Trombone meets harp – the intractable made enjoyable!

Posted on by Peter Mechen

OPPOSITES ATTRACT
Peter Maunder (tenor / alto trombone)
Ingrid Bauer (harp / narrator)

Basta  (1982)              Folke Rabe (1935-)
La Source Op.44                Alphonse Hasselmans (1845-1912)
Ngarotopounamu (2009)           Peter Maunder (1960-)
Ancient Walls (1990)            Sergiu Natra (1924-)
Three Songs                  Cole Porter (1891-1964)
So in love,
In the Still of the Night,
Begin the Beguine
Henry Humbleton’s holiday        Guy Woolfenden (1937-)
Tarantula (Fourth Mvt. from “The Spiders’ Suite”)     Paul Patterson (1947-)
Intermezzo Op.118 No.2         Johannes Brahms (1823-1897)
Take Five              Paul Desmond (1924-1977)
At Last               Mack Gordon (1904-1959
                            &Harry Warren (1893-1981)

(all arrangements by Peter Maunder)

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

Saturday, 14th November, 2015

I suppose there must be even more outlandish combinations of pairs of musical instruments than trombone and harp playing somewhere else in the world at this very moment, though none would, I think, bring together and reconcile such profound differences more successfully than did Peter Maunder and Ingrid Bauer with their respective instruments.

Each player performed a “solo” at the programme’s beginning, seeming to tease us further with the unlikelihood of the “Opposites Attract” title by emphasizing the specific character of each instrument – the trombone predominantly abrasive, forthright and assertive, and the harp liquid-sounding, limpid-textured and enchantingly atmospheric. How were these two very different personalities ever going to “get on”?

Peter Maunder began with Basta, a piece written in 1982 by Swedish composer Folke Rabe, himself a trombonist as well as a composer, one who writes a good deal for brass instruments. Rabe wrote this piece (the title “basta” means, of couse “Enough!” in Italian) to convey the idea of a messenger arriving to deliver a piece of news and then wanting to hurry away again, the person’s manner conveying a degree of stress and haste and volatility. But, not only did the player seem to want to convey a sense of urgency and impatience – one sensed there was a burning desire to tell listeners about things that gave rise to frustration and woe – so in contrast to the bluster and agitation, there were passages of remarkable introspectiveness,  sustained, chord-like notes producing harmonied effects most remarkably, having a “baring of the soul” effect upon the hearer in places.

No greater contrast with these candidly-expressed volatilities could have been presented than with Alphonse Hasselmans’ La Source, Ingrid Bauer making the most of the characteristics that we all associate with the harp – magic, wonderment, romance and liquid flow – by playing a piece that exploited these qualities in an almost definitive way, the work”s melody supported throughout by a rich tapestry of arpeggiated beauties.

Having thereby demonstrated to us these potential intractabilities, the musicians proceeded to make delightful nonsense of them with a series of musical partnerships that surprised and delighted the ear. For reasons outlined by Peter Maunder, in his excellent and entertaining spoken introductions to the pieces, most of the items in the concert were arrangements, made by Maunder himself. In nearly all instances I thought them highly effective as presentations, and of course their delivery, in the hands of these skilled players, was well-nigh everything one could wish for.

As one might have expected, Maunder cited the chief difficulty encountered by a trombone-and-harp partnership as lack of repertoire.. Included in the programme were at least two original works for trombone and harp, one written by Maunder himself – I did a quick internet search which turned up only one further work, though, interestingly enough, I found several other examples of, on the face of things, unlikely partnerships with a trombone, one of them involving a marimba..

So, the first two pieces played by the duo in the concert were written specifically for trombone and harp – Maunder’s own piece was Ngarotopounamu, whose English translation locates the name as belonging to the Emerald Lakes which intrepid trampers encounter when making the famous Tongariro Crossing among the Central North Island volcanoes. Such an evocation called for both epic grandeur and shimmering beauty – and in general the trombone evoked the vastness of the terrain and the outlines of the contours, while the harp filled these spaces with ambiences which suggested both beauty and loneliness in tandem.

The second original trombone-and-harp piece was by the Roumanian-born Jewish composer Sergiu Natra, whose early life was spent in Europe before emigrating with his family to Israel in 1961. His work Ancient Walls was written in 1990, a work reflecting the composer’s great fondness for the harp, and manifesting itself in a number of other compositions for the instrument. A prominent Jewish harpist, Adina Hraoz, wrote of her involvement with Natra’s music, comparing the experience with “watching a wonderful plastic arts creation”. In this particular work, the trombone seemed to me like a voice of antiquity, perhaps even Jahweh-like in places (shades of Walton’s “Belshazzar’s Feast”, perhaps?), interacting with the harp’s figurations in, by turns, volatile and concordant ways, and achieving a kind of synthesis of feeling at the piece’s end.

Worlds apart were three transcriptions of songs by Cole Porter, lovely things which indicated Maunder’s fondness for American popular songs of the 1930s and 40s. In general the melody line was carried by the trombone through these arrangements, with the harp preluding and post-scripting as well as occasionally punctuating the episodes with counter-melody or cadential decoration. After the opening “So in love”, Maunder’s use of a mute with his instrument for the second song “In the Still of the Night” took us to just such a scenario, the harp giving us Ravel-like delicacies creating both time and place in which the trombone could lazily and smokily etch out the contours of the melody amid the fume-filled gloom.

FInally, “Begin the Beguine” featured a change of mute (something Maunder called a “harmon mute”), which produced a “wah-wah” sound, and worked deliciously well with the song’s Latin-American rhythm – I particularly liked the harp’s “taking over” of the melody line in places, here, and wondered if that could have been exploited a bit more by the arrangements in places – the varying of textures created added interest to the melody line, the harp here playing the song’s “high” reprise, with enchanting results.

After this we were further entertained by a bit of music-theatre, a work by British composer Guy Woolfenden, entitled Henry Humbleton’s Holiday, a presentation which the performers here had (I presume) cleverly adapted to suit a New Zealand scenario. So, Ingrid Bauer left her harp to become the narrator, and  Maunder and his trombone were the “dramatis personae” of the story, a charming tale of a bank clerk who, after sleeping late, succumbed to the temptation afforded by a beautiful Monday, to naughtily “escape” from his work to the beach, accompanied by his faithful trombone!  By way of enhancing the theatrical atmosphere of it all, we as the audience even got a turn to join in the fun at a couple of points, all of which was very jolly and invigorating.

After all that trombonic self-indulgence on Henry Humbleton’s part, it was appropriate that Ingrid Bauer gave her harp a turn, which she did performing the fourth and final movement of a suite Spiders, a work for solo harp by British composer Paul Patterson called “Tarantula”. Naturally enough, the piece has a fantastically obsessive rhythmic quality, denoting the tarantella dance made by the victim of a bite from this particular creature – for the player it’s obviously a real tour de force technically, and it was despatched here with great brilliance.

At this point in the program Maunder switched trombones, from tenor to alto, to perform what I thought was perhaps the most ambitious of his arrangements, a well-known Intermezzo (the second piece) from the Op.118 set  of Brahms’ Piano Pieces. Maunder set himself a couple of challenges, here, not the least of which was the extremely difficult high entry on the first note of the melody’s inversion, when everything “turns” for home most affectingly – he actually managed it, a bit shakily the first time but nicely the second time! I liked the harp’s “interlude” in the piece’s central section, and thought the piece might be even more effective with more frequent exchanges between the instruments – for example on that exposed note, trombone and harp could have alternated, or even played it together (Brahms harmonizes the melody, so the notes are actually there to use). But I really didn’t like the piece’s final note transposed up an octave – the melody didn’t, for me, find its true, easeful destination at the end. It was the one thing which for me didn’t quite altogether work as an arrangement as it stood, lovely though some moments were.

