Tag: baroque music

NZSM’s Baroque Workshop at St Andrew’s lunchtime concert

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Music by Monteverdi, Jacob van Eyck, Dario Castello, Georg Böhm, Telemann, Bach

Amelia Ryman (soprano), Brendan O’Donnell (recorder), Oscar Laven (bassoon), Tom Gaynor (harpsichord and organ)

St Andrew’s on The Terrace

Wednesday 20 July, 12.15pm

The Baroque Workshop took over, at relatively short notice I imagine, from other advertised performers; they revealed no evidence of being caught with little preparation time.

Baroque here stretched as far back as Monteverdi to as recent as Bach.

The Monteverdi was a quite short song written for one voice with harpsichord accompaniment from a set called Scherzi Musicali, of 1632. Amelia Ryman, with Thomas Gaynor at the harpsichord, tackled it with a pretty extensive array of ornaments which tended to tax her at times, affecting her ability to control dynamics and articulation; and she needs to watch her vibrato. But the general delivery was most attractive.

The concert opened with a solo piece for recorder by Jacob van Eyck who was born in 1590. It was played in a most accomplished way with careful and subtle dynamics and admirable agility by Brendan O’Donnell. It was so attractive that it struck me as a piece that might well be taken up by flute players looking for an alternative solo piece to Syrinx.

The variations from a Chorale Partita by Georg Böhm, an important early influence on Bach, was played on the church’s chamber organ by Gaynor. Though it proved a typically formal set of variations (only some of them), the varied registrations, shifts between common and triple time and enough flexibility of rhythm, lent them considerable interest. The distinct tempi of each variation indeed suggested the dance movements of a suite: hence the title ‘Partita’ seemed justified.

The next piece drew all three instruments together: recorder, bassoon and organ, in a ‘Sonata seconda à sopran solo’ by Dario Castello, born the same year as Van Eyck. The combination of the organ’s lower register and the bassoon created a warm, rich sound, and subtle rubato helped enliven its interesting, occasionally contrapuntal character.

If there were moments in the Castello when Oscar Laven’s bassoon seemed to be struggling, the reality became clearer in the Telemann Sonatina in A minor (two movements); the baroque instrument, with limited recourse to the use of keys, is clearly difficult to play and to produce even and comfortably articulated sounds. Laven did well, but I had to ask myself whether there are some cases where the pleasure of hearing authentic sounds from a very challenging early instrument is really worth the trouble.

The rest of the concert was Bach. Three short items: two arias from cantatas and a Duet from the Third Clavierübung, which contains a large collection of organ pieces. The other three Clavierübungen are for harpsichord (the first for example contains the six Partitas BWV 825-30). The third volume is known sometimes as the German Organ Mass; it opens with the famous ‘Saint Anne’ Prelude and Triple Fugue, BWV 552 and contains many chorale preludes – all those between BWV 669 and 689; and then four duets (two-part inventions), two of which (BWV 802 and 804) Gaynor played here. His performance might not have been immaculate but on this small organ they emerged with admirable clarity, with all their ‘art that conceals art’ as evident as possible (without lapsing into oxymoron). It occurred to me that I don’t hear the chamber organ, purchased through the enterprise of the former minister John Murray and organist Roy Tankersley at least 20 years ago, often enough.

The cantata arias were ‘Höchster, mache deine Güte’ from No 51 and ‘Höchster, was ich habe’, from No 39. Amelia sounded more at ease in these than in Monteverdi; the flowing lines with less call for florid decoration.

Both were quite short, but expressive of a sanguine optimism not always the stuff of Bach’s sacred music, and they balanced the purely instrumental pieces very happily; and the second aria, with its charming recorder obbligato, brought the concert to its end and stimulated a particularly warm audience response.

