stratton to take front stage with a Piazzolla song, Fiebre, where I suppose the idea was an approximation of the bandoneon; but nothing quite matches that unique Buenos Aires instrument.

The song by Cy Coleman, A moment of madness seemed to step aside from the Gallic spirit that ruled in most of the recital; a song in which the singer tries to persuade herself that she doesn’t care about the moment of madness that ended badly, expressed with its series of short, almost sobbing phrases; but the singer succeeded in planting it convincingly in Paris.

Then there was Jacques Brel, a really tough singer to impersonate with any success; happily she didn’t attempt things like La valse a mille temps, or Marieke, or Ne me quitte pas. But in English, If we only have love, (Quand on n’a que l’amour) was a classic Brel melody the spirit of which, even without that inimitable voice, Magdalena Darby caught with integrity and conviction.

And the three-quarter hour ended with a surprising step to the east, into Yiddish song, which she sang in English, with a short excursion into German (Yiddish is very close to German – derived from Middle High German). At her hands, and with the impeccably idiomatic backing of (especially) pianist Ian Logan, and Gary Stratton and Alastair Isdale, the words and music took root firmly at L’Olympia, Paris, to bring this most beguiling little concert to an end.

Ali Harper – Legendary Diva at Circa Theatre

Posted on by Peter Mechen

Circa Theatre presents:
Ali Harper in LEGENDARY DIVAS

Ali Harper (soprano)
Michael Nicholas Williams (piano)

Circa Theatre, Wellington

Wednesday, July 27th, 2016

I came away from singer Ali Harper’s and musical director Michael Nicholas Williams’ “Legendary Divas” opening night presentation at Circa Theatre feeling as though I had been seduced in the nicest and yet most whirlwind kind of way – Ali Harper’s all-encompassing stage personality, supported by her own and her pianist Michael Nicholas Williams’ consummate musicality throughout, simply took me over for the duration. To bend a clichéd but appropriate phrase, I could have gone on all night, both drinking in and delighting in as much as “the diva” and her director were prepared to give me. Staggering out afterwards into “the cold night air” was, more than usually on this occasion, a salutary return to a separate reality.

The range and scope of the territory covered by Harper’s and Williams’ performance was, I thought, astonishing – Harper stated in a programme note that her performance was one “honouring all those extraordinary women who have influenced me to do what I do today”. If imitation is indeed the sincerest form of flattery, she certainly fulfilled her goal, paying a deep and rich homage to an array of amazing singers throughout the course of the evening. In a sense it was all art which concealed art, with some occasionally mind-bending, but always spontaneous-sounding juxtapositions of singers and repertoire served up to us as organically as night follows day.

We got introductory gestures of welcome, including some instantly-engaging and physically exhilarating Motown-sound sequences, and some rhetorical teasings regarding the definition of the word “diva”, including a “bel canto-ish”, affectionately-hammed-up “O mio babbino caro” (until the advent of Luciano Pavarotti’s version of “Nessun dorma”, perhaps Puccini’s “greatest hit”!) and then a “can belt-o!” rendition of parts of an Ethel Merman standard! – whew! The subject of what a diva would wear came up, and, along with the question of suitable scenery, was consigned by Harper to the realms of relative unimportance next to “the glittering presence of (I quote) the gorgeous Michael Nicholas Williams” (rapturous applause).

I was delighted that Harper gave none other than Doris Day, an all-time favourite singer of mine, the honour of leading off the starry array, with a beautiful rendition of “It’s Magic”, a song from “Romance on the High Seas”, which was Day’s film debut in 1948. Harper’s winning vocal quality and powerful focusing of each word in a properly heartfelt context allowed the material to soar and transport us most satisfyingly in doing so. Barbara Streisand received similar laudatory treatment with Harper pulling out all her full-on stops in a raunchy performance of “Don’t rain on my Parade”, though, by contrast, another of my favourites, Julie Andrews, to my great regret became the butt of some ageist humour, albeit most skilfully brought off, with some hilarious, Hoffnung-like downwardly-spiralling vocal modulations……..oh, well, one can’t have ALL one’s heroines treated like goddesses, I suppose!

The subjective nature of things had me in raptures at Harper’s devastating rendition of “Don’t Cry for Me, Argentina”, which for me brought back something of the impact I remember made by the original singer Julie Covington’s tones and inflections. True, the singer may well have had either or both Elaine Paige and Madonna in mind – but such was the intensity of the interpretation, this became Harper’s moment more than anybody else’s. By contrast I found the normally affecting “Send in the Clowns” a trifle earthbound here, more world-weary and disillusioned than I wanted it to be, with a harder, less “floated” vocal line that I was expecting – it still worked, but in a tougher, rather more hard-bitten sense of the reality of things, with which I found it more difficult to “connect” – chacun en son gout, as they say………

Entertainments of more diverse kinds came and went, adding to the evening’s variety – Ali Harper’s “la belle dame sans merci” advancement on a hapless front-row male audience member, with a view to “dragging him up onto the performing stage”, worked beautifully, thanks to her persuasive charm as well as to the good-natured response of the gentleman involved, who seemed to gradually ‘‘get into the swing” of what was required to partner such a vibrant performer.

