Tag: baroque music

Consorting with harpsichords – Erin Helyard and Douglas Mews

Posted on by Peter Mechen

FOUR HANDS – TWO HARPSICHORDS

Erin Helyard and Douglas Mews (harpsichords)

Adam Concert Room

New Zealand School of Music

Victoria University of Wellington

Sunday, 15th July 2012

One of a series of concerts entitled “Musicke for Severall Friends”, this one featured a close-knit partnership of two harpsichordists, playing both together and singly for the delight of a small-ish but dedicated Adam Concert Room audience. The “two-for-the-price-of-one” package featured two tutor-performers from the New Zealand School of Music, plus two instruments from the NZSM collection of keyboard instruments, copies of French (1769) and German (1728) harpsichords respectively. Both were two-manual instruments, the former made in the UK, and the latter built by Aucklander Paul Downie.

I’ve heard Douglas Mews perform many times on various keyboard instruments in an enormous range of repertoire; but I had never heard Erin Helyard play before. He’s currently period performance tutor at the NZSM and brings a wealth of experience as a performer and scholar to that position – however, what I found enchanting was the energy and vigour that he radiated while at the keyboard, both in partnership with his colleague, and as a solo performer. The pair worked well together, obviously sharing considerable musicianship within contrasting playing styles.

Erin Helyard visibly interacted with both his instrument and with the music as he played, bringing an element of physical choreography to the performance. Rather than finding this distracting, I considered such apparent contouring and visual delineation an added dimension to the music, an integral part of the ritual of a specific performance. That this was very much an individual rather than a standardised baroque musical process could be seen from Douglas Mews’ far less demonstrative manner at the keyboard – here one listened to the sounds and allowed one’s imagination to put flesh on the bones of the music in abstract. Not that Mews’ playing was unemotional or lacking in warmth – but the qualities of the music were expressed far more aurally than visually.

“Vive la difference”, as certain Continentals say; and Mews and Helyard brought their individualized responses to a wonderful synthesis with the Sonata in F by Wilhelm Friedmann Bach, which began the program in a most resplendent way.  I’d always considered Carl Phillipp Emanuel Bach the “stormy petrel” among the great Johann Sebastian’s composer-children, but Wilhelm Friedmann certainly demonstrated in this sonata a similar penchant for contrast, cheekiness and drama. In fact I thought at the finale’s beginning the players were using a kind of “janissary stop”, such was the irruption of percussive-sounding tones generated by the opening figurations’ rapid upward rolls. Elsewhere, the unexpected became the norm in places, the composer delighting in keeping his listeners guessing as to the various possible trajectories of the music.

After this the aforementioned CPE Bach was brought into the action on a single harpsichord, played by Erin Helyard.  via his 12 Variations on the Spanish Follia, the famous tune which has inspired well over a hundred composers to use it in their works (its origin has, in fact been ascertained as Portugese). True to reputation, Phillipp Emanuel’s florid, widely-ranging variations whirled us through incident and contrast aplenty, the composer’s use of the extremities of the keyboard anticipating Beethoven, and calling upon great reserves of virtuosity from the player, who was,in this case, equal to the task. In places the “Follia” theme was completely obliterated (at such points someone like comedienne Anna Russell would have said, “You’re making this up, aren’t you?”), though Phillipp Emanuel would adroitly return to something more recognizably connected to the original dance-tune. A dignified processional was followed by a whirlwind finale, at the abrupt conclusion of which the player straightaway got to his feet, with what felt like a spontaneous impulse of showmanship, very much in accordance with the music.

Relative sobriety settled over the ensuing performance of JS Bach’s French Suite, given by Douglas Mews. The Allemande was gracefulness itself under his fingers, the rhythms extremely pliable. The lively Cpourante was followed by another grave dance, the Sarabande, the performance here emphasizing a certain timelessness, a world within the sound-equivalent of a grain of sand, or eternity within a flower. Ample contrast came from the Gavotte and the following Bouree, energetic and engaging dances, which again threw the next movement, a Loure, into bold relief – this was a slow, waltz-like piece, offering ample space for elaboration, but with a certain piquancy of mood, perhaps emphasized by the constant dotted rhythm. I thought the player’s delivery of the final Gigue was masterly, a confident, even racy performance!

The programme’s final item was the Concerto in C for two harpsichords BWV 1061, the players swapping instruments for this piece. By now the performance profiles of each instrumentalist were sharply-defined in our minds, enabling us to relish both similarities and differences of phrasing, emphasis and gestural incident which the music of Bach occasioned. Antiphonal episodes gave each player solo-turns, though there were concerted passages as well where the rapport between the parts was beautifully, and teasingly suggested.A deeply-felt Adagio ovvero Largo (“ovvero” means “or rather” – couldn’t Bach make up his mind, here? – or was he thinking of what performers might do and was cutting them off at the pass, so to speak?) was followed by a sparking, festive-like fugue that reaffirmed the great man’s incredibly “hot-wired” musical mind for all of us lesser mortals, and done full justice by Douglas Mews and Erin Helyard.

We got part of a Vivaldi Oboe Concerto transcription as an encore and a palate-cleanser, and then (perfectly possible in a venue such as the Adam Concert Room) a closer look at those two exquisitely-beautiful instruments before they were carefully put away – a perfect conclusion to our little baroque feast!

 

 

 

 

 

And the earth moved – The Tudor Consort performs Brumel’s Earthquake Mass

Posted on by Paul Oliver

Antoine Brumel: Missa Et ecce terrae motus; Ross Harris: Vobiscum in aeternum; Jack Body: Psalm 137; Ildebrando Pizzetti;  De Profundis

Tudor Consort directed by Michael Stewart

Wellington Cathedral of St Paul

Saturday 19 May 2012 at 7.30pm

The Tudor Consort, directed by Michael Stewart, performed Antoine Brumel’s monumental  Missa Et ecce terrae motus (The ‘Earthquake’ Mass) on Saturday 19 May at 7.30 in Wellington Cathedral of St Paul. The title is taken from the plainsong antiphon “Et ecce terrae motus” (And the earth moved) sung at the office of Lauds on Easter Sunday. The antiphon text describes the moment of Christ’s Resurrection: “And behold there was a great earthquake; for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven, and came and rolled away the stone and sat upon it.” (St Matthew 28:2) This work, which is scored for 12 parts, was considered by some to be the greatest work for choirs during the High Renaissance period until it was surpassed some 80 years later by Tallis’ 40 part motet Spem in alium.

The mass was excellently sung, with good phrasing, clean and confident entries and a sustained energy and pitch; not an easy task when performing  a work with multiple moving parts in an acoustic in which it is often difficult to hear one’s fellow singers. It was easy to understand the references to earthquakes when there were repeated phrases and the amazing sound of all the voices singing in canon or with differing rhythms.

One of the problems in programming a concert like this one, which features a mass which is too short to occupy a full concert on its own, is to select works to be performed between the movements of the mass which will complement the atmosphere created. In this concert the works selected were all composed in a totally different period, but they were totally in keeping with main work.

These three works included two recently commissioned works for the choir; Vobiscum in aeternum by Ross Harris, and Psalm 137 by Jack Body, and Ildebrando Pizetti’s De Profundis(1937).  As usefully set out in the programme, the brief to the two composers of the commissioned works was to take an ancient piece of music and use it as a starting point for their new creation.

The Ross Harris piece is a prelude to the Tudor motet “If ye love me”, and finishes with the same motif. It created an ethereal atmosphere with its build up and then seamless change to the original motet. Jack Body has started with a liturgical Russian chant for his setting of Psalm 137 “By the waters of Babylon” in the original Hebrew. Both pieces were sung with great confidence and conviction. It is a strength of the choir that they can quickly switch from High Renaissance to very contemporary music so effectively.

The whole programme was energetically directed by Michael Stewart and the choir responded well to his directions. The voices of the choir were very well balanced, and I enjoyed the rich deep bass sound, especially in the Jack Body piece when it added to the Russian influence.

There is good news for those who were unable to hear this magnificent concert. Tudor Consort is recording a CD of the mass and commissioned pieces, and this will be available in July. Orders can be made through their website at http://tudor-consort.org.nz/cd-pre-order. All proceeds from the sales of the CDs will be donated to Christchurch Cathedral’s music department.