Earthly and Heavenly Delights from the Historical Arts Trust

Posted on by Peter Mechen

LA MUSICA – Sacra II

Earthly Delight, Heavenly Respite

The Historical Arts Trust

Music by CORELLI and HANDEL

Pepe Becker (soprano)

Gregory Squire (baroque violin) / Katrin Eickhorst-Squire (baroque ‘cello) / Douglas Mews (harpsichord)

St. Mary of the Angels Church, Wellington

Saturday 2nd July 2011

Formed in 2010, the Historical Arts Trust was set up by a group of enthusiasts involved in the disciplines of early music, theatre and dance, in order to promote interest in Medieval, Renaissance and baroque music, dance and drama in New Zealand. The aim of the Trust is to present concerts and other events such as workshops and demonstrations which showcase these highly distinctive eras, and will encourage wider awareness and involvement on the part of performers and audiences.

Dimitrios Theodoridis, well-known as a versatile singer with period vocal groups, was appointed the Trust’s first Executive Director, and was instrumental in co-ordinating the group’s first workshop, in April 2011, taken with students from both St.Patrick’s and St.Catherine’s Colleges here in Wellington, and featuring also the talents of musicians Robert Oliver, Brendan O’Donnell and Stephen Pickett. The students were able to experience the authentic sounds of renaissance music and its performance, and discuss what they heard with the musicians.

The group’s first concert, Risurrezione, which took place in May,  got the series, “La Musica”, off to an exciting beginning with the music of Biber, JS Bach and Buxtehyde. The considerable instrumental skills of Gregory Squire, Douglas Mews and Robert Oliver each played a vital part supporting the glorious singing of soprano Pepe Becker and bass David Morriss. It all promised well for the events to follow, and special interest accompanied the first of these, which featured two of the Baroque era’s most spectacular composer/performers, Arcangelo Corelli and Georg Friedrich Handel.

Stories of the rivalry between the two composers, arising from their encounters in Rome, have gone into the realms of musical legend, the most well-known one being Handel’s deliberate placement of a high E in a sonata of his that Corelli was due to perform, after the latter had avowed never to write – or perform – such a note. Despite the resulting stand-off causing a never-to-be-healed breach between the two composers, Handel wasn’t slow to recognize the popular appeal of the “Italian style” and thus adopt his own potent realization of it in his own works. The concert thus gave us a chance to further the “cheek-by-jowl” interaction of the two composers’ music, albeit playing to different respective creative “strengths”, Corelli’s with some of his instrumental sonatas, and Handel with his famous set of German Arias for soprano.

How eloquently the instrumentalists stirred the silences into life with the opening of the first of Corelli’s Op.5 Violin Sonatas! – the Grave opening marvellously punctuated by energized irruptions, the tones held and savored by the church’s grateful ambience. Greg Squire’s violin confidently led the dance, while Katrin Eickhorst-Squire’s ‘cello seemed a more “contained” though always reliable consort. In attendance, too was Douglas Mews’ ever-tasteful continuo, finding a just balance between expression and discretion in support of the violin. For a time, the combination jelled more consistently in the slower movements, during which the instrumentalists conjured up exquisitely-voiced and -balanced sounds; whereas the allegros found the string-playing a touch off-centre in intonation and more wispy in tone than was ideal – as the evening progressed, so did the playing focus more truly and consistently.

Interspersed throughout the concert with Handel’s seven German Arias we heard two further instrumental sonatas from Corelli’s Op.5 – No.9 in A Major made a nice contrast with its secular dance movements as opposed to the opening work’s more formal “churchy’ structure, longish slow movements set against virtuosic allegros and fugues. Particularly noteworthy (excuse the pun) was the performance of the Gavotte from this sonata, decorated busily with running passagework that kept the players on their toes, although the playing never lost sight of the underlying dance rhythms, the ‘cello and harpsichord working as hard as Gregory Squire’s violin throughout this work.

Fittingly, the most famous of the Op. 5 set was also represented, the D Minor Sonata No.12 being a theme and variations on the well-known La Follia. This was a glittering display of music-making form all concerned, very exciting and physical in effect, with the ‘cello given as much to do, it seemed, as the violin. Corelli’s inventiveness seemed unflagging, including many unpredictable and volatile moments, a world of ebb and flow that these performers took unto themselves without hesitation – though the playing wasn’t absolutely note-perfect, it was the energy and drive of the virtuoso irruptions set against the more poised and dignified episodes that triumphantly carried the listener’s attention throughout.