Another was Michael Nicholas Williams’ response to being told by Harper to “entertain the audience” while she went and changed her dress – as divas apparently do – an exercise which brought forth a couple of subsequent admonishments from the singer regarding the pianist’s initial choices of music, until Williams finally called her bluff by launching into THE Rachmaninov Prelude (C-sharp Minor, Op.3 No.2) and playing it with plenty of virtuosity, to boot! The music’s climax was interrupted by the singer’s re-entry in a classic, show-stopping way, wearing a gorgeous, close-fitting red dress and immediately launching into a bracket of songs associated with Shirley Bassey (mostly the title songs from the early James Bond movies, such as “Goldfinger”, all belted out in the best Bassey style!) – tremendous stuff!

Harper touched on the tragic aspects of some of her heroines – figures such as Judy Garland and Edith Piaf, both of whom died at a relatively early age – commenting that many seemed unlucky in love, and that a number also had what she called “image issues”, citing a quote from Janis Joplin (which I can’t remember, but was to do with her getting a rough ride from her schoolmates all throughout her college years, and never really escaping from the hurt). Though not directly referred to, there was conveyed a real sense of another, well-known Joplin quote which applied to a lot of performers and to what they did: – “Onstage I make love to 25,000 people – and then afterwards I go home alone…” Harper’s show didn’t dwell overmuch on the tragic stories, instead largely engaging the “divas” at the height of their singing and performance powers (well, perhaps with the exception of the unfortunate Julie Andrews) and conveying something of the essence of what those women did with their stellar talents.

In all, what Harper and Williams achieved was a veritable tour de force – of entertainment, involvement and enjoyment – a particularly stirring moment was the singer’s invitation for the audience to sing along with her in Carole King’s heartwarming “You’ve got a friend”, after which Harper’s chosen “friend” from the audience was recalled and promptly put in the hot seat once again, this time enjoined to help the rest of us identify the voices of eight well-known women singers – some of the “divas” whose talents and inspirational achievements lifted our own lives several notches upwards and gave voice to our innermost feelings and dreams. Ali Harper throughout the evening “owned” these women with total conviction, bringing to us the personalities through their songs – of the “eight divas” I picked the first two, Dusty Springfield and Peggy Lee, and as well I thought I caught snatches of Tina Turner and Olivia Newton-John – others with wider-ranging antennae would have “picked up” on the rest.

Thought-provoking, also, to have those images at the show’s end, some of whom I hadn’t heard of – Julie London, Etta James, Ruth Etting, and Eva Cassidy – receiving from Harper their deserved moment of glory, along with names which resonated for me, such as Patsy Cline, Ella Fitzgerald, Dinah Washington and Nina Simone. But despite these evocations of greatness, nothing and nobody eclipsed the achievement of Ali Harper, her incredible communicative power, her infectious élan and her magnificent singing. With her illustrious music director, Michael Nicholas Williams at the pianistic helm, she was a force to be reckoned with – in all, I thought “Legendary Divas” a must-see!

 

See also the following link to Theatreview for other reviews:

http://www.theatreview.org.nz/reviews/review.php?id=9431

A good case for Mendelssohn’s (complete) organ music in cathedral series

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Organ recitals at St Paul’s
The Mendelssohn Project, first recital

Michael Stewart, Cathedral Director of Music

The complete organ works of Felix Mendelssohn
Sonatas, in F minor and C minor, Op 65 Nos 1 and 2
Andante – Sanft; Passacaglia – Volles Werk; Fugue in D minor; Andante con moto in G minor

Wellington Cathedral of St Paul

Friday 22 July, 12:45 pm

On top of last year’s Bach Project from Michael Stewart and Richard Apperley and the latter’s Buxtehude Project that’s running now, cathedral director of music, Michael Stewart, has now invited us to pay attention to and hopefully change our minds about Mendelssohn. In his introductory notes for the first of the series of recitals he claimed that Mendelssohn had “made an incredibly profound contribution to the organ and its repertoire”, and that he stood alongside Bach and Messiaen as an organ composer whose influence is felt across all genres.

Quite a statement, though very defensible in the musical environment of the first half of the 19th century.

Stewart went on to say that the three preludes and fugues and the six sonatas were fundamental to the repertoire of any serious organist. And he noted that Mendelssohn had achieved this place in spite of the fact that he never held a post as an organist; he had, however, begun organ lesson aged eleven and started to composer for the organ at once. Though his formal lessons lasted only 18 months, after which time he was self-taught, and confessed to not really mastering pedal technique.

This first recital included the first two of his sonatas whose provenance was unusual – really cobbled together from a variety of smaller pieces – in response to an English publisher’s request for some organ ‘voluntaries’. Mendelssohn claimed he didn’t really know what this peculiarly English liturgical form was and asked that they be called sonatas so they could be published recognizably in Germany. France and Italy.

Sonata No 1 is in four movements; it starts in conventionally grand manner using big diapason stops with what might have been a rudimentary melody on the pedals; it then changes abruptly to a calm, chorale-like phase which is interrupted by returns of the style of the opening. From then the two moods alternated, the heavier seeming to oppress the lighter passages.

The Adagio movement seemed constructed in a similar way, with alternating passages in widely separated registers, jumping from one manual to another. And the Andante recitativo presented a thin little tune that was suddenly overwhelmed by dominating chords, rather similar to the behavior in the second movement, and the two elements continued to alternate, with increasingly complex harmonies. With no pause and almost without a change of tone, the fourth, Vivace, movement took over and brought it to a rather exciting close.

Apart from the second Sonata, the rest of the programme consisted of slighter pieces, without opus numbers. Three from his early teens: first, an Andante which was tuneful and pleasant, seeming very conscious of the sort of music for which the organ was traditionally associated.