Tafelmusik – festive Baroque splendour from Canada

Posted on by Peter Mechen

THE GALILEO PROJECT – Music of the Spheres

(New Zealand International Festival of the Arts 2012)

Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra / Jeanne Lamon (Music Director)

Shaun Smyth (narrator) / Alison McKay (Concept, Script and Programme)

Wellington Town Hall

Friday, 16th March 2012

It was all a bit too much at first – I confess I found the mega-hype of the Festival booklet’s blurb for “The Galileo Project” concert distinctly off-putting, creating an impression in my mind of an experience involving as many extra-musical “distractions” as one could possibly throw at an audience. We were promised “Dazzling images…a fusion of science and culture…beautiful classical music and poetic narration…” (and much more along those lines). The program – including an Allegro  from a concerto by Handel, a Rondeau from a larger work by Purcell, plus various instrumental exerpts from operas by Lully, Rameau and Monteverdi – seemed diverting enough, to be sure, but was it the kind of fare one could seriously get one’s teeth into?  It looked like an assemblage of baroque-ish bits and pieces designed to augment some new-age “flash-over-substance” entertainment.

Well, I couldn’t have been more wrong – I should have put my trust in The New York Times, whose review of Canadian baroque orchestra Tafelmusik’s concert was also quoted in the Festival booklet – “An event steeped in intellect and imagination”. For the evening had all the ingredients of a truly memorable experience for the concertgoer, presenting an amalgam of music, words and images that contrived to entertain, stimulate, educate, challenge and satisfy all at once. Even crusty old holier-than-thou musical purists like myself were completely won over. In fact I can’t recall attending a concert at the end of which there seemed more smiling, delighted faces and animated voices thronging the corridors and exitways of the hall.

It took only a few moments of the concert’s opening for us to discover why Tafelmusik was described by Gramophone Magazine as “one of the world’s top baroque orchestras”. Beginning with an Allegro movement for two violins from one of Vivaldi’s L’Estro Armonico concerti, the group delivered the music with incredibly engaging buoyancy, the two soloists’ melodic lines conversing, countering, echoing, mirroring and contrasting with one another in a delightfully ambivalent exchange, part-confrontational, part-complementary. In the time it took to draw breath, the concerto’s slow movement stimulated a change of lighting, and a regrouping of musicians, so that a different soloist was playing, the music’s rapt stillness a complete contrast to the previous bristling energies.

As if giving tongue to the rapture of the sounds a speaker at one point interposed with those famous lines of Shakespeare’s from “The Merchant of Venice” – Lorenzo’s “How sweet the moonlight sleeps along this bank…”. Then, at the words “Come, ho! and wake Diana with a hymn!…” several wind players joined the strings and began Lully’s Overture “Phaeton”. Generally, the orchestra arranged its string-and wind-players in a circle around its continuo players, two ‘cellos, double-bass, guitar and harpsichord, and as the different works required changes of soloist, the musicians revolved accordingly – at times they revolved during the music, and in places in appropriate pieces did dance-steps as they played. All of this was done with such ease and elegance as to make one hold one’s breath, in mute appreciation of it all.

Besides Shakespeare, we were given, in tandem with appropriate pieces of music, a story from mythology (How Apollo’s son Phaeton met his death), readings from letters of Galileo concerning his telescope, parts of the Inquisition’s pronouncements concerning Galileo’s heresy, reminiscences of the great Sir Isaac Newton, from his manservant Humphrey Newton (we were told “no relation”), readings of Kepler’s theories concerning the harmonies of the spheres, and accounts of historical happenings such as the 1719 Dresden Festival of the Planets with its attendant opera, balls, events and concerts in honour of each of the known planets.

All of these things the speaker/narrator Shaun Smyth delivered with finely-tuned focus and judgement, allowing us by turns to feel the gravitas of things such as Galileo’s condemnation and imprisonment by the Church authorities, the wry humour in descriptions of both Galileo and Sir Isaac Newton by their contemporaries, and the ceremonial splendor of festival events honouring the various planets. It was unfortunate that, at the quietest and most intimately-scaled part of the presentation (the episode of Galileo under house-arrest, playing his lute) an audience-member had to be removed from the auditorium for medical reasons; but to everybody’s credit the emergency was registered, and things on the stage were held in suspension while the operation was completed, then continued as before.

Making flesh of the word throughout all of this was the music – the musicians, every demi-semiquaver played from memory, seemed, by dint of their own intense involvement, able to connect us with sounds of worlds we knew from history books but could now feel as direct sensations. The exhilaration of the opening Vivaldi concerto for two violins, the magical antiphonal effects of Lully’s Chaconne, accompanying the story of Phaeton, between the soloists and the ripieno (the larger group, playing so quietly), the remarkable rhythmic interchanges between two solo ‘cellos and the accompanying orchestra in Monteverdi’s music, following Galileo’s description of his observation of Jupiter’s nearby “stars” – all of these pieces enlivened the spoken commentaries and activated the different worlds of each of the personalities we were presented with.

It may have been during the latter stages of one of Monteverdi’s pieces, or while the band was playing Tarquinio Merula’s Ciaconna (difficult to know where one exactly was, musically, at times during this wonderful farrago!) that the musicians actually danced a kind of courtly dance while playing (with an occasional touch of “silly walk” to debunk any pomposity that might have arisen). And during the “Homage to the Planets” sequences, the orchestra spilled over and down into the auditorium aisles, summonsed from the stage, as it were, by a group which had detached itself during the opening “Entrance of Jupiter” from Rameau’s “Tragedie en Musique” Hippolyte et Aricie, their “offstage” tones sounding like music from Fairyland. How wonderful to then have the whole auditorium of the Town Hall sounding and resounding with music in honour of heavenly bodies such as Venus, Mercury and Saturn!

This was all done with such style and unselfconsciousness as to create a kind of organic flow, the music, movement and narrative dovetailed to perfection. These things were capped off by a series of images projected onto a circular (how other?) screen at the back of the stage, the sequences complementing, but never unduly impinging upon the music. It strikes me as appropriate that Tafelmusik has been given the honour, by the International Astronomical Union, of having an asteroid named after the orchestra – a true “Music of the Spheres” gesture, and one which I’m sure everybody who attended the Wellington concert would, as they did the performers themselves at the evening’s conclusion, heartily applaud.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Truly festive Handel with The Sixteen

Posted on by Peter Mechen

HANDEL – Coronation Anthem “Let Thy Hand Be Strengthened”

Motet: “Silete Venti” / Psalms: Nisi Dominus / Dixit Dominus

The Sixteen Choir and Orchestra / Conductor: Harry Christophers

Soloist (Silete Venti): Gilian Keith (soprano)

NZ International Festival of the Arts

Wellington Town Hall

Thursday 1st March, 2012

Now, this is the kind of concert in terms of impact and quality that helps make a festival worth remembering. The trappings were, in fact, few – there were no bugles, no drums, just people-generated excitement, right from the initial “buzz” of queuing outside to actually get into the Town Hall, and up to the moment that these world-famous musicians walked onto the platform in front of us to begin their concert.

I wonder if people who attend concerts actually realize what a treasure the WellingtonTown Hall is in respect of providing experiences whose memory seems to embrace the “occasion” as well as the performance – it’s partly my being a bit of an event junkie that squeezes these remarks out of me, but I couldn’t help reflecting on the difference in atmosphere between this concert and last week’s in the Michael Fowler Centre which opened the Festival. The Stravinsky performances were themselves terrific – but I feel the MFC needs a LOT of extraneous help for any event to really “buzz”, whereas the Town Hall simply reflects and enhances what’s already going on.

This was one of two concerts offered by The Sixteen (my concert companion nudged me fiercely at one point and hissed, “I think there are seventeen” (of them)! – shades of “The Sound of Music”?….). One could have had, as here, Handel in a grandly ceremonial manner, readily encompassing all manner of structures and emotions as befits the work of a composer writing for public occasions; or one could have turned, instead, to the rather more circumspect a capella world of various native British composers over a period of several centuries.

I would imagine that, after experiencing the group’s performances of Handel, there would be a number of concertgoers who, like myself, wished they had purchased tickets to both concerts. In the words of Shakespeare’s Henry V, we such unfortunates will on Saturday evening be as those “gentlemen of England now a-bed” who “shall think themselves accurs’d they were not here”. One must, however, thank one’s stars that one heard the group on at least one of the occasions. And after all, pleasure can still be had from imagining how wonderful a second concert WOULD be, having already enjoyed one (a case of “Heard melodies are sweet, but….”, perhaps)…

For those who enjoy chancing their arm with the prospect of picking up last-minute cancelled tickets, The Sixteen is indeed performing again on Saturday, 3rd March at the Town Hall at 7:30pm, a program of British a capella music, ranging from works by Thomas Tallis to those by James MacMillan. In the meantime one can enjoy recalling the highlights of the group’s Handel presentation, involving various soloists, choir and orchestra.