It made excellent musical sense to ring the changes between instrumental and vocal items throughout the evening. Pepe Becker was in her usual fine vocal fettle, though I couldn’t help thinking that, on this showing, her voice seemed in places somehow less comfortable with this repertoire than with the Renaissance and earlier Baroque works we’d recently heard her perform so magnificently. It’s a voice that floats and fills out melismatic contouring with the utmost beauty, of the kind that abounds in more florid music than this – here, in Handel’s more tightly-conceived figurations I noticed a blurring of the coloratura lines exacerbated by the ample acoustic which took away some of the music’s clarity in quicker passages as well as most of the singer’s consonants! Having said this, Becker made some lovely sounds, the opening Süsse Stille particularly successful, especially in the voice’s combination with the instruments. Apart from some sightly uncomfortable intonation at the end of the the aria’s middle section, the following Singe, Seele, Gott sum Preise just as successfully conveyed the music’s essence, energetic and joyful.

In the next bracket of two arias, Flammende Rose was beautifully shaped by the performers, the structure most satisfyingly “built up” by the composer,and rendered here with appropriately sonorous singing and playing. I thought the opening of Künft’ger Zeiten either Kummer (Vain care of times to come) with its low tessitura difficult for the soprano voice, but the succeeding episode featured some exquisite work, with beautifully-held notes from the singer. Two further arias immediately after the interval featured, firstly, Süsser Blumen Ambraflocken (Ambrosial petal of sweet flowers), the singer making up for somewhat blurred articulation throughout by some shining, stratospheric decoration of the penultimate line “I will soar Heavenward and sing praises”, followed by an oddly sombre and agitated setting of In dem Angenehmen Büschenand (In the pleasant thickets), the music sounding more disturbed than tranquil, with an undertow of unrest even through the more settled tones of “Dann erhebt sich in der Brust” (Then in my breast my contented spirit).

Fortunately, the concluding aria Meine Seele made amends, Becker’s voice taking to its exaltations with buoyancy and openness – a lovely, more circumspect moment at “Horen nur, Hark!” placing Creation’s delight in a more thoughtful, metaphysical context, before returning to the leaping joy of “Alles jauchzet, alles lacht” at the end. Delight in the music,in the singing and playing, and in the beauties of the venue (despite the slightly over-generous ambience already alluded to) gave this concert the kind of distinction which did the Historical Arts Trust’s purposes full justice.

Aeolian Players play for mulled wine at Paekakariki

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Hotteterre: Suite no.3 for oboe and basso continuo, Op.5
Bach: Sonata for viola da gamba and harpsichord in G, BWV 1027
Telemann: Trio Sonata for oboe, viola da gamba and basso continuo in G minor
Forqueray: “La Sylva” and “Jupiter” from Pièces de Clavecin Bach: Trio Sonata, BWV 528
Buxtehude: Passacaglia from Sonata IV

Mulled Wine Concert
The Aeolian Players (Ariana Odermatt, harpsichord; Margaret Guldborg, cello; Calvin Scott, oboe; Peter Garrity, viola)

Paekakariki Memorial Hall

Sunday, 22 May 2011, 2.30pm

The Memorial Hall was not completely full, but there were probably over 100 people present to hear this concert of baroque music. Despite all the music being from the same era, there was considerable variety both in the music, and in the size of ensemble playing the various works.

Another matter of interest was the marvellous ‘Fishart’ exhibition on the walls. Many items were highly detailed illustrations of fish, some in the form of multiple small fish together making the shape of a whale’s tail, or a seahorse or other form. Others were punning assemblages of drawings and cogs in the various situations dogs might find themselves in (and indeed, most of the cogs were in doggy shapes), and other humorous art works made from found materials.

All this was the work of former Dominion cartoonist, Eric Heath. The wide scope of the exhibition and the skilled, colourful and accurate representations of fish were quite breathtaking.