A second entitled ‘Volles Werk’, German for ‘full organ’. It was a stately Passacaglia, the theme subjected to a number of variations which became repetitive rather than interestingly contrasted or developed in an organic way (?pun intended).  Eventually brighter variations arrived and one had to credit the organist with providing more diverting registrations here with lively quaver accompaniment. It ended with a return to the portentous style, which was employed to build effectively to a satisfying climax. It did indeed strike me as pretty clever for a 13 or 14-year-old.

An 11-year-old’s Fugue in D minor followed, a counterpoint exercise originally for violin and piano.

Then a piece by a mature 24-year-old: Andante con moto in G minor. Though it set off purposefully on quiet stops, it was only a page long.

The second Sonata was rather shorter than the first (dating from 1844/45). The first movement, Grave – Adagio, could have been described as ‘meditative’ but I wasn’t drawn into any spirit of mature contemplation, founded on any deeply-felt philosophical reflection. It didn’t sound of its era at all and I found myself thinking how it compared with music being written around the same time – especially Schumann’s piano and chamber music (though I don’t know the few bits of organ music that Schumann wrote). I also read that the ever-generous Schumann played Mendelssohn’s sonatas over on the piano and wrote warmly to him, describing them as ‘intensely poetical’; ‘what a perfect picture they form’, he wrote.

It’s not as if Mendelssohn was not as influenced as his contemporaries were by the prevailing ‘Romantic’ ethos of the 1830s and 40s, in his piano and chamber music, his two best symphonies and several concert overtures. Perhaps his awareness of the overpowering impact of Bach inhibited a freedom of spirit that is found in those other genres.

The second and third movements – Allegro maestoso e vivace and  Fugue: Allegro moderato – contained some imposing music, contrapuntal, harmonically formidable and in the Fugue, plenty of evidence of the composer’s study and assimilation of the techniques and meaning of Bach. Nevertheless, even in the absence of the kind of response I have to the organ music of Bach and Buxtehude and to the French school of the later 19th century, I heard an authentic, instinctive organ composer  whose music had genuine interest and vitality, played with as much imaginative use of the cathedral organ’s resources as could have been expected.

All this might well be influenced by my youthful brush with the sonatas. I had a good friend at secondary school whose family moved to Christchurch in the fifth form. There he took up the organ, and during my visits during holidays, we often shared the manuals and pedals in the organ loft of St Paul’s church, Papanui; among other stuff, there was a volume of these sonatas, bits of which we, or rather, he, found his way through. But I fear they made little impression on me.

This time, Mendelssohn certainly made more impact on me, but not quite to the degree urged by Michael Stewart.

 

“Deux du même” give considerable pleasure at St.Andrew’s

Posted on by Peter Mechen

St.Andrew’s on-The-Terrace Lunchtime Concerts presents
“DEUX DU MÊME”

Fiona McCabe and Catherine Norton – piano duet

JOSEPH JONGEN (1873-1953) – 2 Pieces from “Pages Intimes”
Il était une fois (Once upon a time….)
Le Bon Chîval (The Good Horse)

FRANZ SCHUBERT
Rondo D.951 “Grand rondeau”

SERGEI RACHMANINOV  (from “Six morceaux” Op.11)
Barcarolle
Valse
Romance
Slava! (Glory)

St.Andrew’s on-The-Terrace, Wellington

Wednesday 20th July 2016

The concerts I enjoy the most, I think, are those which, in a sense, I don’t really see “coming” – that is to say, those I wouldn’t beforehand expect to enjoy as much as sometimes turns out. So it was such a pleasure to be set upon, taken over, surprised by joy and delight, and thoroughly warmed through-and-through by the duet-playing of Fiona McCabe and Catherine Norton in their recent St.Andrew’s on-the-Terrace lunchtime recital!

These two musicians (styling their partnership as “Deux du même” – two of the same) conveyed to us such engagement with and enjoyment of both the music and the process of bringing it to life, I for one at the end of it all felt both delighted with what we’d heard and frustrated that this wasn’t a full-length concert!  It was more than any one thing which worked this alchemy of performance pleasure – every ingredient in the mix, repertoire, technique, rapport, commitment, focus, the instrument, the venue, had something to contribute to the exhilaration and satisfaction afforded by the occasion.

Beginning with the repertoire, the choices were fascinating – here was my first experience of the music of Belgian composer Joseph Jongen (even if the name wasn’t entirely unknown to me), and a most stimulating one. From a work, Pages Intimes, originally written for piano duet and later orchestrated, came two absolutely delightful movements, the first appropriately entitled Il etait une fois…. (Once upon a time….). Reminiscent of Ravel, and none the less for that, the piece played with a three-note motif, with the music gradually becoming more filigree in character – a very atmospheric and flowing performance, flecked with currents and flashes of light.

The second movement, Le Bon Chîval (The Good Horse), demonstrated plenty of joie de vivre, as well as a good deal of “personality” in the music’s varied flow – there was nothing remotely mechanical in these trajectories, but exciting and engaging momentums, a journey punctuated by both excitements and reflections, with the music’s ending a kind of reminiscence of the ride.

The players having established their partnership, even to the extent of overcoming the irritation of a squeaky piano seat, Fiona McCabe and Catherine Norton proceeded to change places for the next item, Franz Schubert’s Rondo D.951.This was the composer’s final four-hands work, published a month after his death with the title “Grand Rondeau”. McCabe and Norton brought it all to life once again, encouraging the piece’s innate lyricism to blossom while allowing the dovetailed rhythms to chatter and burble in excited conversation.