One noticed immediately the intense focus of the sound, both from singers and players, obviously steeped in a performing tradition which has undergone a considerable revolution over the last fifty years. The modus operandi of such groups as The Sixteen sits firmly upon using the forces that the composer would have expected, and producing the sounds in a style that corresponds with period musicologists’ findings. Happily, these strictures were accompanied in this case by a performing style that set great store on sounds with a variety of tone, colour and nuance (emanating from, or else mirrored by, the expressive gestures of conductor Harry Christophers, as non-metrical as one could ever hope to find) – though all within the parameters of accepted baroque practice.

Beginning with the Coronation Anthem “Let Thy Hand Be Strengthened”, orchestra and voices commanded the hall’s sound-vistas, the phrases having at once discernible focus but an ear-catching “bloom”, with everything precisely balanced – one could set one’s ear to “find” any line or texture it wanted and follow its course. The fugal character of the section “Let justice and judgement…” found the composer employing sounds of structures and balances, suggesting the power of law and order. Here, the individual lines took on plenty of character, the timbres being allowed to “sound” instead of subjected to a homogenous blend, so that one was always aware of a quartet-like texture. The lively “Alleluia” had a sensuous feel in the dovetailing of the lines, tied together with an appropriately celebratory concluding note.

Gillian Keith was the soprano soloist for the motet Silete Venti, the text a colorful and descriptive evocation of the bliss which comes with faith and trust in Jesus Christ. The soloist had pure, bell-like tones and flexible energy aplenty to do the music justice, though I thought in places a slightly “kittenish ” aspect crept into her singing, one rather at odds with the subject matter of the motet. The text, I thought, wasn’t without its idiosyncrasies – e.g. “If you strike you cause no wound, your blows are as caresses….” – pardon? Set against her slightly-less-than-crisp articulation of the words in places was a freedom and flexibility of impulse and movement which the singer used to negotiate her runs throughout “Date serta” with such winning ease and grace as to disarm other criticism. And her breathtaking energies in tackling the flourishes at the repeat of “Veni, vein transfige me” in the first part was matched in excitement by her feathery, stratospheric vocal dancings throughout the conclusion’s gigue-like “Alleluiahs”, singer and instrumentalists particularly enjoying things like the effervescent exchange of triplet figurations just before the end.

After the interval we were rejoined by the choir for the two psalm settings, Dixit Dominus and Nisi Dominus, both youthful works (Handel was in his early twenties), but displaying their composer’s great precocity, not only in choral writing, but in his use of the orchestra. The more spectacular of the works, the slightly earlier Dixit Dominus, was wisely left to the end. It would be tiresome to reproduce all of my scribbled notes, inspired by the performances’ many felicities, but certain things deserved to be savored, such as the quality of the contributions from the solo voices within the choir. In the first of the Psalm settings, Nisi Dominus, both tenor and bass made a telling impression, the former’s “Vanum set” a pleasingly-shaped vocal arch of flexible tones, and the latter’s fiery, properly warlike “Sicut sagittae in manu potentis” (As arrows in the hand of the mighty) properly pinning back our ears. Throughout, I liked the bringing forward to the front of the platform the soloists from the choir, making for an almost operatic effect, and giving each voice’s utterance its proper focus.

Dixit Dominus made for an exciting and sonorous conclusion to the evening in this performance – muscular energy at the outset from the orchestra and incisive lines from the choir launched the work with a will – the brief occasional solo lines, with the voices remaining within the choir, struggled in places to be properly heard, though a couple of the more brightly-focused voices managed to make their tones “tell” in the midst of the music’s cut-and-thrust activity. The more extended, out-the front solos were superbly done, and beautifully accompanied. I particularly liked the teamwork of soloists, choir and orchestra at “Dominus a dextris tuis”, the solo voices overlapping and interchanging words and phrases with almost operatic excitement, followed by the unleashing of tremendous tensions at the words “die irae” from choir and orchestra. Among other ear-catching moments was the choir’s pointed staccato treatment of “conquassabit capita in terra”, the words spat out like machine-gun fire, their effect made to sting! Following this the soprano duet “De torrent in via bibet” was of soothing balm, two differently-toned voices blending to great effect.

Impossible to do justice to everything, here – in general, I thought Handel’s music magnificently served throughout, the music’s energies liberated, the textures enlivened, the beauties savoured. The Town Hall’s acoustic gave the performances all the immediacy they deserved, enabling us to enjoy to the full the talents of The Sixteen, their orchestra and their obviously charismatic director. It wasn’t surprising to find people on their their feet applauding at the end, demonstrating their appreciation and enjoyment.

 

 

Encore visit to counter-tenor Xiao Ma, with Stephen Diaz and Gao Ping (piano), at Te Papa

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Songs, arias by Handel, Chausson, Britten, Mahler, Ravel, Dvořák, Chopin, Rossini, Mozart, Maori songs sung as duets, the music arranged by Ashley Heenan

Xiao Ma and Stephen Diaz (counter-tenors), Gao Ping (piano)

Soundings Theatre, Te Papa

Saturday 18 February, 4pm

I attended this one-hour recital with a friend, with whom I had just had afternoon tea in the 4th floor café at Te Papa.  She insisted that we should queue for Xiao Ma at 3.30pm; in fact, we went earlier, and soon a huge queue built up.  The doors weren’t opened until nearly 4pm, and people poured in till the theatre was absolutely full.

Mere Boynton welcomed the audience and introduced the performers, including a good plug for the opera Hōhepa, to be premiered in the Arts Festival, in which Stephen Diaz will appear, following his just-completed stunning turn of acting and singing in Handel’s Alcina, at Opera in a Days Bay Garden.

He opened the programme with an aria he sang, as Ruggiero, in that opera: ‘Verdi Prati’.  He looked rather nervous, but soon warmed up.  He has a way to go, to being a fully-fledged singer, still being young, but has some of the vital attributes, such as his exquisite control in the quiet passages.

What struck me straight away, and right through the recital, was the astonishing pianism of Gao Ping.  Here is a pianist who caresses the keys rather than hitting them.  It was pleasing to watch him, too.

Next came Xiao Ma, to sing two Handel arias that he sang in his concert on Wednesday night at St. Mary of the Angels: ‘Ombra mai fu’ from Serse, and ‘Lascia ch’io pianga’ from Rinaldo.  There is a drier sound in this theatre; St. Mary of the Angels church suited him better.  Here, I could hear his breathing quite frequently, which I could not the other night.  This is not to denigrate his superb breath control, especially notable in the second aria.  Both singer and accompanist incorporated decorations in the da capo repeat.

Chausson’s Le colibri (The humming-bird) has always been a favourite of mine, from a splendid rendition by Gérard Souzay on a recording I was given many years ago.  The song (and his subsequent items) was given a spoken introduction by Stephen Diaz.  It was beautifully and sensitively sung.

His next song was ‘I know a bank’ from Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream.  This aria is perhaps a little too austere to be sung as a solo divorced from the opera context and setting, despite the rather over-done gestures from the singer.  However, it was competently sung, and the accompaniment was a model of supportive expression.

Xiao Ma returned to sing ‘Oft denk ich’ from Mahler’s Kindertotenlieder.   I don’t think he had quite the sense of foreboding required for these songs, and to my taste it was sung a little too fast.

A song I did not know was ‘Le réveil de la mariée’ from Five Greek songs by Ravel; it proved to be a lively song, rather like a Greek dance.

After that came the sublime Dvořák song known in English as ‘Songs my mother taught me’, from Gypsy Melodies.  Xiao Ma sang it in Czech, just one of the seven languages he sang in.  This was an exquisitely sung piece, fulfilling the expectations of all of us who love this song; the accompaniment, my notes say, was ‘out of this world’.  The totality was an ecstatic experience, to which the audience responded very enthusiastically.

Another item unfamiliar to me was ‘The wish’ from Poland Melodies by Chopin.  Sung in Polish it was very bright and lively, with lovely flourishes.

Stephen Diaz returned to sing an aria from Rossini’s Semiramide: ‘In si Barbara’.  Here, the tone was a trifle inconsistent.  This was typical Rossini stuff, with a repetitive accompaniment.  It was florid and powerful, high in the soloist’s voice – it really got the audience going in response.

Xiao Ma followed with the well-known ‘Voi, che sapete’ from Le Nozze di Figaro by Mozart.  The singer showed great breath control in this item, and gave a very accomplished performance.