The prelude of the first work on the programme immediately revealed what good acoustics the hall has for the oboe – and for the other instruments too. Unlike the case with other concerts I have attended at the Memorial Hall, this time the players were placed alongside the long wall on the sea side of the hall, the chairs for the audience being arranged in a semi-circle facing them. Hence it was much easier for the audience to see the performers than at previous concerts, when the musicians have been at the end of the hall. This siting seemed to improve the sound, also.

The five-movement suite was beautifully executed. There was robust cello playing, and plenty of contrast between the movements, with the lively Gigue ending a thoroughly committed performance.

In the Bach sonata, the viola was used in place of viola da gamba. The problem was that the superbly full, rich sound of the viola in Garrity’s hands was quite different from the sound of a viola da gamba, and did not fit well with the harpsichord sound, which was somewhat overwhelmed. Odermatt’s harpsichord playing was excellent. If here and elsewhere she sometimes lacked the flair of more mature harpsichord players, that may be something that will come in time. To be fair, these were mostly fully written parts as distinct from basso continuo parts. However, the Buxtehude Passacaglia at the end perhaps gave scope for more individual interpretation and variation, since the harpsichord part was endlessly repeated.

Telemann’s sonata employed all four instruments. Again, the oboe sound was mellifluous, while the viola sounded more baroque than it had in the Bach sonata. This was a delightful and most satisfying work.

It occurred to me, reading the details of the composers and the excellent programme notes, that we are fortunate that all these composers were long-lived; Bach the least so, since he died at 65; still a good life-span for his time. Hotteterre made it to 89. Thus there has been passed down to us a great body of compositions to enjoy. When we come to the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, there are the untimely early deaths of Mozart, Schubert, Mendelssohn, Chopin and Schumann who, though prolific, never survived to the ages of their baroque predecessors, and thus we do not know what they might have written as they matured.

An aim of Mary Gow, who promotes these Paekakariki concerts, is to provide performances with unusual combinations of instruments, and that was certainly true this time. The oboe-playing of Calvin Scott was quite superb. His phrasing, and that of the other players, was very good, although there was not always a feeling of complete ensemble. Inaccuracies of intonation were few and slight, in the Buxtehude work only.

Forqueray’s “La Sylva” piece was a very graceful and appealing item for solo harpsichord. “Jupiter” was played with the manuals coupled (hence much louder) alternating with use of the upper manual only. This was much faster than the other piece. The contrasting sections and use of the lower register of the harpsichord made it most interesting. These were delightfully varied and imaginative pieces.

Bach’s trio sonata is probably more familiar as played on the organ. Hearing it on four separate instruments, with their distinctive timbres was stimulating. After the very short, very slow opening adagio, there was a gutsy vivace, that nevertheless had refinement too. After a smooth andante, the allegro was exciting and very intricate in places. Again, I felt the viola had too much vibrato; the oboe once more was impressive.

All four performed in the Buxtehude also. There was fast interplay between oboe and viola, while the harpsichord played her bass line over and over (how did she know when to stop?)

The concert was relatively short, and none the worse for that, on a beautiful sunny Sunday afternoon – and much appreciated by the audience.

Profane Bach at St Paul’s Lutheran Church

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

J. S. Bach: Harpsichord Concerto in A major, BWV 1055; Violin Concerto in A minor, BWV 1041;  Coffee Cantata, BWV 211

Douglas Mews (harpsichord), Kate Goodbehere (violin), Rowena Simpson (soprano), John Beaglehole (tenor), David Morriss (bass), instrumentalists on baroque instruments

St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, King Street, Newtown

Sunday, 20 March 2011, 5pm

Bach’s birthday is being celebrated at St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in King Street, Newtown. Last Sunday there was a concert of concertos and a secular cantata; next Sunday there is more Bach, also at 5pm. Bach was born on 21 March 1685, so this was his 326th anniversary.

Bach’s secular cantatas are not heard very often, in this country at least, so it was refreshing to hear the humorous Coffee Cantata performed, and especially by such able musicians as these. It showed, in the composer’s birthday week, that he was not only a sombre composer for the Lutheran Church.

Approximately 40 people heard a fine concert of the master’s music. The printed programme gave the words in German and their English translation for the cantata; unfortunately it left out the names of two instrumentalists – Penelope Evison, baroque transverse flute, and Richard Hardie, baroque double bass (last heard in 2010 year with the visiting Wallfisch Band).