But Take 5 was a delight from beginning to end, with plenty of interchange between the instruments and some lovely improvisatory “explorations”. After this the Gordon/Warren number At Last  (which kept on reminding me of the Marcus/Seller/Wood number “Till then”) was beautifully done, introduced by a great harp solo, then generating a deliciously indolent gait, though building up to an impressive level of intensity at the melody’s reprise, with a properly declamatory and valedictory pay-off at the end.

Peter Maunder and Ingrid Bauer are to be congratulated upon an inventive and absorbing evocation of worlds within worlds, keeping their audience entertained, intrigued, satisfied and re-educated! They’re repeating the concert in the Wairarapa this weekend, in Greytown on Saturday afternoon. For anybody in the vicinity, it’s well worth giving the enterprising pair – yes, these opposites DO attract, the trombone and harp! – a try!

Wonderful NZSO programme of masterpieces from the heartland of classical music

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

New Zealand Symphony Orchestra conducted by Jaime Martín with Garrick Ohlsson – piano

Beethoven: Leonore Overture No 3, Op 72b
Mozart: Symphony No 35 in D, K 385 (Haffner)
Brahms: Piano Concerto No 1 in D minor, Op 15

Michael Fowler Centre

Friday 13 November 6:30 pm

I had the feeling that both conductor and pianist had, contrary to the indications in the programme, been to New Zealand before. It looks as if I was wrong about Jaime Martín (I wonder if I’m confused by J Laredo of the Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio), but I can clearly recall Ohlsson’s visit though I haven’t found evidence in my large file of programmes.

This however, was a monumental concert, given totally to three unassailable masterpieces; it’s the sort of programme that one imagines all music lovers wish was much more common than it is.

The third Leonore Overture was a splendid choice with which to open. It’s the most dramatic of the four that Beethoven wrote for Fidelio over the space of a decade, though Leonore No 2 is the same length and uses most of the same material and deserves to be aired, along with the No 1 and the last one, actually called Fidelio, that Beethoven wrote for the final, successful version of his opera in 1814. It opened with a fine emphatic chord subsiding to beautiful flute- and oboe-led phrases from Bridget Douglas and Robert Orr that use the melody of Florestan’s first aria.

One’s attention was quickly drawn to Martín’s rearrangement of the orchestra, basses on the left and given licence for supercharged command, the distinctive classical timpani, at the level of the strings, demanding attention; second violins front right with violas behind them. Donald Armstrong was in the Concertmaster’s seat

The overture’s depiction of elements of the opera was more than usually vivid, with the string body at its most opulent, horns and trumpets, the only brass in the score, supplying more than enough martial character. The two forays from the off-stage trumpet seemed to come from slightly different quarters, a nice theatrical touch, if my ears were telling me the truth. And the triumphant Coda was more exciting than I felt it reasonable to expect.

It’s a long time since I heard the Haffner live, a favourite from the days when as a student I used to pay nine pence for an hour to explore music in the old Central Library’s record room at the east end of the main upstairs reference room.

Though string numbers were reduced – 12 first violins and normal decreases from that – there were no real concessions to ‘authenticity’ and I enjoyed the greater opulence of the orchestra, which echoed the sort of full-blooded performance we’d heard in the Beethoven. Even so, the idyllically charming Andante was played with singular delicacy, the long piano passages by violins laid out with particular beauty. The whole movement seems to embody the quintessential Mozart: civilized, melodically rapturous, offering room for subtle and delicate gestures at many places.

Such unobtrusive gestures added interest in the Menuetto too, again a movement (anthologized in piano albums) that seems to speak in unmistakably graceful, Mozartian accents, particularly in the Trio. In the last movement, the smaller classical timpani that the orchestra obtained some years ago were delightfully conspicuous, trumpets high and bright, with a feeling that both horns and trumpets were travelling a little to the side of the rest of the orchestra – meaning to suggest that they lent an extra note of enchantment.

Hearing this again confirmed my particular affection for this symphony and made me wish our orchestras programmed the dozen or so best Mozart symphonies routinely.

Brahms’s first piano concerto occupied the entire second half. Modern timpani replaced the classical ones now; as you might infer from references to their contributions in the earlier works, Larry Reese took his role seriously; here in the Brahms, though they are clearly scored to be heard prominently, too seriously? It suited my personal taste, but I’m conscious of harbouring an excessive pleasure in loud low sounds not perhaps shared by everyone.

After the mighty orchestral opening, the piano enters with singular modesty, and Ohlssen did it right, somewhat matter-of-factly, nothing flashy. Soon Brahms was supplying Ohlsson with material for more weighty pianism which he dealt with in a characteristically muscular manner, soon in the company of thrilling, throaty horns. The piano was always admirably in balance with the orchestra and it was reassuring to sense a fine meeting of minds over tempi, expressive gestures, dynamics, the orchestra seeming to rejoice in whatever spectacle or meditative moments the pianist took slight liberties with.

The Adagio is a gorgeous movement, offering the rhapsodic Brahms rich opportunities which Ohlsson handled with gentleness and restraint; again horns often provided important counterweight to the piano and other winds. Pairs of clarinets or oboes accompany and precede some of the most rapturous piano passages that lead to the broad fortissimo in the latter part of the movement. The last couple of minutes of ecstatically prolonged meditation were spell-binding.

The boisterous Finale is then emotionally welcome; though it’s about 12 minutes long, it’s one of those episodes that one longs to go on forever, and the performance by orchestra and pianist never had me in doubt that I was lucky to have been born in a time a place where it could be so splendidly played: in a city with a great symphony orchestra, and in a post-Brahms era, and before the end of civilization as we know it.

Applause was long and impassioned and Ohlsson chose to play an encore that could not have been in greater contrast: Chopin’s Waltz in C sharp minor: restrained, poetic, perfect.

 

NZTrio at the City Gallery with a programme slightly changed from Upper Hutt three weeks before

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

NZTrio (Sarah Watkin – piano, Justine Cormack – violin, Ashley Brown – cello)

Beethoven: Symphony No 2 in D (arranged for piano trio)
Kenneth Young: Piano Trio (a new commission)
Fauré: Piano Trio in D Minor, Op 120

City Gallery Wellington

Tuesday 10 November, 7 pm

I had reviewed the pieces by Beethoven and Kenneth Young at the Trio’s concert at the Arts and Entertainment Centre in Upper Hutt on 19 October. Here at the City Gallery, the Saint-Saëns was replaced by Fauré’s Piano Trio.

I was pleased at the chance to hear both the Beethoven and Young again. It confirmed my enjoyment of Ken Young’s commission by the Trio, his facility with the instrumental characteristics of the trio, both in ensemble and more particularly in his attractive and arresting writing for the individual instruments, alone or in duet.

I had written somewhat half-heartedly about Beethoven’s arrangement of his second symphony for piano trio. This second hearing changed my opinion quite significantly. Whether on account of the more immediate acoustic of the hard surfaces of the gallery (surrounded by the enhanced photography of Fiona Pardington) or of being closer to the players, or even the result of studied or incidental changes in the balance between the instruments, I can’t say.

Now I felt that the way Beethoven had distributed the orchestral parts among the trio members sounded much more idiomatic and natural than they had before. So I found myself rather more in sympathy with the comments by Ashley Brown, admiring of the success of Beethoven’s commercially-driven adaptation of his symphony.

The new item in the programme was Fauré’s Piano Trio. It is better known than the Saint-Saëns in the other programme, but not as popular as, say, the first piano quartet; it deserves to be. The historical context of music is generally relevant, at least for music of the 20th century and later. It occurred to me that here was Fauré, like Saint-Saëns, writing music that was apparently deaf to the effects of the First World War that ended four years before, to the activities of young French composers such as Les Six, to Ravel, Stravinsky, or the Second Viennese School. Yet it is a sophisticated work that reflects the genius of the period in which the composer flourished.