The duo’s playing also caught the different character of the sequences, such as with a prayer-like passage just before the recapitulation – it had a different dimension of manner to what had gone before, more intimate and direct, voiced as though something other-worldly had appeared and was speaking with the composer’s own tones. Schubert obviously enjoyed surprising his listeners, switching almost without warning occasionally between lyrical outpourings and passages of great declamation, and taking us on harmonic explorations of wondrous spontaneity. The duo relished these flavoursome instances of unfettered creativity, and were ready and waiting at the piece’s rounding-off, with the theme stealing back in the bass and counterpointed in an insouciant, “I know you’re there” way – marvellous playing!

Rachmaninov’s contributions to the four-handed piano literature encompass both works for duet and for two pianos – his Op.11 collection “Six Morceaux” was written in a few short months in 1896, a year before the disastrous premiere of his First Symphony. Of course, nothing of that unforeseen setback clouded the achievement of this work, in both keyboard and compositional terms the most impressive of the young composer’s efforts to date.

While one would have liked to have heard the whole set, which is seldom performed in public, Catherine Norton and Fiona McCabe earned our gratitude in presenting four of the six pieces. They began with the Barcarolle, one whose waters seemed to be the darker, more chilly Slavic kind rather than the usual indolent sun-drenched Mediterranean variety. The pair instantly established the music’s restless, volatile character, then, from out of these yearning, unsettled beginnings and the swirling figurations that followed, brought forth the impressive, cathedral-like theme in its different versions – like looking at the same structure from different viewpoints. An example of this was the way in which the theme returned accompanied by a triplet rhythm, the music wreathed in bleak harmonies before being softened by some warmer right-hand figurations, and a ray of sunshine with the final chord.

Next was the Waltz, angular and laconic, with po-faced humour, expressed by mischievous impulses punctuating the lines – the players even unintentionally went as far as losing a moment or two of synchronisation, but soon caught up with one another – all in the interests of the music’s character, of course! I liked the Satie-like timbres in places, with tintinabulating treble figures set dancing, and a delightfully throw-away ending with which to round off the piece.

With the Romance that followed, the music was all full-throated sonority, anguished declamations subjected to obsessively repeated chromatic figurations – more a “Lament” than a “Romance” I thought, on this, my first hearing. The intensities didn’t let up with the final movement, titled “Slava” (Glory), one which used the well-known Russian folk-tune employed by both Beethoven in his Op.59 No.2 “Rasumovsky Quartet” and Musorgsky in the coronation scene of his opera “Boris Godunov”. The theme emerged canonically at first, the players skilfully controlling its ever-growing amplitude before allowing it to blaze forth over the final pages – in effect it almost out-Musorgskied Musorgsky in his “Pictures at an Exhibition” mode. Sensationalist that I am, I particularly enjoyed the minor-key version of it in the bass, with shrill treble trills ringing out at the other end of the keyboard. Catherine Norton and Fiona McCabe held us in thrall throughout with their playing, building up to and delivering sonorities that threatened most excitingly to burst at the seams, and overwhelm us in great floodings of tone and energy. Exhilarating, and at the end, most satisfying – bravo!

 

 

 

Enthusiasm for Orchestra Wellington, with Anna Leese, in war-time masterpieces by Strauss

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Last Words: Capriccio

Richard Strauss: Festmusik der Stadt Wien for brass and timpani (arr. Maunder)
Metamorphosen: Study for 23 solo strings
Capriccio Op.85: Prelude and Final Scene

Orchestra Wellington conducted by Marc Taddei, with Anna Leese (soprano)

Michael Fowler Centre

Saturday 16 July 2016, 7.30pm

The latest in Orchestra Wellington’s innovative ‘Last Words’ series of subscription concerts featured a variety of music, despite being all from one composer.  The works were all written late in the composer’s life.  Marc Taddei made it apparent in his pre-concert talk (with young composer Tabea Squire) that he held Strauss in high regard.  The composer had considered the opera Capriccio to be his last work.  However, the other two works on the programme were written later, as were the well-loved Four Last Songs (programmed for performance later this year by the NZSO with soloist German soprano Christiane Libor).

Doing things a little differently, Orchestra Wellington had the announcements to the audience before the players came on.  Then the brass only (plus timpani) came onto the platform, where they stood at the rear, on low tiers.  This looked very effective.  Only the tuba-player and the timpanist sat. Festmusik der Stadt Wien, “composed in 1943 as thanks for having been awarded the Beethoven Prize – and also as thanks to the city of Vienna…[for] personal protection from Nazi harassment…”, featured characterful themes.  One would not have imagined, hearing this music, that a war was raging and that people were being killed.

The music became more military with a joyful fanfare towards the end, and then a slower, more lyrical passage intervened.  A final militaristic outburst ended the work.  It must have suited its occasion well, but has not been standard symphony orchestra fare.

Now the string players came on, for Metamorphosen.  They also stood to play (though not, of course, the cellos and double basses).  Concertmaster Vesa-Matti Leppänen was borrowed from the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, and a fine job he made of his role.  As a friend remarked in the interval, there’s a difference between the NZSO and this orchestra.  Nevertheless they play well, and it was good to hear them with an inspiring concertmaster and their usual energetic and talented conductor.