Throughout the concert various combinations of players accompanied the instrumental soloists, and vocalists.

The harpsichord concerto was familiar, though from less authentic recorded versions. Perhaps they were more like ‘bark’ to this concert’s Bach.

The allegro first movement was light and bright, with plenty of air in it; there were a few tuning aberrations near the beginning. The larghetto second movement was very slow and delicate, while the third, another allegro (ma non tanto) again had intonation wobbles near the beginning. Douglas Mews’s playing was always lively and very fine; it was almost non-stop playing for him.

The violin concerto was very well played, with soloist Kate Goodbehere always on top of the requirements. It, too, was familiar – cheerful, satisfying music. As well as many fine moments for the soloist, there were some wonderful phrases for the cellist, Emma Goodbehere. After an allegro and andante, there was a sprightly allegro assai to end.

In the cantata, the cellists swapped places; Julien Hainsworth took on the quite demanding role for that instrument.

After an opening recitative from the tenor, the first aria was sung by bass David Morriss. It was very good, Morriss varying the voice a lot. Top and bottom registers were best; the middle tended to be thrown away. Morriss, as the father, then sang a recitative with his coffee-addicted daughter (sound familiar?), sung by Rowena Simpson. With her hair in little pigtails, Simpson sang very expressively, and with some acting out by expression, gesture and movement, the dispute between the two was brought alive. This recitative was accompanied by cello and harpsichord only.

The daughter, Liesgen, then sang an aria extolling the virtues of coffee and her fondness for it, accompanied by cello, harpsichord and the excellent flute playing of Penelope Evison.

Two recitatives for the pair were next, with the father trying to introduce sanctions which would persuade the young woman to abandon coffee. Only when he thought to threaten that his daughter would not have a husband unless she gave up coffee did she say she would give it up.

However, her delightful aria revealed that she wanted a husband very much. With two violins, viola, cello, bass and harpsichord, this was sensitively sung with beautiful phrasing. Both singer and violins made the stresses appropriate to baroque music.

The tenor returned as narrator for a recitative in which he told of the father looking for a husband for his daughter. The latter managed to make it known that only a suitor who promised and contracted to allow her coffee whenever she wanted it would be considered. This part was acted out most humorously by Simpson, indicating men in the audience whom she was ostensibly considering (with suitable responses in some cases); Beaglehole entered into this miming also. Douglas Mews changed registration on the harpsichord at suitable moments, and the flute returned to give mellifluous poignancy to the story.

A small coffee table with the appropriate appurtenances was brought in and out at fitting moments in the dialogues.

The final movement had all three singers, and the orchestra, recounting how mothers and grandmothers drank coffee, so who could blame the daughters?

The music and story were thoroughly entertaining – a lively presentation, and fine singing and playing.

The Tudor Consort in a brilliant Christmas Oratorio

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Bach: Christmas Oratorio, BWV 248

 

The Tudor Consort and the Vector Wellington Orchestra conducted by Michael Stewart. Soloists: Anna Leese (soprano), Kate Spence (alto), David Hamilton (tenor), Jared Holt (bass)

 

Wellington Town Hall

 

Saturday 18 December 2010, 7.30pm

 

The Tudor Consort’s courage in hiring the Town Hall for its Christmas Oratorio was rewarded by a good audience and by an absolutely wonderful performance. Anna Leese was no doubt an important draw-card, but in the event the success was achieved through the other three principals, by the choir itself, and very importantly, the superb baroque ensemble drawn from the Vector Wellington Orchestra.

 

Here was just one occasion when this fine orchestra provided an indispensable contribution to a performance. Bach calls for only about 23 players, but these were players who created an accompaniment of such finesse and sensitivity to the Baroque style that I can hardly imagine better in this country, or any other. As he had shown in his work with the choir, Michael Stewart proved an equally gifted orchestral director, as diverting to watch as to hear.