His final aria was another famous one: ‘Una voce poco fa’ from Il barbiere di Siviglia by Rossini.  Xiao Ma extracted maximum humour from the aria, to the audience’s delight, with facial expression and vocal colouring.  It was a characterful performance with plenty of variety of dynamics and vocal agility.  The trills employed were quite brilliant, sending the audience into ecstasies.

There followed three Maori songs, sung as a duet by the two singers.  The arrangements were by Ashley Heenan, and were very lovely; they derive from April 1966, when Heenan arranged five songs especially for a New Zealand youth music concert with orchestra, choir and soloists put on by the government for the Queen Mother, on her visit.  Two sopranos sang the songs then, some of them with choir; one of the duet was Donna Awatere, later famous in spheres other than music.

The richness of Stephen Diaz’s voice came through in these songs.  Both singers use their resonators superbly, being heard even in very quiet passages, without having to open their mouths wide.  Although Xiao Ma took the higher part, Diaz had to sing quite high also.

The first song was the well-known Hine e Hine.  In the second song, about the sound of the locust, Poi kihikihi, both singers used their tenor voices, to great effect.  In the third, Tahi nei taru kino, the singers varied their voices a great deal.  A unison section hardly sounded that, due to the very different timbres of the voices.

As encore, Mozart’s ‘Soave sia il vento’ from Cosi fan Tutte was sung; while beautifully rendered, the lack of a bass to sing the third part of the trio detracted from the performance somewhat.  The harmony was very fine.

A second encore was an attractive Chinese song.  For this, Gao Ping did not need a score.

A thoroughly enjoyable concert was greeted warmly by the audience, with a partial standing ovation.  We do not hear singers in live concerts enough, compared with some years ago; this concert (admittedly, free) showed there is an enthusiasm for such performances.  Soundings Theatre holds approximately 300 people; hopefully this success will encourage Te Papa and other promoters to put on more such recitals.

 

Exceptional recital from Chinese counter-tenor, Xiao Ma

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Music at St. Mary of the Angels

Xiao Ma (counter tenor)

Baroque instrumental ensemble (Gregory Squire, violin, Anne Loeser, viola, Robert Oliver, viola da gamba, Erin Helyard, harpsichord)

Vivaldi:  ‘Nisi Dominus’ (verses 1 & 9);  Trio Sonata in G minor, Op.1 no.1; ‘Sposa son disprezza’ (from Bajazet); Trio Sonata in D minor Op.1 no.12 (‘La Follia’); ‘Gloria Patri’ (from the psalm Domine ad adiuvandum me festina RV 593); ‘Agitata da due venti’ (from Griselda)
Handel:     Trio Sonata in D major Op.5 no.2
Riccardo Broschi (c1698-1756)     ‘Son qual nave ch’agitata’ (from Ataserse)
Handel:   ‘Ombra mai fu’ (from Serse);  Trio Sonata in G major Op.5 no.4;  ‘Lascia ch’io pianga’ (from Rinaldo); ‘Vivi, Tiranno’ (from Rodelinda)

St. Mary of the Angels church

Wednesday, 15 February 2012, 7.30 pm

Counter-tenors have come a long way since Alfred Deller revived the voice in the 1940s – not to demean that gentleman’s superb singing.  Xiao Ma’s voice is probably the most beautiful counter-tenor I have heard live – and I have heard some very good ones.  This voice has a bright, sweet tone, and is never strained.  It is well rounded, with huge variety.  There was a tendency at times, particularly in the first item, for the singer to lower his head, which sometimes covered the tone.  Raising the shoulders, as he also did from time to time, can affect the tone also.

Xiao Ma’s is a very flexible voice, and his execution of runs and other ornamentation was quite amazing; he was very skilled in the florid music of the Nisi Dominus.  He and the instrumentalists conveyed Vivaldi’s magnificent music in all its glory.  The short but effective ‘Amen’ verse 9 was repeated at the end of the concert, as an encore.

The first trio sonata of five movements was notable particularly for the lambent tone of the viola.  The expertise of these players is such that one could easily imagine oneself in an eighteenth century ducal court.  Vivaldi’s striking contrasts between the movements, as in the more famous Four Seasons concertos, were given full play.

The aria ‘Sposa son disprezza’ is from an opera entitled Bajazet, whose music was compiled rather than composed by Vivaldi.  Perhaps by this time Xiao Ma felt more comfortable with the venue and the audience; certainly his singing was even better in this item.  The representation of a scorned wife was given strongly, yet expressively.

The phrasing was done with subtlety and complete smoothness, which is not always the case with counter-tenors.  The instrumental accompaniment was utterly sympathetic.

The second Vivaldi trio sonata was based on the well-known ‘La Follia’ melody.  This version began rather more austerely than Corelli’s famous Concerto Grosso, though the variations lacked nothing in rapidity.  A variation with solo first violin accompanied by pizzicato on the other strings was charming, while a very quiet one that gradually sped up and got louder was dramatic.  A graceful siciliana movement restored calm after its stormy predecessor.

These players are in total accord.

The aria ‘Agitata da due venti’ employed extremely florid writing for voice and instruments, but all was accomplished without a hitch.  Vivaldi’s very descriptive music of a ship tossed by the winds as the billows roared made for vocal gymnastics from the singer and appropriate writing for the instruments.  A couple of times the singer had to drop to his low register, but this was negotiated apparently effortlessly, which is not always the case with counter-tenors; no graunchy gear-change here!

After the interval, the concert changed to (mainly) Handel, and his Italian operas.  First, though, was a Handel trio sonata.  In seven movements, this delightful work incorporated movements (e.g. Musette) unknown in the Vivaldi works we heard.

The first musette movement featured an intriguing intoning of low notes by the viola da gamba.  The other strings followed in the allegro with an unaccompanied duet, which gave a refreshing change of timbre.  The march was typical of Handel’s writing in this form (Royal Fireworks music, etc.)  It wasn’t hard to visualise a stately dance with ladies curtseying in long dresses and fascinating headgear.

More storm and stress came in the aria by Broschi.  Another ship on stormy seas reminded one of the very real dangers of being at sea before accurate charts, radar and radio were available (nevertheless, we still have ships hitting ‘reefs hidden beneath the waves’).  This aria demonstrated the singer’s huge range, and how accurately he can negotiate the vocal gymnastics asked of him by Broschi.

Now to something very familiar: Handel’s recitative and the lovely aria from Serse: ‘Ombra mai fu’.  The accompaniment was superb, as was the purity of the opening notes of the sublime aria.  The music floated, yet was purposeful.

The trio sonata that followed comprised five movements, on of which one, Passacaille, was quite long, with a great deal of development.  Ending on a minuet marked allegro moderato, the work seemed to finish rather lamely after the riches that preceded its final movement.

The well-known ‘Lascia ch’io pianga’ from Rinaldo was introduced on harpsichord only, very effectively.  This gorgeous aria was sung simply and ravishingly.  The singer varied the repeat sections, in authentic baroque style.  The performance was quite lovely, and was repeated at the end, as an encore, with more trills. As the evening wore on, Xiao Ma increasingly used gesture while singing – but it was not excessive.

The concert ended in more lively style, however, with ‘Vivi, tiranno’ from Rodelinda, with more florid phrases, enabling Xiao Ma to demonstrate his consummate skill.

The singer’s breathing was imperceptible; he had excellent control, and performed many long runs in one breath.  The top of his voice has a glorious sound.

This was a well thought-out programme; not only did it intersperse appropriate instrumental music with the vocal, but contrasting sonatas of Handel with those of Vivaldi introduced us to delightful but little-known music.  The instruments were by turns mellow and incisive, but always musical.  All played with skill, sensitivity and attention to baroque style and detail.  There were just a few moments when intonation briefly went awry.

St. Mary of the Angels was a very suitable venue in which to perform baroque music; it being the nearest thing we have in Wellington to a baroque church.

While it was good to have a printed programme giving the words of the arias etc. in both the original languages (Latin and Italian) and English, notes about the works from which they were taken would have been useful.

A good-sized audience heard this remarkable recital.   A distraction for those of us on the right-hand side of the church was the constant clicking of cameras while Ma was singing.  No doubt the photos were official, but this is not a usual feature (in fact, normally a prohibited one) of classical concerts.

This was an exceptional concert; I think Handel would have been delighted, and probably Vivaldi too.  Xiao Ma sings again on Friday in Masterton, having already performed in Akaroa, Auckland and Christchurch, and performs this Saturday at 4pm, at Soundings Theatre, Te Papa.  On Sunday he sings twice in the Hamilton Gardens Arts Festival.