The opening, by piano and cello, is warm and lyrical, and I recalled his birthplace, Pamiers, south of Toulouse, towards the sunny foothills of the Pyrenées; and I didn’t really expect the build-up of energy, even passion later in the first movement. The players’ feeling for balance was specially marked in the second movement, an Andantino, which didn’t stop a particularly assertive statement from the violin towards its end, enough to make me pleased I was a few rows back from the action.

The last movement was the only place where I felt the possible impact of more contemporary musical influence, perhaps of Ravel, and through rhythms that hinted at Latin America I wondered whether Fauré had heard Milhaud’s Brazil-influenced music or even Villa-Lobos himself. The Trio captured the work’s spirit with impressive energy and a determination to prove that even at 77, Fauré still retained his creative vigour and a lively musical imagination, far from settling for an old age without originality or challenge.

 

 

Providence delivers the goods, courtesy of Houstoun, fireworks and Orchestra Wellington

Posted on by Peter Mechen

Orchestra Wellington presents:
PROVIDENCE – Balakirev, Khachaturian,Tchaikovsky
(and, introducing the concert, the Arohanui Strings)

INTRODUCTION – The Arohanui Strings (Alison Eldridge, director)
(arrangements of Dvorak, Grieg and Beethoven)
BALAKIREV – Overture on Three Russian Themes
KHACHATURIAN – PIano Concerto (1936)
TCHAIKOVSKY – Symphony No.5 in E Minor Op.64

Michael Houstoun (piano)
Marc Taddei (conductor)

Orchestra Wellington

Michael Fowler Centre, Wellington

Saturday, November 7th, 2015

What with the Arohanui Strings delighting us at the concert’s beginning, and the city’s annual Guy Fawkes’ firework display illuminating the interval in a most spectacular way, this was an event which had plenty of what economists like to call “added value” – but it’s all part of what we’ve come to expect from an Orchestra Wellington occasion! In other words there’s nothing routine about what happens, even when there are no such extras or “frills”, but always a real and vibrant sense of a concert’s uniqueness and its attendant music-making joys.

Yes, there are people (and I’m usually one of them) for whom the idea of having a “presenter” who will introduce the concert and interview the conductor is something that potentially intrudes and trivializes the music-listening experience (“You can read a lot of that stuff in the programme” grumbled a friend to me at the interval) – though, despite myself, I found myself actually warming to the “host” Nigel Collins and his charming, somewhat wry and humourful delivery, squirm-making though I often find processes such as interviews and “potted musical histories” in these situations. A light touch seems to me to work best – and while I think a concert ought to be about music and music alone, I can enjoy something of a spoken nature that’s brief, witty and “of a piece” with what the evening is about.

But a truly heart-warming aspect of the evening was conveyed by the activities of the Sistema-inspired trainee group run by Orchestra Wellington violist Allison Eldredge, whose senior members sat with the orchestra to play their introductory programme items – arrangements of parts of Dvorak’s “New World” Symphony, and Grieg’s “In the Hall of the Mountain King”, enthusiastically delivered! Then it was the turn of the group’s younger members to join in (for a while, cuteness reigned!), playing an arrangement of Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy” , also with great gusto and commitment. Marc Taddei rightly made a point of singling out Allison Eldredge to receive special audience acclaim for her work before she left the platform with her young charges.

So, the hall had been duly “warmed”, and our ears musically sensitized, by this time, and we were then able to plunge fully into Mily Balakirev’s absorbing take on three prominent Russian melodies, two of which I was able to recognize instantly, via Tchaikovsky and Stravinsky. After a throat-clearing introduction, using a fragment of the second theme “The Silver Birch” (used by Tchaikovsky in the finale of his Fourth Symphony), the first, broadly lyrical theme was played on the winds, over an ambient string sostenuto, reminding me of the beginning of Borodin’s orchestral piece “In the Steppes of Central Asia”, the sounds romantic and truly gorgeous, especially with the horn and then the strings joining in with the melody.

The “Silver Birch” theme suddenly jumped into the picture, its snappy, three-beat rendition different to that of Tchaikovsky’s somewhat more conventional treatment, and its orchestrations enchanting in this performance. Balakirev then cleverly counterpointed the birch tree with his third theme, familiar from the Fourth Tableau of Stravinsky’s ballet “Petroushka”, a folk-song called “There was at the feast”. The two themes played with one another most inventively, the playing by turns affectionate and brilliant, until we were suddenly returned to the first theme’s long-breathed spaces, the sounds dying away into ambient distances.

The piano needed to be moved into place for the concerto, so while that was happening we got the interview, which both host and conductor did their best with – but it was then time for Michael Houstoun to make his appearance, presenting the last of the five Russian works he’d prepared for this series. This was the 1936 Khatchaturian Concerto, a work which (I was to discover) was definitely not everybody’s “glass of tea”. One reviewer of a recent London performance referred to the work as representing the composer at his “turgid worst”, as well as to the slow movement’s “boggy meanders” – which just  goes to show that it takes all sorts to make a world. At the interval my expressions of enthusiasm for the work and its performance were received with mixed reactions, including stony stares from a couple of people who obviously considered I had “lost it” as a music listener, let alone a music critic!

The early Soviet critics thought the work wonderful – “the epitome of modern lyricism…..inner harmony, vitality and folk character”….praising in particular “….the sweep and surge of the themes, and their thematic unity within the structure”. For a while (thanks also to those early recordings by Moura Lympany, who’d introduced the work to Britain in 1940 and William Kapell, who’d followed suit three years later in the United States) the work even began to rival THE Tchaikovsky concerto in popularity.

I had enjoyed what I’d heard of it on recordings, and was especially anxious to hear in concert the “flexatone”, an instrument often used by the film industry to create “spooky” ambiences and accompany supernatural happenings – Khachaturian scored it to “double” the strings in the slow movement of the concerto most affectingly, though at least one famous recording of the work (William Kapell’s) doesn’t use it. To my delight, there it was, or, to be more precise, there two of them were! – each was picked up and played in turn by one of the percussionists for the slow movement’s “big tune”, the change from one instrument to the other suggesting that one instrument was capable of higher (or lower) pitches than the other. Other people may have been slightly repelled by the eeriness of the timbre or its insistent throbbing quality, but I just loved it – and whoever the player was did a wonderful job.

First up, however, was the concerto’s opening movement, with an attention-grabbing orchestral opening seeming to prepare the way for the soloist! – Michael Houstoun managed, for me, to sufficiently command the opening without battering the recurring theme to death, bringing out its echt-Khachaturian quality (we could have equally been listening to tortured sequences of a similar ilk from “Spartacus”), music of a somewhat barbaric character, fiercely folkish, relying on ostinati for a kind of expressive and cumulative effect. The more rhapsodic passages, introduced by an oboe and carried on by a solo cello, gave the music more breathing-space, which the piano appropriately enjoyed in a rhapsodic, improvisatory way. We then enjoyed the cavortings of all kinds by both soloist and orchestra which followed, through wild, manic gallopings and an imposing return to the assertive opening theme.

But there was more – cascading tones and timbres gently tumbled us down with Ravel-like delicacy, Houstoun and Taddei taking as much care with these ambient balances as with the intersecting of the earlier, more feisty lines, until the bass clarinet nudged the piano towards centre-stage for its cadenza, a solo outpouring of comprehensive range and variety culminating in an exciting scampering passage and an upward flourish bridging in the whole orchestra for the movement’s grand summation. In complete contrast was the slow movement’s opening, strings and bass clarinet beginning a kind of slow waltz, which the piano turned to soulful purpose with its melancholy, folkish theme, one which both the strings and the eerie-sounding flexitone then took up and wrung what seemed like every possible drop of emotion from its stepwise progressions.