The magical opening on cellos alone wove a spell that typified the entire work.  Taddei had alluded in his talk to the ambiguity around the keys employed in the piece.  He said that it is ostensibly in C major, but metmorphoses into other keys, but eventually arriving at C minor passing through E flat on the way.  Indeed, one could not have said what the key was in these opening passages.  Leppänen led the violins in their gradual entry into the music; finally they take over.

The piece’s slowly shifting, writhing tonality seems to express sorrow and mourning.  By 1944-45 when it was composed, the situation in Germany and Austria had changed for the worse.  Taddei, in his introduction to the audience, called it one of the most profound works ever written.  It was written with a Goethe poem in mind, a choral setting of which Strauss rejected in favour of the setting for strings.  It could not help but be a commentary on Germany’s position at the time.

The violin of Vesa-Matti Leppänen struggled to rise in hope above the deeper-toned instruments and their despondent contortions.  There was splendid playing from all, but especially from their leader.   However, there was no let-up in the course the music was taking.  Towards the end, a section of minor chords and solemn homophonic music took over, and there were echoes of the composer’s much earlier Death and Transfiguration (1899).

Taddei’s conducting both works in the first half without the score before him was impressively conspicuous.

For the final work a full orchestra was employed, conventionally seated.  Marc Taddei again introduced the work; there was no separate presenter/interviewer this time, as at some of last year’s concerts.

Enchanting strings opened the Prelude to Capriccio, followed by more solo work for Leppänen.  The winding path of the music through chromatic byways was reminiscent of Metamorphosen, and much Strauss music.  Eventually the horn enters – and so does the soloist.  Sensibly, no break was made between the Prelude and the Final Scene, thus maintaining the mood, unbroken by applause.

The other horns join in, introducing the romantic music to accompany the countess’s thoughts on whether that music by one of her suitors is more important to the opera-within-an-opera than are the words of her other suitor, the poet.  Percussion and woodwind join in the delightful soundscape, then Anna Leese sings, varying her voice beautifully.  The harp adds to the romantic atmosphere; the music absolutely matches the meaning of the words.  Soaring phrases and high notes from Anna Leese were glorious, and appeared effortless.  She fitted the part beautifully.

The large body of strings were given lush orchestration, accompanied by intriguing woodwind flourishes.  Rising and falling cadences reminded me of the wonderful settings of words in the composer’s Four Last Songs, written a few years later and published posthumously.

The ending comes when, the countess having not made up her mind about music v. words, the majordomo (Roger Wilson) comes on to utter one line telling her ladyship that supper is served.  He goes off, and so does she, and a horn ends proceedings, just as it began them.  For his brief effort, Roger was rewarded with a bouquet, as of course was Anna Leese.

The hall was well filled, though not full.  The audience responded enthusiastically to a concert chiefly remarkable for the stunning singing of Anna Leese.  Someone remarked to me afterwards “This was Renée Fleming territory.”

 

Buxtehude’s credentials solidly confirmed at the 6th of the organ series at Saint Paul’s

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

The Buxtehude Project – Programme 6
Richard Apperley – organ

Buxtehude: Praeludium in C, BuxWV 136; ‘Nimm von uns, Herr…’ BuxWV 207; Fuga in B flat, Bux 176; Magnificat primi toni, BuxWV 203; Canzona in C, BuxWV 166; Praeludium in A minor, BuxWV 153

Wellington Cathedral of Saint Paul

Friday 15 July, 12:45 pm

On 17 June I covered some of the background to the formidable complete organ works of Dieterich Buxtehude, after the first four of the series had eluded me (read: Middle C, or I, had neglected them, a grave oversight).

Here was the 6th of the series.
The first work in the programme was fairly large, employing three fugues; optimistic in tone, as the key of C major seems to inspire in composers. It started with an imposing, somewhat rambling, rising scale – a kind of prelude to the Prelude. The middle fugue sounded more orthodox, in common time, coherent and interesting in its progress and it led to the third fugue cast in a gigue rhythm.

Next came a piece based on a chorale, a set of chorale variations which, to begin, employed much less formal registrations than the Praeludium: flutes and lighter reeds, suggesting bird-song. A second variation was more densely textured, and the subsequent variations continued to offer interesting forays in imaginative registers, often with quite bold counter-melodies underlying the main themes.

The Fuga in B flat was an elaborate exercise, as its several lines of counterpoint were punctuated by dense passages that were occasionally coloured by nasal sounding stops.

A Magnificat setting followed, in which the actual fugal passages alternated with more rhapsodic music, succeeding in exhibiting the fecundity of the composer’s melodic imagination and his ability to fuse grandeur and decorative passages.

Another Canzona (I heard one in the previous recital on 17 June) offered yet another vehicle for the composer’s ingenuity and mastery of the rich variety in styles of organ music that existed in the late 17th century: rippling meanderings; airy, whispering stops suggesting shimmering light; peaceful and lyrical phases; quite striking colour changes as hands moved from one manual to another.

And finally, a Praeludium that was even more imposing and engrossing than the opening one: this time in a minor key: Apperley’s note confessed to its being one of his favourites, and his virtuosic performance was convincing evidence of his opinion. It encompassed music of ever-changing mood, melodic and developmental richness and mastery. It moved through fugal phases and highly decorated scales and arpeggios, changing tempi and rhythms and abrupt changes of direction, all ending with a tumbling, highly complex and thrilling coda that must have left his congregation in the Marienkirche in Lübeck wide-eyed and stunned.

I confess to finding myself in a somewhat similar state after this second dose of the great Danish-German master. And this condition has to be very substantially attributed to the wonderful mastery of the cathedral’s organ by Richard Apperley.