 

Handelian enchantment upon Alcina’s magic island

Posted on by Peter Mechen

HANDEL – Alcina

Presented by Opera In a Days Bay Garden

Producer – Rhona Fraser

Director – Sara Brodie

Conductor – Michael Vinten

(orchestra led by Donald Armstrong)

(sung in English, translation by Amanda Holden)

Cast: Alcina (Bryony Williams) / Ruggiero (Stephen Diaz) / Bradamante (Bianca Andrew)

Morgana (Rhona Fraser) / Oberto (Olga Gryniewicz) / Oronte (Thomas Atkins) / Melisso (Kieran Rayner)

Chorus: Amelia Ryman, Imogen Thirwell, Emily Simcox, Natalie Williams, Fredi Jones, Laurence Walls, Thomas Barker, Ken Ryan

Canna House, Days Bay, Wellington

Saturday, 11 February

Magic of a kind was certainly in the air both leading up to and throughout the performance of Handel’s Alcina, staged in the garden of Canna House, the Days Bay home of one of the singers in the cast, soprano Rhona Fraser, who took the part of Morgana in the production. With a director, Sara Brodie, whose vision, theatrical instinct and creative capacities made light of the difficulties of a very “Baroque-opera” story-line, the out-of-doors production by turns sparkled and glowed, judiciously balancing and shaping the drama’s movement and energy with cadence-points of heartrending beauty and reflection.

We were seated on terraces in front of the house on various levels, our vistas taking in the largest of the grassy areas, on which most of the theatrical action took place, and thence to bush-clad valley-sides framing a harbour view, the picture redolent of the opera’s actual setting, the magic island realm of the enchantress Alcina. The only slight inconvenience we experienced was directly facing the sun for the time it took to move across the wedge of sky in the west during the opera’s first half – by way of “compensation by enchantment” we were, throughout the second half, able to enjoy the evening star in all its crepuscular glory, prompting thoughts of imagining that a production of “Tannhauser” would go down well in such a setting (I can almost see and hear the chorus of Pilgrims slowly making its way up the arc of the driveway from the road…..)

As one might imagine, the setting provided all kinds of opportunities for different exits, entrances and “layered” action – at the very outset of the story we were intrigued and amused with the sudden pursuit of a silver-haired figure by several “gorillas in suits” down the path towards the front gate. Presumably, an escape of some kind was in mind – but, alas for the “inmate” concerned, freedom was not achieved. Nevertheless, with the singers freely coming and going on all different levels, and practically brushing past audience members in some instances, it wasn’t difficult for spectators to be drawn into the actual physical ebb-and-flow of things, sharing, as we seemed to be for much of the time, the same living-and-breathing-spaces. I ought to report, however, that a friend, sitting on the lawn in the third row, over to the right, had a less-than-good view of some of the action, and a tad too much sun in her eyes for a while – so obviously not ALL of the seating was without some compromise.

The opera’s original story was taken from the epic poem Orlando Furioso by the sixteenth-century Italian Ludovico Ariosto, and involved plenty of fashionable enchantment and magical transformation, liberally taken up by Antonio Marshi’s libretto for Handel. Of course, the current trend vis-a-vis opera production is to update such scenarios (as comedian Michael Flanders once said in a slightly different context, “Anything to stop it being done straight!”) so that opera-goers find themselves fair game for directorial reworkings that can in the wrong hands vary between the prosy-dull and the downright offensive. Sara Brodie’s design and direction adroitly maintained a tantalizing modicum of the sorceress’s mystery, while suggesting in parallel some kind of medico-scientific experimental scenario involving the ageing process. One of the characters, Morgana (sister-enchantress of the Circe-like Alcina) sported a nurse’s tunic at the start, and seemed in charge of a chorus group of “inmates” whose aspect presented ghostly decrepitude and bewilderment – though the “suits” in their shades were designated as security guards rather than caregivers.

In this way the production certainly toyed most imaginatively with the ideas floated in the programme’s “synopsis” note, concerning reality and illusion, and the power of true love. The flights of fancy which cropped up in the updated libretto for the most part seemed actually to counterweight some of the original ones (the soldier, Melisso, imitating an apparition and declaring to the ex-soldier Ruggiero that he, the former, is the latter’s old sergeant – instead of his old tutor – for example)! Of course, however cardboard cut-out some operatic situations might be, it’s invariably the music which ennobles and crystallizes thought, word and deed on stage – and in my view any recasting of these pieces in whatever style or era will work if the composer’s intentions are properly honoured. As recitative followed dialogue followed aria and back to recitative, music and dramatic action seemed to fit hand-in-glove on the terraces and pathways of this wonderful Days Bay garden – obviously all kinds of enchantments were at work, here.

Still more connection was readily provided by the orchestra, seated to one side, but sharing the main stage level area with the singers. This meant that the players and conductor seemed more than usually involved with the drama, and the choreography of instrumental gesturing, so often concealed in the opera house here became almost part of the stage action. At one point Handel nicely underlines this singer/instrumentalist relationship with extended passages for solo violin accompanying Morgana’s aria “He loves, he sighs”. This took on the intent of a true operatic duet up to a break-point when Alcina, agitated by the thought of her lover’s infidelity, hustled the poor violinist from the stage!

Having had limited experience of out-of-doors opera, I was prepared for a somewhat compromised orchestral sound with little or no resonances – and was instead delighted with the al fresco effect, the players’ tones nicely activating the receptive stillness of the evening in that sheltered spot. I also liked the musicians’ dress and wigs, none more so than that sported by conductor Michael Vinten, the effect being almost as if the shade of the composer himself had miraculously materialized to conduct the performance!

So, at the story’s beginning, following the excitement of the thwarted breakout, we witnessed the commando-like arrival on Alcina’s island of Bradamante and her colleague Melisso, dressed as soldiers in camouflage gear. They were looking for Bradamante’s lover, Ruggiero, who had, like many others, fallen under Alcina’s enchantment. Mezzo-soprano Bianca Andrew played Bradamante, suitably boyish in military attire, and a perfect foil for baritone Kieran Rayner as the hard-bitten Melisso, the pair as well-disciplined with their tactical manoeuvrings as with the focus and direction of their singing and characterizations. Their first encounter was with Rhona Fraser’s Morgana, her nurse’s garb straightaway all a-quiver, conveying her instantly combustible interest in Bradamante. Before long she had coquettishly dismissed out-of-hand her hapless current lover, Oronte, a tenor role played by an engagingly boyish Thomas Atkins, who was understandably put out by the arrival on the island of these troublesome visitors.

When Ruggiero arrived in tow with the beautiful Alcina, they presented as a well-established “item”, the pair utterly besotted with one another, to Bradamante’s scarcely-concealed distress. Soprano Bryony Williams and counter-tenor Stephen Diaz made an exceedingly glamorous-looking couple, throwing into bold relief the chorus of spectre-like ancients, grey of hair and decrepit of aspect, almost ghost-like, carefully watched-over by Morgana and her Mafia-like cohorts. The remaining player in the scenario was the boy-scout-like figure of Oberto (a late addition by Handel to the story, apparently, to include in his cast a famous boy-treble of the time, William Savage). Soprano Olga Gryniewicz brought a charmingly boyish manner and a silvery voice to her portrayal of a young man looking for his lost father.

The “adventures on a magic island” theme has many rich and strange instances throughout world literature and theatre from Homeric times and beyond. Most recently there’s been the New York Metropolitean Opera’s live-streamed production “The Enchanted Isle”, an amalgam of fantasy works for the stage (mostly a combination of Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” and “The Tempest”) placing characters from these various works on Prospero’s magic island and developing various conflicts and romantic entanglements.

Obviously, there’s something about an island environment that lends itself to a kind of other-worldliness, where mainland traditions are tested, modified and even transformed by different orders of things. Such is certainly the case with the plot of Alcina, even if on the face of it, to paraphrase Oscar Wilde’s Miss Prism, “the good end happily, and the bad unhappily”. By far the most interesting character is Alcina, herself, at least as characterized by Handel’s music, some of the greatest for the stage he ever wrote. One or two malevolent impulses and actions aside, she garners the listener’s sympathies by dint of her extraordinary declarations of love and piteous laments, suggesting that Ruggiero’s sojourn with her has somehow humanized her nature to the point that her dark arts no longer work as she would desire.