Khachaturian does perhaps gild the lily in places later in this movement, piling Pelion upon Ossa with a full-orchestra version of this theme, one introduced by an amazing descending chromatic passage from the pianist! The ensuing full-blooded treatment accorded the music either suggested heartfelt emotion or borderline vulgarity, depending upon the listener’s sympathies and/or antipathies. Whatever the case, it certainly wasn’t dull in this performnce, and left us wanting some resolution after having the emotions spread along a line like a number of exposed shooting-targets. And, right throughout, I found myself lost in admiration at both Michael Houstoun’s impressive command of the material throughout these “fraught’ passages, and the sustained intensity of the orchestral response under Marc Taddei.

The same went for the finale, the musicians throwing themselves at the pounding rhythms of the opening with great élan, Houstoun giving the Shostakovich-like writing of the solo part plenty of energy – here were “the athletic rhythms and luxurious orchestral textures” of the old Record Guide’s notorious 1951 put-down, which went on to sum up the composer’s overall achievement as having a “brash appeal” – rather, I liked a later critic’s description of the concerto as “a rhapsodic glitter of song and dance in kaleidoscopic confrontation”. William Kapell’s and Serge Koussevitsky’s historic 1951 recording (which I hadn’t heard) has long been considered the performance exemplar regarding this work, but on this occasion Houstoun’s and Taddei’s performance carried me along most satisfyingly throughout, right up to the conclusion’s grand apotheosis – I thought it a marvellous and resplendent way to conclude this Russian concerto series!

Then, of course, after the interval (and the fireworks!) we were plunged into the throes of a different, pre-Soviet Russian world with Tchaikovsky’s Fifth Symphony. Marc Taddei had promised us a “fresh listen” to this work, and certainly the first movement’s urgent, sprightly, forward-straining progress allowed no traces of the lugubrious quality that sometimes hangs about this music – I marvelled at the dexterity of the wind players whose accompanying scale passages in places had to be played as if sounding like rushing water, at this tempo! – but it was all very exciting! I did find the contrasting string melody a bit charmless, the line hustled along with unseemly haste – but it was certainly all of a piece, and there were no cobwebs left hanging about as the music’s coda strode proudly and haughtily away from us at the end.

I was enchanted with the playing of the slow movement, here, right from the beautifully-wrought depths of feeling at the opening, through to the final heart-stopping clarinet phrase at the end – and I’m willing to bet that Ed Allen’s horn solo was absolutely perfect at rehearsal, treacherous beast that the instrument can be in concert (it was just one note away from perfection, here!). The detailing was, in fact, superb from all instruments, as was the “singing” quality of the strings in places – and (small point) I was so pleased to hear the pizzicato sequence after the movement’s big central climax played “straight” instead of being pulled about unmercifully, as happens in so many performances!

More delight was to be had from the Waltz which followed, in which instruments like the bassoon took their opportunities most beguilingly as did the pair of clarinets sharing a “moment” at one point and a chuckle afterwards.  Of course, it was Tchaikovsky in a most balletic mood – and the scampering strings and winds caught the ambiences perfectly, with the brass magically chiming in at one or two points. Marc Taddei kept things simmering with an attacca into the final movement, the strings lean and focused, the brass noble and respondent, with trumpets gleaming. I was surprised, however, in the light of the first movement’s urgent treatment, to find the finale’s allegro section taken at a relatively relaxed tempo, though I noticed there were moments along the way when the music impulsively thrust forward, and kept its momentum.

The great climax of the allegro with resounding brass fanfares and roaring timpani set the scene for the music’s grand processional, the “fate” theme that had dogged the three previous movements singing gloriously out in a major key, the march swaggering and confident. And the coda here raced the music excitingly to its final, triumphal chords, delivered with all the panache and confidence that the sometimes vacillating and diffident composer would certainly have wanted, and, as we all did at the music’s conclusion, fully appreciated.

Czech Philharmonic Children’s Choir gives enchanting concert at St Andrew’s

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

The Czech Philharmonic Children’s Choir conducted by Petr Louženský, piano accompaniment by Jan Kalfus

Music by Novák, Dvořák, Martinů, Mysliveček, Lukáš, and a sung dance piece, Slavnosti jara, by Otmar Mácha

St Andrew’s on The Terrace, Wellington

Monday 2 November, 12:15 pm

We have visits from overseas choirs from time to time, but I don’t think I’ve encountered one like this before. Words like enchanting, artless, exquisite, tender, crystalline, joyful, guileless, come to mind, and it refers to both the singing, and the dancing.

The choir was established in 1932 to meet the needs of Czech Radio; it survived World War II and the years under Communism and became associated with the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra in 1952, a relationship that lasted 40 years. The choir is now independent and exists with help from the Czech Government, the City of Prague, the National Theatre, the Prague Philharmonic Choir and a number of other cultural, media and commercial organisations. They have the world record of three wins at the famous choral competition at Tolosa in Spain (in which the Voices New Zealand won gold and silver awards in 1998) and an astonishing range of other international awards.

If I’d had the impression from the word ‘children’ that these were predominantly primary-school-age children, it was clear at once that while some were probably under 13, the great majority were teenagers and so it is to be considered a ‘youth choir’. There were about 40 performers in all, all but five, girls. Two mature, taller boys contributed fine lower voices.

Otherwise, it does have the character of a children’s choir, on account of the freshness, clarity and innocence of the soprano voices. Though only 40 travelled, some 800 are currently participating in the wide range of singing, dancing and musical activities in Prague.

The most striking visual features were the costumes, beautifully harmonised, peasant-derived skirts, bodices, ribbons in the hair, floral and foliage head decorations, and the impression of pastoral innocence expressed by calm yet animated faces, bare feet, modest deportment.

The concert was in two parts. The first half was devoted to religious and secular pieces by familiar Czech, Moravian and Slovak classical composers: Dvořák, Martinů, Novák, and Mysliveček, and a couple of names unfamiliar to me: Zdeněk Lukáš and Otmar Mácha.

There was a quality in their singing that marked them as different from comparable New Zealand voices: an unaffected simplicity and delight in their performances conveyed as much through facial expressions and gestures as their voices. While their dress was harmonious in the use of pastel shades, style and dress length, there was considerable variety in colour and detail within the peasant style.

There was delightful variety in the five straight vocal items that filled the first 20 minutes or so: a spirited though soulful Gloria by Novák; a bright, staccato, dance-like song, ‘Sentencing Death’, by Martinů, with its brief interruption by a triple-time phase in the middle. A song entitled ‘Wreath’ by Lukáš followed, with alto voices more pronounced; there was a fast staccato section followed by several tempo changes all handled with accuracy, fluid dynamics, with the voices indeed wreathing the most charming patterns.

The second part of the concert came with ‘Spring Celebration’ (Slavnosti jara) by Mácha, in effect an extended folk ballet, with choreography by Živana Vajsarová. What turned out to be the ‘singing’ part of the ensemble (some 20) gathered round the piano on the left of the platform in front of the sanctuary, while the rest retreated. And they returned through the doors at the rear of the sanctuary in small groups, running, dancing, in different, more colourful, costumes, to dance, as well as to sing. Among the non-dancing singers there emerged a player of cow or sheep bells and a recorder player, who lent the bucolic tone to the ritual. A rite of spring, no doubt, but not of the violent kind Stravinsky has accustomed us to.

They bore garlands of fir and pine, a May-pole is brought on and the attached ribbons were woven by eight dancers, now in fresh costumes, circling it in complex patterns. The piano led the dancers through slower and faster steps: the footwork might not have been balletic in the classical sense but it was perfect, and utterly diverting, clearly a considerable feat of memory.

Then a flaxen-haired puppet on a long pole appeared – the symbol of Winter; it is subject to increasingly hostile gestures of rejection and finally thrown into the wings. A solo voice emerged at this stage, firm and clear, a symbol of Spring no doubt, and she was encircled by others as the new season finally triumphs.