 

Most striking perhaps were the three trumpets, led conspicuously by section principal Barrett Hocking who carried most of the high-lying embellishments. No less beautiful were the four oboes two of which dealt with Bach’s writing for two deep-voiced oboe da caccia; or the accompaniment by solo violin and cello (Matthew Ross and Jane Young) of Kate Spence’s aria in Part III, ‘Schliess mein Herz’, and elsewhere.  The only outside players were NZSO timpanist Larry Reese and bass player Alexander Gunchenko whose playing made consummate contributions too.

 

On its own in the Sinfonia of Part II, all the many strengths of the orchestra, such as beautiful string playing, became most conspicuous.

 

Soprano Anna Leese had, naturally, attracted most of the pre-concert publicity; unfortunately, Bach had misread his brief and offered her fewer solo opportunities than she merited. Nevertheless, her singing stopped the audience in its tracks, as it were, in her first, short offering in Part II, as the Angel, in duet with David Hamilton’s Evangelist: ‘Und der Engel sprach zu ihnen’; again, in Part III, she sang in duet with Jared Holt, ‘Herr, dein Mitleid, dein Erbarmen’, somewhat oddly, many metres apart, at the front of the stage: her voice penetrating, dramatic, agile, and nicely blending with Holt’s.  

 

After a most delightful trio between soprano, alto and tenor, Leese got her big solo in Part VI, ‘Nur ein Wink von seinen Händen’, which only convention prevented the audience from shouting to the rafters: such variety of colour and articulation, such insight into the meaning of every word.

 

(It was interesting to look back at the Mobil Song Quest in 2002: Anna Leese, winner; Kate Spence, second; Ana James, third. The other three finalists were ‘whatever-happened-to’ names: Majka Kaiser, Andrew Conley and the recently returned from Europe and still singing-in-opera, Anna Pierard.)

 

David Hamilton deserved equal billing for his prolonged work as the Evangelist, rich with highly accomplished ornaments, and interpretation of the words in the most lively and sympathetic way. His voice hardly tired, it remained clear and accurate throughout, still singing like a thirty-year-old!  For example, he made an impressive and arresting job of the melodious aria in Part II, ‘Frohe Hirten, eilt, ach, eilet’, adorned with ornaments and charmingly accompanied by flutes.  

 

After her runner-up prize in the 2002 Mobil Song Quest and studies in London Kate Spence had only a short professional career in opera; but she often sings on the concert platform. One has to lament that support of opera in New Zealand has been so poor that a singer of such talent has not been able to stay in the profession. Her voice, a lovely mezzo with characteristic warmth at the bottom, is full of character, projects strongly, a voice that bloomed in the Town Hall acoustic. I commented on her above; and she had several other notable recitatives, arias and ensembles, such as the long aria ’Schlafe mein Liebster’ in Part II, this time attractively accompanied by oboes and flutes.  

 

Jared Holt won the Mobil in 2000 and had a promising career that even reached the stage of Covent Garden; like several other singers, he had equipped himself with the safety-net of a law degree and that is now offering him more security. A strong opera company that can employ a regular ensemble of principals would have kept him away from law. His first substantial aria in Part I, ‘Grosser Herr, o starker König’, was a fine display of his sturdy competence, vigorous and splendidly dramatic: its accompaniment by a brilliant trumpet did his performance no harm at all. And I noted above, his very striking duet with Leese.

 

The oratorio obviously offers great music for the choir itself, with its wealth of lively, often triple-time numbers, and chorales, many of which have a familiar ring since so much of the music was recycled from earlier pieces. Not unusually, the choir’s energy and confidence built through the performance. Perhaps a shade more ecstasy might have driven the opening chorus, ‘Jauchzet, froh locket’, yet it was still among the most polished and exuberant performances I have heard; the subsequent chorales, calmer, enabled the choir to gather its strength for some powerful singing, till a chorus such as the opening of Part V, ‘Ehre sei dir, Gott, gesungen’ was a thrilling exhibition of ebullience and vocal athleticism.