From her first entrance Bryony Williams’ Alcina dominated the proceedings – striking to look at, her characterizations compelling and her singing simply captivating, she lived the part throughout all of its different aspects. She encompassed the erotic sensuousness of her opening aria “Show them the forests”, and through the sudden tribulations and heart-break of her hurt at Ruggiero’s accusations  in “Yes I am she” to the despair at the loss of his love in “Ah, my heart”. Her soft singing in particular, throughout, touched our inner places; and though some of her more vigorously-produced tones tended to splinter at their effortful edges she always conveyed an impressive totality of characterful feeling, so that our sensibilities at her eventual fate were beset at the evening’s end by a good deal of ambivalent impulse (all the fault of the composer, of course).

Her ownership of the role was never more evident than in her Act Two aria “Ah, my heart”, an affecting concentration of emotion, the veiled tones exquisitely shaped and coloured, even more so at the reprise, after her energetic resolve with “But can this be Alcina?” . The whole strengthened one’s ambivalent sympathies for a character whose cruel customs and tender emotions were at such odds with each other and with the beauty of some of her music – a state of things strongly and tellingly advanced by the singer. Again, with both her dark and impotent invocations at “You pale shadows” (generating plenty of exciting vocal virtuosity), and her broken utterances with “Only tears remain to me” she commanded our attention for whole vistas – and Michael Vinten and his players were right with her throughout, the instrumental sounds breathing and mirroring the same heartfelt phrases in complete accord.

Opposite her as Ruggiero, counter-tenor Stephen Diaz used well a natural and easeful stage-presence, his soft singing a joy (the Act Two “Verdant Pastures” was beautifully and raptly sung), and his unfailing charm of manner carrying him through the occasional phrase of borderline intonation – though I thought his reaction to Bradamante’s identity revelation surprisingly ingenuous in manner. Happily, he more readily captured the audience’s attention with a nicely-pointed sotto voce delivery of the asides in the aria “My cherished love” – and it was a nice idea to blindfold him and lead him to the tent where his faithful and frustrated Bradamante had earlier rendered herself comatose with an unaccustomed puff from a hookah – a nice way to end the opera’s first half.

Bradamante is reckoned by some commentators as representing reality, common-sense, duty and fidelity, as opposed to Alcina’s escapist romantic fantasy-allurements – though such readings conveniently play down the heroic and romantic nature of the former’s escapade in attempting to regain her lover. Bianca Andrew had the presence and vocal strength to convey the character’s firm resolve and steadfastness, standing up to the threat posed by the fury of Oronte in her aria “I see you are jealous”, during which she skilfully negotiated a touch of rhythmic insecurity at the words “you feel offended”. Even stronger was the exciting use she put to the coloratura runs of “I long to be avenged”, by way of expressing her frustration and anger with Ruggiero, after he refuses to believe she is who she says she is, and then all but baring her womanly breast to make the point more graphically.

In a sense, Morgana, Alcina’s sister, is just as much Bradamante’s opposite – the latter’s Leonore-like steadfastness a stark contrast to Morgana’s coquetry, the irony being that it is the disguised Bradamante whom Morgana falls for at the outset. Rhona Fraser acted superbly, using her face nicely in tandem with her voice, and eagerly expressing the exuberance of her “Come quickly back” to Bradamante, believing that he (she) returned her love. Though not every note was ideally secure, her singing was invariably expressive, the effect always musical – and what a lovely duet she made with violinist Donald Armstrong in her “He loves, he sighs”! – attempting to explain to both Ruggiero and Alcina that the new boy on the block, Bradamante, is already “spoken for”.

Morgana’s hapless lover, Oronte, is really too straight-down-the-middle a guy for such a flirtatious partner, though his susceptibility to womanly charms is all too obvious in his “One moment’s happiness” aria. Thomas Atkins seemed just the man for the job, bright-eyed and ready for whatever main chance might present itself. Though his wide-ranging vocal lines weren’t ideally pliant in places, he was never less than reliable;  and towards the end the choreographed ritual of his reconciliation with Morgana made their scene eminently worthwhile.

Even more ramrod-straight was Bradamante’s soldier-companion Melisso, though he obviously would have a future beyond the army as a virtual reality facilitator, demonstrated by his assumption of the role of a senior sergeant to bring Ruggiero to his senses. Kieran Rayner brought a lighter, more than usually agile and flexible baritonal voice to the part, though he generated plenty of authority when needed. He was thus able to make something both strong and elegant of his one aria, “Think of her who mourns” addressed to a somewhat bewildered Ruggiero. By comparison with the macho-Melisso, Olga Gryniewicz’s Oberto was a boy-soldier, touchingly gauche of manner, but sufficiently steadfast to defy Alcina’s command to kill the lion which the boy suspects is really his transformed father. Her singing-voice was exotically accented, but her superb diction really told as the boy lamented the loss of his father and gave tongue to his hopes of finding him again.

Having been held in a kind of thrall for so long by Alcina’s enchantments, the chorus members at the end perhaps understandably overdid their exuberance at being freed and returned to youthful vigor by racing ahead of Michael Vinten’s beat in their final chorus “After so many bitter trials” – necessitating some echt-Handelian gestures of frustration from the podium of the kind that would probably have had many a historical precedent! I’m certain my ears weren’t playing me false in imagining that it was Vinten’s voice I heard singing the first of the individual chorus members’ descriptions of their enchanted forms – a filling-in for an absent singer, perhaps, or merely an expression of solidarity?….. after that I almost expected to hear some admonishment from the conductor regarding the final ensemble, perhaps along the lines of Handel’s proverbially fractured English, thus: “You vatch my beatings and vave at the gallery aftervards!” – but perhaps that would have been applying historical verisimilitude a little too liberally.

Apart from these moments of excessive zeal the chorus acquitted itself sturdily and tellingly, if more often as a visual rather than a vocal presence. The orchestra was a band of heroes under Michael Vinten’s obviously inspired direction, the players’ sweetly-focused tones and elegant rhythmic figurations a joy to hear, providing the singers all the support they needed throughout.

Alcina is herself transformed at the end of the opera and her power is taken from her – though I felt her “closure” here somehow lacked true finality, perhaps in accordance with Handel’s own ambivalence towards her. Or again, as with other villains and their influences, it was intended that her spirit lived on, and that she would re-emerge in some parallel guise at another time and in another place. In a way it was characteristic of Sara Brodie’s direction to not cross and dot every “t” and “i” for us, but leave us tantalized by the experience of the encounter in an ongoing way.

At the time of writing, the production has two more nights to run (Thursday 16th and Friday 17th February) – it deserves full-to-bursting houses and clement weather of the kind we were lucky to experience. One sincerely hopes there will be more of these wonderful productions from Rhona Fraser and Opera in a Days Bay Garden.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Polished recital by Aeolian Players at Lower Hutt

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Marin Marais: Suite in G minor; Telemann: Trio Sonata for oboe, viola da gamba and basso continuo in G minor; Psathas: Waiting for the Aeroplane; Bach: Trio Sonata No 4 in E minor, BWV 528

The Aeolian Players:  Calvin Scott (oboe), Peter Garrity (viola), Ariana Odermatt (piano), Margaret Guldborg (cello)

St Mark’s church, Lower Hutt

Wednesday 12 October, 12.15pm

Our last reference to the Aeolian Ensemble is in a review by my colleague Rosemary Collier of their concert in the Mulled Wine series at Paekakariki, where the same Telemann sonata was played but otherwise, a different Bach work, plus pieces by Buxtehude, Hotteterre and Forqueray.

I was a couple of minutes late and missed the first and some of the second movement of the Marais Suite in G minor. It is one of the Pièces en trio pour les flutes, violon, et dessus de viole, published in 1692.  It’s only a short step from flute to oboe, though one could argue that the shift has a significant effect on the mood of the music.

My first impression, as always, was of the way this church so enhances the sounds of instruments (it does as well with voices). So that all four instruments were clear as individuals, yet the composition had the effect of according equal status to them all, and no one dominated the melodic line. Margaret Guldborg’s cello had a warmth that brought it closer to the sound of viola da gamba (on which Marais was one of the greatest exponents) and the sound of the piano in the hands of Ariana Odermatt detracted not the least from the feeling of baroque music.

This was an altogether charming piece, played with an admirable feeling for style and with the interest of the whole placed above that of the individual.

The Telemann sonata (originally for violin, viola and basso continuo) created a quite different impression. Here the indivual instruments carried more distinct lines, each taking turns with the tunes so that the characteristics of each could be enjoyed, as for the most part they could.  The presence of the oboe in place of the violin always has an emotional effect – giving a touch of plangency or sadness – and in most cases is not out of place, and it certainly wasn’t here, even in the brighter Allegro.  As for the piano v. harpsichord issue, the character of the ensemble  did seem to call up in my mind an expectation of the lighter, non-sustaining sound of the latter, though Odermatt’s playing was crisp and sensitive to the idiom.