Throughout, Otmar Mácha’s music was either authentic Czech and Slovak peasant songs and dances, or convincing imitations that were typical of the rich fund of folk music that is familiar to us in the music of Dvořák and Smetana. It became increasingly joyful and exciting, the dancing reflecting the effervescent spirit of the music wonderfully as it accelerated towards a heart-raising conclusion.

Even after the formal ending of the performance, more was at hand, with folk or operetta tunes that were familiar, but names eluded me apart from one that resembled ‘Roll out the barrel’.

Yet that did not satisfy the enraptured audience, and Dvořák’s ‘Songs my mother taught me’ rather changed the atmosphere and allowed them all to retire quietly.

As background, here are some words from the choir’s website (http://www.kuhnata.cz/en/):

“Over the course of its existence it has given thousands of talented children a love of music and art. Its most talented children have grown into distinguished musicians – conductors, directors, composers, singers and instrumentalists. Its tradition and the breadth of its artistic scope makes it a unique artistic institution, not only in the Czech Republic but throughout Europe…. During its existence, the choir has recorded over 50 CDs of both Czech and international music.”

But finally, what a pity word had not been more widely spread about this wonderful ensemble. St Andrew’s had prepared and distributed a small flyer and it was included in Radio NZ Concert’s Live Diary, but I didn’t read about it in print media. As a result, the church was far from full, as it truly deserved to be.

 

 

Audience rapture with splendid performance from Tudor Consort

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

The Tudor Consort conducted by Michael Stewart

Tomás Luis de Victoria: Officium Defunctorum
Alonso Lobo: Motet: Versa est in luctum

Sacred Heart Cathedral

Saturday, 31 October 2015, 7.30pm

The Tudor Consort is noted not only for wonderful singing; it is also noteworthy for its innovative programming.

This time, an almost full Sacred Heart Cathedral heard music of Victoria. It is not infrequently that we hear short choral works by this composer, but a Requiem Mass extended by liturgical items such as the Collect, the Epistle, the Gospel and others, was new. These liturgical movements were either plainsong settings (Gregorian chant), or were chanted on one, or a series of notes. The programme was utterly appropriate for Hallowe’en, i.e. the day before All Saints’ Day, and two days before All Souls’ Day.

The choir of 17 members sang first from the crossing, i.e. the aisle across the church directly in from the door, between the front two-thirds and the rear third of the church. The choir was arranged as two choirs, facing each other. This arrangement made it easy for those in the rear part of the church to hear clearly.

In a radio interview during the week, Michael Stewart had told Eva Radich that the music was easy to sing, but the hard part was demonstrating the drama and intensity where required. The entire concert was sung in Latin, unaccompanied, and texts and translations were provided in the printed programme. Although advertised as a candlelight performance, there was sufficient other light to enable the programme notes and translations to be read easily.

The choir was immediately impressive, with great attack, pungent voices, words clear, and each part having equal weight, in this version of words from the Biblical book of Job. For the second movement, the hymn ‘Placare Christus servulis’, the voices formed as one choir; the attack was not quite so secure here, as the singers processed forward, the males intoning the hymn in unison.

Now at the sanctuary steps, the treble voices began the ‘Requiem aeternam’ Introit in unison, followed by all the voices in rich and diverse harmony. There was some fine tenor sound, but the blend was excellent. The music was ethereal at times, with very high writing for the sopranos, yet substantial too. I found the concert full of such dualities.

The Kyrie followed, featuring wonderfully sustained long-drawn-out syllables. The unanimity of tone and dynamics was remarkable. Then the chanted Collect, where the solo voice was not totally secure, but the voice chanting the Epistle was better.

After this came the Gradual, with the opening words of the Requiem. This musical setting had quite a different character from the earlier sung movements. The women’s chanted parts were very clear. The Tract which followed had the men chanting in perfectly timed unison, the extraordinary melisma (decoration of the syllables) being an absolute delight.

The Sequence consisted of the long thirteenth-century hymn ‘Dies Irae’, by Thomas of Celano (c.1200–c.1265), who was an Italian friar of the Franciscan Order, a poet, and the author of three hagiographies about Saint Francis of Assisi. It began with robust chanting from the men, then the trebles joined in, still in unison. Maintaining such extended unison is not easy, but these singers make it seem so. There was plenty of expression, releasing the drama inherent in the words of the poem.

After the interval, the Gospel was chanted, then in the Offertory, the women intoned before all joined, all six parts singing in rich polyphony. There were splendid contrasts from fortissimo to pianissimo, and careful and uniform articulation of syllables. Beautiful chords brought the movement to a conclusion.

After the chanted Preface, the Sanctus revealed gorgeous harmonies. The singing here was in blocks of sound rather than polyphony. The Antiphon was chanted, to be followed by a multi-part Benedictus. This was again very different from earlier music, and most impressive. The precentor for the Pater Noster used many different tones in the chant, rather than chanting on one note, or just a few.

Agnus Dei utilised simple intervals to start with, then became increasingly complex. The Communion that followed was notable for magical interweaving of parts. It was solemn yet joyful. The purity of the treble voices was amazing.

The Post-Communion had a more plaintive tone, but assured also. The music was resonant, but in this building does not become too resonant. For the Absolution, the choir moved to stand behind the altar, in the sanctuary. It was followed by ‘Libera Me’ characterised by rich textures, sonorous cadences and complex polyphonic lines. The second and third verses employed fewer voices. Then in the fourth, the spread of voices from top to bottom of the stave was remarkable. The first verse was repeated, with its broad, grand setting. The Kyrie at the end was beautiful, with delicious chords from all the moving parts together.

The final ‘In Paradisum’ chant was simple and effective, and it was followed by Lobo’s polyphonic Motet. It was contemplative, with fully sustained tone that was pure, yet had character and warmth, the singing reverential yet rich and robust. There were wonderful suspensions and cadences.

In all, this was a splendid performance, and apart from very occasional stridency in the tenors, most accomplished. The music was uplifting and inspiring; the audience was rapt (here, this word is not hyperbole) and showed enthusiastic appreciation.

 

An experience to be savoured – Kari Kriikku with the NZSO

Posted on by Peter Mechen

The New Zealand Symphony Orchestra presents:
BOLD WORLDS

– with Kari Kriikku (clarinet)
and Miguel Harth-Bedoya (conductor)

JIMMY LOPEZ – Peru Negro
KIMMO HAKOLA – Clarinet Concerto
WITOLD LUTOSLAWSKI – Concerto for Orchestra

Michael Fowler Centre, Wellington,

Friday, 30th October, 2015

The concert certainly lived up to its title – this was no genteel, well-manicured, orderly assemblage of dulcet, well-rounded tones, but a feisty, attention-grabbing trio of pieces which, thanks to on-the-spot advocacy from concerto soloist, conductor and players, certainly made a lasting impact.

Because of the sheer physicality of each of the works, as well as the presence of a soloist in the second piece who wasn’t backward in coming forward in every sense, the concert couldn’t help but take on something of a music-theatre feel. It usually happens that, whenever an orchestra’s percussion section has a lot to do, a strong element of visceral excitement comes cross to the audience because of the to-ing and fro-ing and the palpable gesturings of the players with, in almost every instance, immediate and spectacular results!

However, it wasn’t only the percussion who were working hard – under Miguel Harth-Bedoya’s energetic and flamboyant direction, every section of the orchestra pulled its weight and more, the players seeming to engage with the business of making the sounds come alive and interact with one another, often to exhilarating effect. The concert’s first piece, Jimmy Lopez’s Perú Negro, was written as a kind of evocation of what’s known as Afro-Peruvian music (a genre developed in the composer’s native Peru in the days when Spanish landowners brought African slaves to South America, thus mingling the cultures and producing various unique creative results, particularly in music).