You should look out for the next in the Buxtehude series: there’s nothing boring or pious about this music.

Coming up next Friday, the 22nd, is the first of the Mendelssohn series from Michael Stewart; then Buxtehude Episode 7 from Apperley on Friday 19 August.

 

Interesting variety of arias and songs from NZSM voice students

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Songs by various composers

Voice students of Te Koki New Zealand School of Music, accompanied by Mark W. Dorrell (piano)

St. Andrew’s on The Terrace

Wednesday, 13 July 2016, 12.15pm

A variety of voices was heard at today’s concert, and a great variety of songs from 18th, 19th and 20th century composers – interesting repertoire.

Stefano Donaudy (1879-1925) was a composer new to me; he was Italian-French, and a resident of Palermo in Sicily.  He composed mainly vocal music, including operas, and is known today for a number of songs, of which ‘O del mio amato ben’ is one.  It was sung to open this student recital by Olivia Sheat (soprano), a fourth year student.  She has admirable voice production and her tone was beautifully sustained.  Along with well enunciated words and inaudible breathing, she made great work of this aria, as indeed with the utterly different ‘I shall not live in vain’ by Jake Heggie (b. 1961), where she characterised the splendid words of Emily Dickinson aptly and mellifluously.  However, I found Mark Dorrell’s accompaniment in the first song, and elsewhere in the recital, rather too loud at times.

Olivia Sheat’s third contribution was the wonderful ‘Mi tradi’ from Mozart’s Don Giovanni.  It was notable that the singer’s spoken introduction to the audience was very clear, and loud enough (without microphone!).  She did not drop her voice, after starting, as so many do.  The aria was sung very dramatically.  She will make a fine opera singer; presence, voice and interpretation were all in line.

Nicole Davey, another soprano (second-year), has a lighter voice, but she gave it plenty of variety.  A problem I find with a few quite noted singers is that although they have voices of fine quality, and sing accurately, they do not vary the timbre or even the dynamics very much.  A Pergolesi aria from his Stabat Mater suited Nicole well, and her ‘Vedrai carino’ from Don Giovanni was sung with very pleasing tone; she phrased Mozart’s lovely music splendidly.  Appropriately, the singer adopted a different vocal quality for ‘Bill’ from Jerome Kern’s Showboat.  In any case, it was set low in her voice.  Not all the English words were clear.

The opposite was the case with mezzo-soprano Elizabeth Harré’s singing of ‘The shearer’s wife’ by Dorothea Franchi, a New Zealand composer (and harpist), who died in 2003.  Here, the English words were clear and precise.  It was interesting to hear a voice so different from the previous singer’s.  Harré’s darker, deeper tone suited her first song: ‘Au cimetiére’ by Fauré.  This was very accomplished singing from a second-year student.  Her legato singing was superb, and her French pronunciation excellent.  It was a very touching performance.

Her final offering was ‘Smeton’s aria’ from Anna Bolena by Donizetti.  The lilting character of this aria was well portrayed.

Another soprano was Elyse Hemara, a third-year student.  She displayed a wide vocal range in her songs, with a rich tone throughout.  Her first song, the lovely ‘Lilacs’ by Rachmaninoff, started low in the voice, while the second, the same composer’s ‘How fair this spot’, was quite high.  Both were sung in Russian, and both, as befitted Rachmaninoff, the great pianist and composer for that instrument, had gorgeous accompaniments, beautifully played.  Her third aria was by Massenet, from his opera Herodiade: ‘Il est doux, il est bon’.  Hemara’s mature voice and good French pronunciation made a good job of it; one could imagine her singing it on an operatic stage, but she would need rather more facial expression and characterisation.

Here, as elsewhere, Mark Dorrell was required to play some complicated accompaniments when substituting for an orchestra, in the operatic arias.

The last singer was another third-year student, baritone Joseph Haddow.  His first song was ‘Die beiden grenadiere’ by Schumann, a setting of words by Heine that needs to display the irony in both poet’s and composer’s views of Napoleon and of war.  Haddow has a strong voice, and sang this song with suitable bravado and panache.  His habit of poking his head forward rather, needs to be overcome.  For ‘Ah! Per sempre io ti perdei’ from Bellini’s I Puritani he adopted a more dramatic tonal quality that suited the aria well.  This was fine singing: he has plenty of volume, but used subtlety as well.  There were one or two slight lapses of intonation – the only ones I heard throughout the recital.

It was a pleasure to hear fresh, new voices; I think that the opening singer was the only one I had heard before.  All were obviously well-taught, and gave intelligent and musical performances.  Naturally, their skill levels varied somewhat, but I think all present would feel pleased with what they heard.

 

Hammers and Horsehair speak volumes – Douglas Mews and Robert Ibell

Posted on by Peter Mechen

Chamber Music Hutt Valley presents:
HAMMERS AND HORSEHAIR – Period Pieces for Fortepiano and ‘Cello

Music by BEETHOVEN, BREVAL, MOZART, ROMBERG and MENDELSSOHN

Douglas Mews – Fortepiano
Robert Ibell – ‘Cello

St.Mark’s Church, Woburn Road, Lower Hutt

Wednesday 13th July

What a fascinating and splendidly-realised concept this was! With instruments able to reproduce authentic-sounding timbres and tones of a specific period, and with two musicians in complete command of those same instruments, and well-versed in the style of performance of that same period, we in the audience at St.Mark’s Church, Woburn, in Lower Hutt, were treated to an evening’s evocative and authoritative music-making.