The inclusion of a modern piano solo was not the least bothersome. Psathas’s early piece, Waiting for the Aeroplane has become a small New Zealand classic; there is nothing difficult about its style or harmonies and it pointed, very early in Psathas’s career, to a refreshing independence of mind, removed from the sort of academic and, shall we say, pretentious music that tended to flow from aspiring student composers 20 years ago (and still does to some extent). Odermatt’s playing was most interesting, handling the rocking fourth that persists hypnotically throughout, is dreamlike; the two notes are uneven in character, the upper note fluctuating in strength while the occasional outbursts produced a quite unsettling effect.

The Bach Trio Sonata
This is one of a set of six so-called ‘trio sonatas’ for organ which Bach compiled in the late 1720s. His manuscript for the six sonatas, BWV 525-30, prescribes two keyboards and pedal.

The Oxford Bach Companion suggests the six sonatas show Bach’s frequent interest in transferring styles and idioms from one instrument or ensemble to another (particularly the keyboard). Thus it can be inferred that it is not an outrageous step for musicians to make arrangements in the reverse direction – back from a score for the organ to the original ‘trio sonata’ concept, that involved two high register instruments and a bass, or basso continuo.

To indulge further erudition, the Bach Companion also notes that the three-instrument form relates more to the concerto than to the church sonata form; and it surmises that the technical difficulty of these six sonatas, and their distance from the most common idioms for the organ, suggest a pedagogical intention (for his eldest son Wilhelm Friedemann who became a distinguished organist), and that they might be considered a corollary to the collected works for unaccompanied violin and cello.

Earlier versions of all movements of this sonata exist. The opening movement began life as the Sinfonia to the second part of Cantata No 76 – and significantly, it is scored for oboe d’amore, viola da gamba and continuo, composed at the beginning of his Leipzig years. That suggests, further, that other movements may also have been composed originally for instrumental trio. The Andante may date from his earliest years as it betrays the short-breathed motivic style of 17th century German music, as well as some of the ‘pathetic’ gestures of contemporary Italian opera, notably the chord of the Neapolitan Sixth.

The oboe part is again without direct authority apart from the oboe d’amore part in the sinfonia mentioned above, but it easily assumes the leading role, and in Calvin Scott’s hands fully justifies the adaptation. As the oboe and viola pass the theme of the Andante back and forth they create quite a strong and attractive emotional quality. The last movement, Un poco allegro, in triple time, creates a lovely curving line and I could again conjure a viola da gamba, together with a harpsichord in this movement, but the two talented players on cello and piano quickly dispelled any real hankering after a more historical interpretation.

 

Stimulating Bach – and others – from the Wellington Baroque Ensemble

Posted on by Peter Mechen

CAFFEINE AND CONTROVERSY

Music by Vivaldi, Handel, Hellendaal and J.S.Bach

Amelia Ryman (soprano) / James Adams (tenor) / Roger Wilson (baritone)

Anna Newth (flute)

Wellington Baroque Ensemble

Martin Ryman (director)

Gregory Squire (leader)

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

Saturday 1st October, 2011

As they say in the classics (and these pieces of music were themselves, for the most part “classics”), a happy occasion, brought about by skilled performances and innovative presentation of some extremely felicitous music – the reception given to the performers, both singers and instrumentalists, bore out the evening’s enjoyment and pleasure.

In the “old days” this event might have been styled merely as a “Baroque Concert”, from which the prospective listener would take what she or he would – very likely featuring Vivaldi, Handel and J.S.Bach, as here (though Pieter Hellendaal’s name would almost certainly have caused head-scratching among the punters). However, there’s a new presentation spirit coursing through the veins of classical music promoters these days, and the epithet “Caffeine and Controversy” seemed to promise the kind of titillation one might get from any reputable (or disreputable) “show and tell” publication.

I’m all for this kind of thing, with the proviso that the flash doesn’t get in the way of the substance, and is thus kept obligatory – in other words, at the end of the day it’s the music that is seen to provide the real thrills, rather than the accoutrements (unlike the case with many performances of opera one witnesses in this day and age, either filmed or “live”, well-and-truly subverted by ego-ridden directors).

Not that the first half of this concert had much to do with anything other than the music that was being played, to one’s relief – although Handel was certainly something of a controversial figure, Vivaldi was rather less so (despite what might seem to male sensibilities the latter’s good fortune in working at a so-called orphanage for young women), but around and about the Dutch-born, English-domiciled Pieter Hellendaal (whom I had never heard of, to my shame) there seemed nary a trace of trouble or scandal.

It was that pillar of the music establishment of the Western World, Johann Sebastian “Mighty Bach” (as Dylan Thomas once called him) who provided the “ginger” which enlivened the concert’s second half, in the form of the well-known “Coffee Cantata”. This work was possibly a semi-autobiographical treatise on the part of the composer about interactions between older and younger generations, the catalyst here being (in Bach’s case) a contemporary craze for coffee-drinking. Bach’s librettist was Christian Friedrich Henrici (better known as Picander, the author of many of the composer’s texts, including those for the St Matthew Passion and the Christmas Oratorio), though it’s thought that Bach himself added the words for the work’s final trio – sentiments which any parent will empathize with in a general sense!

So, a well-constructed program began with Vivaldi’s “Goldfinch” concerto for flute and strings – Anna Newth was a skilled and long-breathed soloist, coping with some of the composer’s more demanding extended utterances with flying colours, and readily conveying both pictorial and stylistic aspects of the work. Though her musical interaction with the group was splendid throughout, I was distracted by her placement slightly “away” from the half-circle of musicians so that the ‘cellist (the excellent Katrin Eickhorst-Squire) had to constantly turn around in her seat to make contact with her (if she’d stood in the middle, out the front, there would have been no problem). I found also that both harpsichord and viola, though beautifully played by Martin Ryman and Leoni Wittchow, respectively, seemed to take the concept of “tasteful accompaniment” to extremes, so that they were in danger of being inaudible at times – though a concerto, I wanted the supporting lines to have their proper say, as well!

Each of three singers then gave us a well-known aria from Handel’s different oratorios. Amelia Ryman’s bright, agile, soubrette-like voice readily and characterfully conveyed a young girl’s excitement at her impending marriage, with “Oh, had I Jubal’s lyre” from “Joshua”. A telling contrast was made by James Adams’ heartfelt and true-toned “Waft her, Angels, through the skies”, the diction beautiful and the phrasings naturally and easefully unfolded (a slight shortness of breath at “forever reign” forgiven amid the rapt loveliness of the reprise).

Roger Wilson seemed in excellent voice throughout his clarion-like traversal of “Revenge, Timotheus cries” from “Alexander’s Feast”, the singer particularly relishing the horrors of the “Furies” with their reptilian hairstyles. Perhaps the coloratura figurations of “and the sparkles” creaked and groaned a little, first time through (they flowed more easily during the reprise), but the energy and excitement carried the day. As for the ghostly middle section, Wilson’s sepulchral tones conjured up real pathos at the evocation of the ghosts of unburied warriors haunting the plain on which their remains still lay. Appropriately grey, sombre string-playing most vividly underlined the scenario.

Vivaldi’s Op.3 No.4 Concerto for four violins enabled us to enjoy the contrasting tones of the instrumentalists, each projecting a differently-characterised kind of sound, though often playing in pairs, an antiphonally delightful effect. Again, I thought the harpsichord sound self-effacing to a fault, beautifully played though everything was, minimizing a dimension of baroque interaction which I’m certain the composer would have wanted to be heard.

Pieter Hellendaal’s Op.3 No.2 Concerto Grosso made quite a dramatic effect, dark and stormy at the beginning, setting a grave, strong-chorded opening against an energetic allegro. I enjoyed the bird-song carolling during the Affettuoso; and if the Presto had a slightly shaky beginning here, its reprise after a “mirror-image” episode had a more confident trajectory. The concluding “Borea”, a sturdy, but still lively dance in what sounded like 4/4 time cooled the passions and most tastefully restored equilibriums.