Peruvian Jimmy Lopez (born in 1978) is a long-time friend of Miguel Harth-Bedoya, and in fact  the work is not only dedicated to the conductor, but has specific motivic figures based upon Harth-Bedoya’s initials. Certainly, the music’s vitality and volatility reflects the latter’s own interpretative style – the dancing rhythms, the brilliant orchestrations and the range of contrasts of mood and colour were all brought out here by the conductor and players to stunning effect.

I thought the piece’s only drawback was that it seemed to drive through an exciting and all-embracing crescendo towards a thrilling climax which recapped the spirit of the opening fanfares, but then attempted to try and revisit those same energies which had been so splendidly expended,  losing some of its shape in the attenuated process. Others will have undoubtedly felt differently and responded more wholeheartedly to the excitement’s continuation – despite the musicians’ commitment and the playing’s brilliance I felt the music outstayed its welcome, indulging in some needless repetition towards the end.

Still, the piece certainly sharpened our excitement’s edges in anticipation of the arrival of Finnish clarinettist Kari Kriikku, scheduled to play a concerto by his countryman Kimmo Hakola. I had seen and heard Kriikku in concert before, as long ago as 2009, but vividly recollecting his skill as a player, as well as the showmanship that seemed to be part-and-parcel of his character as a performer in appropriate contexts. Reading the opening paragraph of the description of Hakola’s work as per the programme, I sensed that the music would be pretty-well tailor-made for Kriikku’s skills as a performer and for the theatrical character he seemed to invariably bring to his interpretations.

In fact, the piece was commissioned by Kriikku, and first performed by him in 2001, so it’s obviously a work he’s lived with for some time, reflected by the immense skill with which he negotiated his solo part with all its complexities. But not only did the music ask questions of the soloist, it also taxed the skills of both conductor and players to the utmost, requiring some incredibly “dovetailed” interactions between orchestra and soloist and within the sections of the ensemble itself. I couldn’t fault the orchestral playing at any point throughout the panoply of sounds conjured up for us by the composer, for our delight and (in places) stupefaction!

After the first movement’s “game of chase” between the protagonists, a series of interactions that left notes scattered in their wake across whole vistas of exploration, the slow movement’s ‘Hidden Songs” brought out cool, limpid textures providing some relief from the corruscations that had gone before. In the soloist’s wistful four-note theme and the orchestra’s ostinato accompaniment I sensed something of Stravinsky’s claustrophobic enervations from ‘Le Sacre du Printemps”, a mood broken into by rhapsodic interpolations from the orchestra. These eventually gave way to tocsin-soundings from the orchestral bells, the music’s movement ritualized, as both clarinet and different orchestral sections sang the last of their songs.

I enjoyed the Shostakovich-like aspect of the third movement’s grotesqueries, especially the tuba’s contributions to the fun in places, the soloist at another point “jamming it” with bongo drum and trombones – wonderful stuff! We were disconcerted when the soloist peremptorily walked off the performing platform, though the music kept going, the orchestra continuing to build the structure to the point where the players suddenly broke off and began animatedly talking with one another – obviously conveying  conjecture as to where their clarinetist had disappeared to!

After the timpanist had called his colleagues to order, the brass announced the soloist’s reappearance with stentorian voices. The last movement’s Wedding Dance” aspect expressed itself with contrasting moods, wild rhythmic excitement followed by louring trombones leading a mournful melody. As the soloist bent his line every which way, the orchestra whispered amongst itself, ruminating upon likely outcomes. A brief irruption of the running dance-music introduced the soloist’s cadenza, music filled with the most enchanting and angular birdsong, and choreographed by Kriikku most entertainingly – a gentleman sitting behind me nearly had apoplexy at one point, so delighted was he with the soloist’s antics! There came a brief dance-passage, the clarinetist treading a measure before preparing to deliver his final flourish – and the music was over!

Grimmer purposes hammered their messages out at the beginning of the concert’s second half, with the opening of Lutoslawski’s Concerto for Orchestra – I seriously parted company with the conductor at the beginning of the work, finding the opening far too timpani-dominated, and completely drowning out the lower strings’ announcement of the opening motif – force and emphasis was all very well, but this was, for me, too blatant – I heard the work “live” for the first time in the 1970s conducted by Vaclek Smetacek, who allowed the pounding rhythms sufficient force while bringing out the defiant syncopated angularities of the string utterances right from the beginning.

That grumble out of the way, I thought the rest of the work an absolutely thrilling experience as presented here – Harth-Bedoya encouraged his musicians to “play out” at almost all times, while preserving the clarity of the textures, as with the celeste’s unearthly echoing of the work’s opening pulsatings right at the movement’s end. Then, during the second movement, such magic was woven by the scampering strings and the spooky winds, whose beautifully-wrought exchanges were an absolute delight to the ear. The cunningly-wrought orchestral dovetailing reminded me throughout this movement of Holst’s “Mercury the Winged Messenger” from “The Planets” in a way that no other performance I’d heard seemed to have previously done.

With great portent and dark purpose the finale was launched, amid growlings from the piano and an almost primordial wail from the cor anglais, with other winds joining in. Strings built the sound-progressions and brass added their weight to the textures unerringly, as the passacaglia’s fifteen variations strode across the soundstage, each “fretting and strutting….before being heard no more”. The powerful outbursts from brass and percussion properly galvanized these scenarios, with various solos from the winds keeping the textural colours varied and volatile, and sometimes at exciting odds with one another! And the “exuberant twist” at the very end (nicely described as such in the programme notes) brought the work to an exciting and rousing conclusion.

Very great credit to the orchestra throughout all of these three works, most excitingly directed by Miguel Harth-Bedoya, and in colourful collaboration with the characterful Kari Kriikku and his clarinet. Nobody should let the unfamiliarity of the composers’ names put them off going to this concert – from beginning to end, it’s a thrilling, no-holds-barred journey, well worth the experience!

Sistema Hutt Valley’s Arohanui Strings and related ensembles offer wonderful example

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Arohanui Strings – Sistema Hutt Valley

Music by Michael McLean, Mozart, Bartók, Joplin, Warlock, Moe Ruka, Beethoven and trad.

St. Mark’s Church, Lower Hutt

Wednesday, 28 October 2015, 12.15pm

To demonstrate the ethos and value of this programme for primary school children from Taita and Pomare, I quote in full the note on the printed programme from the concert:

“[This] is part of a visionary global movement transforming the lives of children through music.

“Right here in the Hutt Valley, we are building a youth orchestra in a neighborhood where children normally do not have access to private music lessons. Our goal is to help these children become engaged students and citizens, by being part of a music immersion experience (4-5 hours a week) where they learn discipline, leading and following, and peer teaching, in order to create something beautiful. It is our belief that music is a human right, and should be available for all who wish to learn.

“We are able to reach over a hundred children a week thanks to donations… and support from the Hutt City Council, Creative NZ, Infinity Foundation, and Orchestra Wellington…”

The concert began with a quartet of the teachers playing. Although eight names were listed, those in the quartet were not individually identified. Their leader, Alison Eldredge, played violin, and the others from the quartet conducted items later in the concert. A Tango by Michael McLean, an American composer whom Eldredge had met, was lively, with plenty of verve and passion.

The wooden ceiling, high but not too high, in St. Mark’s makes this a good place to hear string music.
Next came Mozart’s well-known ‘Ave Verum’. The introductory remarks did not mention that this was written for voices. Although the players made a beautiful sound, I found it a little too fast for a piece having words in the original. Bartók’s Romanian Folk Dances are heard quite often on the radio, but it is years since I heard them performed live. Three were played by the quartet, and delightful they were. The first (‘Jocul cu bâtă’, i.e. ‘Stick Dance’) had Eldredge employing left-hand pizzicato, presumbly depicting the knocking of the sticks. After ‘Brâul’ (Sash Dance) came ‘Buciumeana’ (Dance from Bucsum); its wistful strains made for an enchanting listening experience.
The quartet finished their part of the programme with New Rag by Scott Joplin, a jolly piece by the black American composer, who died in 1917.