Part of the occasion’s success was its mix of normal concert procedure with a distinctly un-concert-like degree of informality, of the kind that might well have been the case when these same pieces were premiered. Concert-halls of the kind we’ve become used to would have been few and far between at that time, and music would have more likely as not been made in private houses belonging to rich or titled patrons of the arts, often with connections to royalty.

Different, too, was the etiquette displayed by performers and audience members at these concerts. Until Beethoven famously made a point of insisting that people actually listen to his playing whenever he performed, those attending these gatherings often talked during performances if they weren’t particularly interested in the music or the performer or both, or if something or somebody else caught their fancy. Performers, too would wander into and through the audience talking to friends and acquaintances as the fancy took them, often interpolating extra items in their performances in the same spontaneous/wilful manner.

To us it would have seemed an awful hotchpotch, but audiences of the time would have relished the social aspects of the gathering, as much as (if not more so) than the music. While Douglas Mews and Robert Ibell didn’t actually encourage the people in the audience to talk or move around the church while the music was being played, each musician readily talked with us at various stages of the concert, the pianist inviting us to go up to the fortepiano at halftime and have a closer look at it.

But  before the concert proper actually began, Douglas Mews wandered up onto the performing area, sat down, and unannounced, began to softly play the opening of Mozart’s charming set of variations “Ah vous dirai-je, Maman”, K. 265/300e, whose tune we know as “Twinkle, twinkle, little star”. Audience members were still talking, and to-ing and fro-ing, while the music sounded softly, at first as background, and then, as people still arriving got themselves to their seats, and conversations gradually ceased, the music took over.  The fortepiano tones, at first almost apologetically faint and almost “miniature” in effect gradually filled the performing space as the variations grew more elaborate, and our ears became increasingly “attuned” to the instrument’s sound-world and its capabilities.

By this time the lights had been dimmed to the effect of candle-light, adding to the atmosphere of a time and place recreated from the past. Once the variations had finished, ‘cellist Robert Ibell welcomed us to the concert, encouraging us to imagine we were at a music-making occasion in the music-room of a grand European aristocratic house – though most of the concert’s music was written before 1800, Bernhard Romberg’s Op. 5 ‘Cello Sonata, published in 1803, pushed the time-frame into the early nineteenth-century). First up, however, was the winning combination of Mozart and Beethoven, being the latter’s 1796 variations on the former’s lovely duet “Ein Mädchen oder Weibchen” from “The Magic Flute”.

What a joy to listen to these two musicians playing into one another’s hands so winningly and expressively, allowing the instrumental dialogues such eloquence and energy!  Though fortepiano and ‘cello were made at different times (the fortepiano in 1843, and the ‘cello from an eighteenth-century maker), their respective voices blended beautifully, neither dominating or overpowering the other. The fortepiano had more elaborate detailing than the ‘cello throughout the first handful of variations, the keyboard writing showing extraordinary inventiveness – one of the sequences featured a “sighing” cello figure over an intricate piano part, while another employed an invigorating running-bass on the ‘cello beneath garrulous keyboard elaborations.

Not all was “tally-ho and high jinks”, however, with variations 10 and 11 taking a sombre, almost tragic turn, the keyboard dominating the first of these while the ‘cello’s deep-toned lament garnered our sympathies throughout the second. All was swept away by the waltz-time final variation, delivered with great panache from both players throughout, including a couple of modulatory swerves and a cheeky reprise, right up to the deliciously po-faced ending.

Robert Ibell talked about the ‘cello he was using, an original 18th Century instrument gifted to him by his teacher, Judith Hyatt, and once owned by Greta Ostova, from Czechoslovakia, who came to New Zealand in 1940 to escape Nazi oppression, and eventually became a founding member of the National Orchestra (now the NZSO). The instrument’s rich bass and plaintive treble was very much in evidence in the brilliantly-written Sonata in G Major by Jean-Baptiste Bréval (1753-1823), composed in 1783 as Op.12 No 5, one of a set of six sonatas. A ‘cellist himself, Bréval wrote a good deal for the instrument, including concertos, sonatas and duets. The sonata gave the ‘cellist a real “work-out”, requiring the player in each of the movements to inhabit the instrument’s upper registers for a good deal of the time. It was a task Robert Ibell performed with aplomb, the occasional strained passage mattering not a whit in the sweep and excitement of the whole.

Introduced by his duo partner as “Hammers”, Douglas Mews then spoke to us about the Broadwood fortepiano he was using, previously owned by a family in the Shetland Islands, and brought to New Zealand by them in 1874. Perhaps the concert’s next item, a piece not listed as being on the programme, but one entitled “Song Without Words” by Mendelssohn, didn’t show off the instrument’s capabilities to its fullest extent, though both players certainly realized the music’s essential lyrical qualities in perfect accord, moving fluently through the pieces brief central agitations to re-establish the ending’s serenitites. I wasn’t sure at the time whether the piece was a re-working of one of the composer’s famous solo piano pieces, or whether it was a true “original” – but my sources have since told me it was a “one-off” written by Mendelssohn for a famous woman cellist Lisa Christiani (who also died young).