 

Foremost in the thoughts of audience members as they listened to the orchestra’s polished and exuberant playing, must have been the present threat to the orchestra whose existence in at least its existing size and quality is vital to Wellington’s musical life. The behaviour of Creative New Zealand which would deny this orchestra even the modest level of assistance it now receives, seems driven by either vindictiveness, some obscure, adolescent, PC-ridden agenda, or plain ignorance: perhaps all three.

 

I can only hope that those who make boasts about the cultural capital will be able to bring to their senses those who have such destructive impulses.

 

 

Orpheus Choir and Wellington Orchestra deliver “good tidings” from Handel

Posted on by Peter Mechen

HANDEL – Messiah

Ana James (soprano) / Helen Medlyn (mezzo-soprano)

Keith Lewis (tenor) / Martin Snell (bass)

Orpheus Choir of Wellington

Vector Wellington Orchestra

Michael Fulcher, conductor

Wellington Town Hall

Saturday, December 4th, 2010

There’s no doubt about it – nothing brings in people quite like the prospect of hearing a “Messiah”. And, as when one goes to something like a rugby test, there’s a parallel sense of occasion, of impending enjoyment, of expectation that the the experience will truly resonate with an amalgam of the familiar and the freshly-minted. So, there, queued up in lines around at least two sides of the Town Hall were, I suspect, many “Messiah veterans” as well as people who would have heard, one way or another, about the “good tidings”, and come to see and hear for themselves just what it was all about.

The last Messiah I heard was given by a different choir, the Tudor Consort, in this same hall two years ago, the differences in style and interpretation between that and the present approach a cause for endless fascination. I remember then actually sitting in the auditorium behind the conductor of the present “Messiah”, Michael Fulcher, for the Tudor Consort’s performance and wondering what his reactions were to Michael Stewart’s extremely  lean, clean-cut and vigorous interpretation of the whole. Of course I was now ideally placed to glean some of those reactions by dint of the present concert, albeit two years afterwards.

So – again a full hall, the same orchestra, a bigger choir than there was in 2008 (a most resplendent-sounding Orpheus Choir), and a very different line-up of soloists. Madeleine Pierard’s vocal beauty and polish easily stole the show on the earlier occasion, but this time the quartet was far more evenly-matched. Ana James was here a silvery-toned soprano, Helen Medlyn the characterful, dramatic mezzo-soprano, Keith Lewis the lyrical, occasionally heroic tenor, and Martin Snell a commanding, richly-toned bass. Conductor Michael Fulcher took a more traditional approach to the work than we heard in Michael Stewart’s hands, with steadier speeds throughout and more “orchestrated” dynamic contrasts in places, which I thought brought out the music’s grandeur and depth of feeling more consistently.

Of course the “swings and roundabouts” syndrome meant that this time round there wasn’t in places the same knife-edged excitement around and about the textures, and one or two of the choruses seemed to play themselves rather than be infused with fresh energies. But these differences were, of course, for the listener part of the meat and drink of the experience, of hearing a familiar work freshly realized, and revelling in the stimulation and resulting discussion that such a new realization gives. As with Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons, there doesn’t seem to me to be anything one can “do” to Messiah to blunt its effect – it’s one of those almost archetypal masterpieces of art which form an essential part of one’s understanding of human civilization in general.

To go through the performance and tease out every interpretative nuance would need an excess of world and time – any number of felicities could be cited as giving a sense of the whole, and the occasional frailty a timely reminder of the humanity of the enterprise. The soloists always generate great interest, and each of these performed with particular distinction. First up was, of course, tenor Keith Lewis, with his wonderfully poetic, liberally nuanced, yet still commanding, “Comfort Ye” (sounding not unlike a stylistically aware namesake from an earlier Handelian era, Richard Lewis), the voice opening up splendidly at “The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness”, freely declaiming (some would call it “mannered”) in places, but for me managing to suggest a compelling spontaneity of utterance. Not a heroic performance, then, but a fascinatingly stylish one – later, his voice demonstrated some frailty at the very top, with the cruel upward leaps of “Thou shalt break them” giving him some difficulty, though he had introduced the aria with a beautifully-realised recitative “He that dwelleth in heaven”.