Then it was the turn of the Korimako Orchestra, comprising Arohanui’s more experienced players. It was interesting to see the ethnic mix, with Maori and Pacifica children dominating, but also the presence of several pakeha children, amongst others.

The orchestra performed an arrangement of Peter Warlock’s ‘Pavane’ from Capriol Suite. At times they were playing in a bunch of keys, but nevertheless it was a creditable performance from such a band, some of whose members looked to be about 7 years old. This was followed by Canon in D by Telemann – a good performance.

Before the Tui Orchestra, comprising younger, less experienced players joined the Korimakos, Christiaan van der Zee, one of the teachers, encouraged both children and audience to sing ‘What shall we do with the drunken sailor’, before the instruments played it. Other items followed, and then ‘Ode to Joy’ from Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. Wouldn’t Beethoven have been surprised! The instruments played the theme in unison, followed by a repetition in parts. This came over very well.

The work being done by teachers and volunteers for Arohanui Strings, supported by financial grants, is wonderful, and with the example of Gustavo Dudamel before them, we can be sure that musicians will emerge from this group – not only musicians, but human beings with enriched lives and greater skills in all phases of their existence.

 

 

NZSM piano students give impressively mature performances at St Andrew’s

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Piano students of the New Zealand School of Music

Rebecca Warnes (Haydn’s Sonata in F, Hob. 23 –first movement), Louis Lucas Perry (Liszt’s Ballade No 2), Nicole Ting (Mozart’s Sonata in D, K 576 – second and third movements), Choong Park (Brahms: Op 116 – Intermezzo and Capriccio, Andrew Atkins (Haydn’s Sonata in C, Hob. 48)

St Andrew’s on The Terrace

Wednesday 28 October, 12:15 pm

The end-of-year exposure of five of the most talented piano students at the New Zealand School of Music was, I suppose, a follow-on from the four-day series of student recitals between 5 and 8 October which had featured cellos, violas, voices and guitars.

The five pianists were placed according to their academic level, but I could not have distinguished them merely on the basis of the standard of their performances. I can only say that I was very surprised to learn later that Rebecca Warnes was a first year student, for she played the first movement from a, to me, unfamiliar Haydn sonata (Hob, 23) which was a delight both as sparkling and imaginative Haydn, and in its playing with such awareness of its characteristic wit and surprises. Her assured rhythms reflected the melodic character and tone of the music so perfectly.

Louis Lucas-Perry took on Liszt’s second Ballade, in B minor, which is not often played now, though I came to know it in my teens through its frequent appearance in those days (Louis Kentner perhaps?) in the Concert Programme (2YC as it then was). It’s been a bit denigrated in the past, but I’ve never taken that as other than the still common view of Liszt as merely a flashy show-off. The vivid dramatic narrative, its melodic strength and its striking contrasts, are emotionally involving. The pianist captured much of the overt charm of the sunny theme that keeps returning in changing guises as well as the contrasting, quasi-military episodes. Whatever its shortcomings (he’s a second year student) I enjoyed it immensely.

Third-year student Nicole Ting played the second and third movements of Mozart’s last piano sonata, in D, K 576. It’s not for beginners, and to play the slow movement with such lightness of touch and subtlety, and the finale with its bravura and gusto, announced a young musician who negotiated her way most thoughtfully through its considerable challenges.

Choong Park, also a third year student, played two of the seven pieces from Brahms Op 116. They are all entitled either Intermezzo or Capriccio, though the programme did not identify them. They were Nos 3 and 4, the Intermezzo in E and the Capriccio in G minor. The Intermezzo is not among the most familiar of Brahms’s late piano works; the notes might not be hard to find but the feeling and musicality, without the benefit of warm melody, is less easy to engage an audience with. Perhaps he allowed himself a bit much romantic heaven-gazing, but there was no doubt about his understanding of the Brahms, the gentle, contemplative figure. The Capriccio was a fine contrast, opening with fuoco rather than capriciousness perhaps, and I felt initially that the fortissimo passages verged on the tempestuous, but those moments were soon swept aside by the general conviction of his playing.

Andrew Atkins is an honours student; he played both movements of one of Haydn’s later sonatas, Hob. 48 in C major. This second opportunity to hear a Haydn sonata was a delight; it bears witness to the renaissance of his piano (and much other) music in my lifetime: the sonatas used to be considered little more than student pieces. Hob. 48 is very interesting. Just two movements, first slow, then fast. The first, about eight minutes of Andante, exploring basically a single musical idea slowly, thoughtfully and entertainingly. There are delightful flashes of light, subtle articulations, lightly etched rallentandos and ornaments beautifully positioned. There followed a (I’m guessing) Vivace or Presto finale that was assured, economical in its structure, saying what he wanted to say and ending without fuss.

I imagine few, other than the pianist himself and his tutors, would have perceived anything to fault in this delightful performance. (I understand that the tutors concerned with all five pianists were, variously, Jian Liu and Richard Mapp).

This was a thoroughly satisfying concert from both the point of view of the pieces chosen – all unhackneyed and most rewarding– and the pianists’ impressive level of accomplishment. These opportunities to hear performances by university school of music students are a wonderful enterprise, a credit to cooperation between St Andrew’s (especially Marjan van Waardenberg) and the university.

 

Aroha Quartet , with SOUNZ and RNZ Concert, does local composers proud

Posted on by Peter Mechen

SOUNZ, Radio New Zealand Concert, and the Aroha Quartet present:
RECORDINGS CONCERT 2015

New Zealand Works for String Quartet:
ANTHONY RITCHIE – Whakatipua
JEROEN SPEAK – Auxetos
ROSS CAREY – Toccatina (Elegy)
ALEX TAYLOR – Refrain
BLAS GONZALEZ – Spasms
HELEN BOWATER – This Desperate Edge of Now
KIRSTEN STROM – Purity

The Aroha String Quartet:
Haihong Liu, Anne Loeser (violins)
Zhongxian Jin (viola), Robert Ibell (‘cello)

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

Sunday 26th October 2015

This concert was the initial fruitful outcome of a new collaborative project between SOUNZ (Centre for New Zealand Music), Radio New Zealand Concert, and the Aroha Quartet. It was undertaken in association with CANZ (Composers’ Association of New Zealand) and Chamber Music New Zealand.

The Aroha String Quartet rehearsed and workshopped seven pieces for string quartet prior to recording sessions (held over the weekend of October 24th/25th) during which the performances of these works were recorded (RNZ Concert) and filmed (SOUNZ). From these activities came today’s public performance at St. Andrew’s.

Introducing the concert and the Quartet on Sunday afternoon at St.Andrew’s was Diana Marsh, the executive director of SOUNZ, who expressed her delight with both the processes and the projected outcomes of the project. Obviously the focus was on string quartet works this time round, but in future years there would hopefully be opportunities for other ensemble configurations.

Two of the works I had heard previously – Helen Bowater’s This desperate edge of now and Jeroen Speak’s Auxetos. The other five were new to me, though all, I think, had been recently played variously elsewhere, with Kirsten Strom’s Purity and Blas Gonzalez’s piece SPASMS being the most recently-written. Together, the works made a most absorbing programme, demonstrating the versatility of the string quartet genre and, of course, of the Aroha Quartet players.