What did illustrate the Broadwood fortepiano’s capacities was the following item, Mozart’s Keyboard Sonata K.330 in C major. If ever a performance illustrated what was often missing from renditions of the same repertoire by pianists using modern pianos, then this was it (an exception being, of course, Emma Sayers’ Mozart playing in her recent recital). It wasn’t simply the instrument and its beguiling tonal and timbral characteristics, but the playing itself – though like philosophers arguing about the essential differences between body and soul, one can’t avoid conjecture and evidence illustrating a kind of “inter-relationship” between the two. So I felt it was here, with Douglas Mews understanding to such an extent the capabilities of his instrument that he was able to inhabit and convey the music’s character through these unique tones and articulations to an extent that I’ve not heard bettered.

Often so difficult to make “speak” on a modern piano, here Mozart’s themes and figurations straightaway took on a kind of dynamic quality that suggested something instant, spontaneous and elusive on single notes, and a ‘breathed” kind of phrasing with lines, sometimes explosive and volatile, sometimes sinuous and variegated. There was also nothing whatever mechanical about Mews’ phrasings and shaping of those lines, nothing machine-like about his chordings or repeated notes. I was struck instead by the music’s constant flexibility, as if the old dictum regarding rubato (Italian for “robbed time”, a term implying expressive or rhythmic freedom in music performance) – that it was the preserve of Romantic music and musicians – needed urgent updating to include all types of music from all eras.

Some brief remarks about the individual movements – the opening Allegro Moderato was played very freely throughout the development sequence, which I liked, as it gave the music a depth of enquiry, of exploration, and even of questioning, resulting in the music taking on an elusive and even enigmatic quality, contrasting with the exposition’s relative straightforwardness of utterance. The Andante Cantabile second movement maintained a kind of improvisatory quality throughout, including a telling ambient change for the minor key episode, one whose shadows were magically dissolved by the return of the opening theme. The player took an extremely rapid tempo for the finale, skipping adroitly through the arpeggiations, and creating what seemed like great surges of instrumental sound at certain points (all in context, of course – Douglas Mews said after the concert to me that he thought Mendelssohn’s music was as far into the Romantic era as the instrument could be taken, though we agreed that certain pieces of Schumann could work, rather less of Chopin, and hardly anything of Liszt….)

Bernhard Romberg (1767-1841) featured next on the programme with his Grand Sonata in E-flat Op.5 No.1, the first of a set of three. A contemporary of Beethoven’s, whom he met as a fellow-player in the Prince Elector’s Court Orchestra in Bonn, Romberg has achieved some dubious fame in musical history by rejecting the former’s offer to write a ‘cello concerto for him, telling Beethoven he preferred to play his own music. Commentators have wryly remarked that such admirable self-confidence was partly fuelled by Romberg’s inability to understand Beethoven’s compositions, but, judging by the charm, beauty and excitement of the work we heard played here, no-one need be put off from seeking out and enjoying Romberg’s music for what it is. It would be like neglecting the music of Carl Maria Von Weber, simply because he had proclaimed, after hearing Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony, that its composer was “fit for the madhouse”.

In fact Romberg, judging from contemporary accounts of his playing, was one of the great instrumental virtuosi of the early nineteenth century, exerting an enormous influence on the development of ‘cello-playing techniques. HIs qualities as a performer were, naturally enough, reflected here in the ‘cello writing – my notes contained scribbled remarks like “arresting opening flourishes, with attractive floating themes shared by both instruments”, “a soaring second subject leading to exciting runs from both ‘cello and fortepiano”, and in the development, “plenty of energy and excitement”. The Andante second movement had an almost fairground aspect with its musical-box-like tune, from which came a number of variations. Then, the finale took us out into the fields and along country lanes at a brisk clip, the playing dynamic and in places hair-raising in its virtuosity, especially on the ‘cellist’s part. There were even some Beethoven-like chords set ringing forth at one of the cadence-points, along with other individual touches, Douglas Mews bringing out in another place a lovely “lower-toned edge” to the timbres.

By this stage of the evening the wind outside was making its presence felt, with its moaning and gustings, and rattlings and creakings of various parts of the church roof – all adding to the ambience, I might add, and not inappropriate to the evening’s final item, Beethoven’s F-Major Op.5 ‘Cello Sonata, the first of two in the set. Amid all of the aforementioned atmospheric effects we heard a most arresting introduction to the work, the players seeming to challenge one another’s spontaneous responses with each exchange, building the tensions to the point where the reservoir of pent-up energies seemed to bubble over spontaneously into the Allegro’s sheer delight. With the development came some dramatic harmonic exploration (probably one of the passages which made the aforementioned Romberg feel uneasy), the music easing back into the “home-key” with the resolve of a navigator picking his way through a storm, at which arrival-point Douglas Mews hit a glorious wrong note on the fortepiano with tremendous élan, one which I wouldn’t have missed for all the world! The recall of the movement’s slow introduction and its just-as-peremptory dismissal were also treasurable moments.

THe players took a brisk tempo for the Rondo, notes flashing by with bewildering rapidity, Beethoven’s inventiveness in the use of his four-note motif astonishing! I loved the “schwung” generated by both players in the second, pizzicato-accompanied theme, and the wonderfully resonant pedal-point notes from Robert Ibell’s cello a little later, in the midst of the music’s vortex-like churnings (more disquiet from Romberg’s quarter, here, perhaps?). After some improvisatory-like musings from both instruments near the music’s end (even the wind outside seemed in thrall to the music-making at this point!), the coda suddenly drove home the coup de grace, fanfares and drumbeats sounding the triumphant return.

Douglas Mews and Robert Ibell plan to take this programme for a South Island tour later in the year, having already visited several North Island venues. I would urge people on the Mainland to watch all spaces for “Hammers and Horsehair” – a delightful evening’s music-making.