I liked the way the second half’s beginning was activated, with the musicians moving to the side of the platform and tuning up somewhat curmudgeonly, as both stage and auditorium got their respective selves prepared for the music’s commencement. Before we realized what was happening, James Adams (a kind of servant/retainer) was admonishing us to be silent, duly announcing the arrival of the master, Herr Schlendrian “growling like a honey-bear”, and his charmingly willful daughter, Lieschen. Roger Wilson’s Herr Schlendrian (translated variously as “Humbug” and “Jogtrot”) grumped away entertainingly, with wonderful ‘cello-and double-bass (Malcolm Struthers) playing in tow, while Amelia Ryman’s Lieschen was enchanting of both voice and manner, deliciously aggravating her father’s obvious frustrations. Despite a slight stumble at one point in the reprise, Ryman’s forthright and open singing of “Haute noch” was for me one of the evening’s many highlights.

Costumes and staging helped bring Bach’s and Picander’s mini-drama to life – Steven Anthony Wilding’s direction brought out the best of each of the singers’ obvious theatrical gifts, despite one or two places where the music’s distinctly undramatic progressions caused a hiatus or two – conversely the trio’s coming together for the final cadence had a slightly hair-raising “just-made-it” quality.

But these were minor quibbles when set against the whole – a rattlingly good evening’s musical entertainment, with great credit to all concerned.

 

 

 

 

 

Overwhelmed by the splendour of it all – Latitude 37 in Wellington

Posted on by Peter Mechen

STILE MODERNO – the genesis of the Baroque

Latitude 37

Julia Fredersdorff (baroque violin)

Laura Vaughan (viola da gamba/lirone)

Donald Nicolson (harpsichord)

Chamber Music New Zealand 2011

Ilott Theatre, Wellington

Monday 15th August 2011

Perhaps it was the fault of the snow that had been falling in Wellington for the first time in years – part of the extreme weather which had been causing all kinds of disruptions to musicians and their activities, with rehearsals having to be being cancelled and transport arrangements rethought. Even as Chamber Music CEO Euan Murdoch was introducing the concert (which was being broadcast nationally) the lights in the Ilott Theatre were flickering disconcertingly – of course the sounds of audience laughter had to be then explained to radio listeners, some of whom might have well been experiencing power surges and even failures of their own.

What about the snow, then, you may by now be thinking? Well, it must have transported a goodly proportion of my listening sensibilities to the state of “dreaming of a White Christmas”, because I simply couldn’t keep pace with the rapidity of change during the first half of Latitude 37’s richly-conceived and beautifully-played programme. I was following what I imagined was the order of listed items, and keeping up with things most satisfyingly (or so I thought) – when to my horror, after the three musicians had bowed and walked off the stage, up came the lights for the interval, leaving my expectations of more first-half music stranded somewhat at the Violin Sonata Seconda of Dario Castello, little more than halfway through the promised order!

When I looked around, nobody else in the audience seemed to be distressed or disconcerted or bewildered – everybody, it seemed, except for yours truly, was up with the play. Or were they? – I espied somebody I knew sitting a couple of rows away, somebody to whom I didn’t mind confessing a degree of appreciative ineptitude (I was hoping she wouldn’t spontaneously ejaculate the words, “Good heavens! – call yourself a critic?” or something similarly embarrassing). After furtively whispering my predicament to her, she reassured me by confessing that she, too, had gotten a bit lost with the order. I could have hugged her, but then that would have had to have been explained as well! – so I contented myself with a murmured “Well, thank goodness I’m not the only one….”

What the players had, in fact, done, was to run the endings and beginnings of different works so closely together as to make it difficult for the uninitiated ear to distinguish them from one another. As practically none of the music was familiar to me (though I thought I “knew” the baroque style sufficiently to be able to make distinctions between movements and, indeed, different works) I had gotten myself horribly lost, left behind in an ensnarement of lavishly-decorated and stunningly realized cornucopia of baroque splendor. I had taken notes on what I thought were individual works along the way, but upon reading them, realized that I had myself “run the movements together” and ascribed different strains of the music to the wrong works – and so on.

Why am I confessing up to this? Why would I want my incompetence as a listener, moreover, a self-appointed ANALYTICAL listener revealed to the world? Do I have some “hidden agenda” in mind, such as a kind of “did he fall or was he pushed” early retirement from “Middle C”? I must confess , it was, in retrospect, a delight of a concert from beginning to end, my confusion as to its exact provenance at any given time mattering not a whit to the spontaneous and incidental pleasure the musicians were generating around and about my receptive, if undiscriminating ears. Did I HAVE to know exactly where we were at any given point in order to appreciate the music’s and the performances’ qualities?

Sir Thomas Beecham was quoted once as saying that “The English may not like music, but they simply LOVE the noise it makes”.  After the experience of “losing my way” in both halves of this splendid-sounding concert of Baroque music, I’ve come to the conclusion that mine could well be a very Beechamesque appreciation of the same. Still, I figured that the experience of being “humbled” in a music appreciation sense, and confessing to it all in public is ultimately a valuable one for a critic. Apart from the “keeping me in my proper place”  process, it’s demonstrated at first hand to me what many people possibly feel when confronted with unfamiliar music at concerts in general. However much some concertgoers may “love” the sounds, they may simply not have the time for anything more than a cursory listen to music outside the live concert experience, so that the sounds do seem to run together for them, in a pleasing, but relatively undifferentiated way.

Enough of this self-flagellation – (my continuing in this vein might persuade some readers that I’m actually ENJOYING the experience!). So, what can I impart, in a critical sense, of what I heard in the Ilott Theatre that evening? This was one of two programs being toured by Latitude 37, as far as I was concerned, for me the more obscure of the two, as I knew not a single note of any of the composers’ music. The “other” concert featured music by Buxtehyde, Biber, JS Bach – to mention only one letter of the alphabet – and Pachelbel (yes, the Canon, but accompanied by its Gigue!), so Wellington was favored with the more esoteric-sounding program. Still, as I’d heard the group previously in concert, and knew just how inspiring and involving their music-making could be, I expected that, well-known or otherwise, the works featured would exert their own unique magic – and thus it proved.

On paper, what would one make of Canzon a due by somebody called Bartolome de Selma y Salverde, whose music began the concert? Apparently the composer’s only work ever published, it possessed an attractive initial melancholy before quickening in pulse, demonstrating plenty of flexibility and impulsive volatility (well, with a name like his, the composer was obviously a Spaniard). The players talked about the music – Laura Vaughan, who alternated between her viola da gamba and a smaller, more exotic-looking multi-stringed instrument called a sirone, talked about composers “freeing music from Renaissance polyphony, and expressing more individual emotion” as well as emphasizing the aspect of performer improvisation. This was a theme further developed by harpsichordist Donald Nicolson, who spoke about the phenomenon of much of the music we were to hear not actually having been written down – his own playing had a number of instances of seemingly-spontaneous impulses of melismatic energy, which invariably set the textures of the music fizzing and crackling. Violinist Julia Fredersdorff talked about the interchangeability of much Baroque music, citing Dario Castello’s Quarta Sonata a Due, Soprano e Trombon over Violetta as a work that was here transcribed for violin and bass viol, the different instruments bringing their own qualities to bear on the written (and improvised) notes.

Throughout the concert I was much taken by the music’s extraordinary freedom of expression within the prescribed boundaries of performance. The players were able to explore what seemed like vast potentialities of elaboration, but as individuals in dialogue with one another, not merely reproducing aimless, elaboration-for-its-own-sake activity. I could occasionally feel points of saturation being explored, which led me to imagine how such a style of playing and composing, if carried to extremes, could actually collapse under its own weight of elaboration – which, of course, was what happened to the Baroque style, eventually pushing succeeding composers in new, rather less over-laden directions.

I was perhaps more successful in “keeping up” with the item changes in this half of the concert, though finding that, towards the end, I couldn’t vouch for surety as to which item we’d reached (completing my humiliation). I like to think it was my survival instinct rather than a prurient streak in my makeup which, towards the end of the concert, quickened my interest in the music of one Tarquinio Merula, whose brief program bio-sketch had him “dismissed for indecency” from a position he held in Bergamo. His Ciaccona sounded anything but indecent, instead graceful and dance-like, featuring viola and violin playing in the same register to an interesting coloristic effect, the manoeuvres demonstrating great teamwork and beautifully-shared inflections of the music’s lines (mind you, I could have been describing either Claudio Merulo’s Toccata Terza or Maurizio Cazzati’s Balletto Quarto – but I hoped not).

Far more importantly than any self-consciously scholarly summation of the concert’s fine detail I might have pursued, I felt by the concert’s end as if I had been completely immersed in a whole era’s bevy of musical sounds and achieved a greater understanding of and love for the generous-cum-self-indulgent excesses of the baroque composer. No better advocates of a highly distinctive and inescapably grand period of music-making would I have wished for than Latitude 37, that evening.