Anthony Ritchie’s Whakatipua began the concert, a ten-minute distillation of the composer’s feeling for a typical South Island mountain landscape, specifically that found around Queenstown and Lake Wakatipu – the work, in fact was commissioned as a birthday present for someone who lives in that same district. The work is written with a real “feel” for the expressive qualities of string instruments, both in tandem and as individual voices. Instrumental lines dovetailed their utterances with a focus that served the piece’s larger lyricism, while providing plenty of energy and contrast with motor and syncopated rhythms. The opening’s “sighing” featured a number of mellifluous “exchanges” of  lyrical nature, for instance, while there were plenty of energies generated by both motoric and syncopated rhythms during the piece’s central section. One day I should like to hear, as well, the composer’s arrangement of the piece for string orchestra.

From sounds relating to a specific place we were taken by the next piece, Jereon Speak’s Auxetos, to music being plucked out of the air all around, it seemed – some sounds were born soft, some achieved ambient glow and some had agitation thrust upon ’em, to coin a phrase! The composer’s title “Auxetos” means “that which may be stretched”, the idea having its genesis in a South American folk-song recording made by the composer in which a common melody line was shared by the musicians but not synchronized. It meant that the various voices all contributed to the piece while pursuing different individual courses, held together by what the composer called an “inextricable bond of likeness”.

Over a sustained and ambient line, the music’s differently “voiced” episodes seemed by osmosis to extend the range, scope and frequency of their utterances and interactions, in places generating considerable aural excitement by various means – enormous irruptions of energy and just-as-sudden reversions to sotto voce expression, an impassioned solo ‘cello line at one point, an agitated response from the violins in reply – the sostenuto lines of the opening replaced by a ferment of agitation – a single stratospheric sustained violin note then refocused the music, the tones “wrapping around” what sounds like a reaffirmed purpose, the viola holding its long-breathed ground while the remaining instruments each pay some kind of homage to that which has endured, then fade their particular tones away to nothing. Most satisfying!

Ross Carey’s work Toccatina (Elegy) was next to be played, a piece dedicated to the memory of Australian Aboriginal singer/songwriter Ruby Hunter who died in 2010. Hunter and her partner Archie Roach were both members of the “stolen” generation of Aboriginal children, placed in homes with white foster families at an early age – her music and performances brought out these circumstances and addressed the issues that arose from them. Ross Carey’s work doesn’t actually use or quote Ruby Hunter’s music, but conveys an emotional response to her life’s work and her passing.

The music opened with a driving rhythmic pattern rather like train wheels, over which sounded melodic lines whose character changed from dogged insistence to a gentler, more soaring manner, and back again, then moving into a delicately-nuanced Martinu-like central sequence whose momentum was more circumspect of manner and intent – more relaxed and dreamy, with the melody’s shifting harmonies adding to the dream-like ambience. Inevitablty, the “train wheels” took up from where they left off, though the accompanying melodies were more assertive this time round and wasted no time building to a more impassioned climax. That done, the music gently took a bow and faded as enigmatically as it had begun.

Next came Alex Taylor’s refrain, the composer’s own program note amusingly reproducing three dictionary definitions of the word “refrain”, each of which could be cited as an “influence” upon what was to follow. Written during what Alex Taylor himself describes as a “social paralysis” time, the music explores ideas of action and inaction in the manner of an on-the-spot “gestation” – at once wry, circumspect and very involving! The music’s bruising, aggressive opening caused the lower strings to “take cover”, while reflecting a “hanging back”, an inertia, an unwillingness to engage. The process of confrontation and withdrawal was repeated by the instrumentalists, before the “broad chorales’ referred to by the composer began to work their magical spell – enchanting, and in places, halo-like ambiences which gave the moments of agitation a contrasting force and vehemence.

At one point the drifting material was spectacularly “sliced up” by slashing chords, though despite such irruptions order and reason seemed to hold sway. We heard such things as a beautiful cello solo growing from the concourse of sounds, followed by a canonic sequence from the violins, indicating some willingness to interact – and though this business became volatile and over-wrought, the music again found resolution, this time in gentle pizzicati, feet firmly touching the ground. By way of conclusion came a lament-like line, whose course seemed to turn back on itself, leaving us with equivocal feelings as to what it was that had been resolved.

Argentinian-born Auckland composer Blas Gonzalez contributed a most intriguing programme note regarding his piece SPASMS – he alluded to two sections of the work, the first “Mensurabilia” based on chromatic sequences polyphonically arranged, and the second (somewhat alarmingly) called “Olivier’s Dreadlocks”, referring to a fusion of Messiaen-like rhythmic impulses and what he described as “pseudo-reggae”. The work’s first part, Mensurabilia, put me in mind of a slowly revolving ball with patterns that repeated but which also interacted, so that one was immediately fascinated by the osmotic nature of it all – intensities built almost before one realized they had begun (rather like Samuel Barber’s Adagio for Strings – everything was recognizable but somehow different, as the music made its unhurried way along our listening-spectrum. Much briefer and rather more “visceral” was Olivier’s Dreadlocks, a cool, pirouetted dance-like assemblage of lovely detailings between instruments, with second violin and ‘cello having a particularly engaging interaction!

We turned then to Helen Bowater’s work This desperate edge of now, inspired by the words of a poem from Mervyn Peake . Having read the latter’s gruesomely fascinating “Gormenghast” novels some years back, I wasn’t surprised to find the poem was somewhat dark and pessimistic. The words seemed to describe either an exterior or interior neo-apocalyptic scenario, a worst-case evocation guaranteed to resign one afresh to one’s invariably commonplace but relatively untroubled lot in life, even if one reflects that the events of the last few days in Paris have unexpectedly blown apart handfuls of lives in a way that does give Peake’s concluding words “Only this sliding second we share: this desperate edge of now” a kind of context that produces shivers of unease, and throws up shadows of disquiet.

Evidently the composer responded along not-too-dissimilar lines, the work’s opening resembling a cry of pain, with subsequent dark moments bringing forth nothing but angular impulses railing against one another angrily and despairingly at the prospect of human loss and the impotence of feeling. There’s no solace, here, as, in between the big, dark-browed gestures of anguish, there’s an ongoing sense of disquiet among the inner voices. It’s a skilfully-wrought study of turmoil between without and within, a bleak soundscape which the ‘cello addresses, and to which the viola responds – the ambience has an eerie quality, as if creation is giving some room to the participants in the drama (“I and they”), to nullify the fear, shock and desperation, to counter-charge the destruction and hold onto some kind of supporting through-line.

The ‘cello, then viola, and finally the other strings with their resounding pizzicati and haunting octaves, did their best to remold nearer to the heart’s desire – but the energetic charge of the “fierce instant”  that galvanized the music and its players drove things towards the inevitable. The “sliding second” (like a kind of ecstasy of awareness) fused the moment and tossed the remaining words and music in to a kind of oblivion. The viola’s abrupt concluding gesture, disquietingly, spoke volumes!

Asking us to return to our lives after experiencing such traumatic evocations of the tenuous hold we have on the same was obviously a bit much! – so, it was a relief when Kirsten Strom and her work Purity ( as per programme, originally scheduled as the third item) came to our rescue! The quartet took the opportunity to retune before playing this work (the violinist said to us “We like to make sure – especially with this piece!”). I could see what she meant when the work started – a single note was played by all instruments (in a note the composer had written “Beauty can be found in simplicity: a single note contains more than enough.”). Well,here it was, and the result was enchanting, with instruments sliding to different notes in an almost ritualistic kind of way, as if music itself was being worshipped.

The ‘cello enjoyed a broad theme, as the upper strings gave out an undulating figure, with the viola following the ‘cello. The music began to dance, the exoticism of it all maintaining a ritualistic feel, and giving rise to the listeners’ predispositions, either meditative or rather more active flights of fancy, the result  engaging and mesmeric. And all from a single note (which the quartet players made sure was “in tune” for our very great pleasure!). I liked very much the work’s patient, steadfast focus and, yes, purity! And, in conclusion, one must say that no words can express too strongly the extent of the Aroha Quartet’s commitment to the task throughout the whole of the afternoon, which, in their capable hands became a time and an occasion for celebration and delight.