What Helen Medlyn lacked in sheer vocal girth she made up for in both characterful expression and grave beauty of utterance – the capacity to tell a story was always evident in her singing. Her big number, “He was despised” was heartfelt and emotional at the beginning, then vehement and theatrical in the middle section, projecting the text with her articulation rather than any great power. I liked her allowing some melodic decoration at the opening’s reprise, while keeping intact the aria’s essential simplicity. The same went for her  “But who may abide”, her voice assuming an almost Greek-chorus-like solemnity at the beginning, and then using sharply-focused diction to depict the “refiner’s fire”. Though occasionally having to force her tone, as in parts of “Thou art gone up on high”, her duet with Keith Lewis “O death, where is thy sting?” was put across with engaging energy and spirit.

Vocal girth was what Martin Snell’s bass voice had in abundance, but also great agility and splendid focus throughout. His dramatic experience was evident in his word-pointing at the declamatory “Thus saith the Lord”, though it must be said his runs on the word “shake” were more considered than really seismic. Despite the disappointingly bland orchestral introduction at “For, behold, darkness shall cover the earth”, Snell evoked the gloom magnificently, arching his voice vigorously at “glory”, and summoning the light with great surety. I thought “The people that walked” a shade quick, but singer and orchestra really made something of the words “have seen a great light”. For energy and vigour at a crackling pace, singer and orchestra again sparked from off each other at “Why do the Nations?”, while “The trumpet shall sound” has surely never sounded more assertive and assured in the hall as here on this occasion, with stellar playing from trumpeter Barrett Hocking throughout, fully matching the singing’s grandeur of utterance.

Youngest of the soloists, soprano Ana James nevertheless brought plenty of concert and operatic experience to her task, displaying a bright, silvery soprano voice which charmed at her first entrance “There were shepherds…”, quickened the listener’s interest at “And the angel said unto them….”, and brightly and eagerly scintillated at the words “And suddenly there was with the angel…” It was a sound that contrasted well with Helen Medlyn’s warmly involving tones in “Come unto him all ye that labour”, but really blossomed with “How beautiful are the feet”, the orchestra matching their soloist with beguiling instrumental beauty. Inevitably, everybody waits for two moments in Messiah, one of which is “I know that my Redeemer liveth” – here, Ana James spun her line out beautifully, surviving a touch of awkwardness at a breath-taking moment (literally) at “upon the earth” the first time round, and enchanting us with tasteful embellishments at the main theme’s reprise, with a beautiful stepwise ascent on the word “Redeemer”.

Michael Fulcher’s work with the Orpheus Choir made for many richly sonorous moments and some exciting contrasts in places – the “other” moment in the work, of course is “Halleluiah!”, which here was wonderful in every way. I confess that every time I’m taken by surprise when people leap to their feet for this chorus, and on each occasion it’s an exhilarating experience – the sudden irruptions of timpani and brass (trumpeters Barrett Hocking and Tom Moyer, and timpanist Laurence Reese on tiptop form) never fail to raise goosebumps! But conductor and choir made the most of the other big festive numbers as well, glorious soprano sounds in both “And the glory of the Lord” and “And He shall purify”, and all sections relishing their upward-thrusting lines and their concerted acclamations in “For unto us a Child is born”. I didn’t feel quite enough was made of the contrasting sections of “Since by man came death”, beautifully prepared for by the choir’s hushed opening tones, but needing a bit more attack at “by man came also the resurrection…”, though “even so in Christ” did seem sharper and better-focused. And while “The Lord gave the word” seemed to me to have a dogged quality throughout, elsewhere there was a real sense of the music invariably taking the performers and listeners somewhere. I liked, for instance, the building-up of the “Amen” chorus from tones of quiet confidence at the beginning to sounds of the utmost splendor at the end – beautifully and grandly achieved.

Working hand-in-glove with the singers throughout was the Wellington Orchestra, sounding ever stylish and rising magnificently to the occasion of those resplendent moments. There was the occasional moment where I felt the players weren’t being asked for anything special, such as at the beginning of “For, behold…”, which was more dull than gloom-laden; and some people would have thought that the string scintillations at “And suddenly” were workmanlike rather than celestial. But from the opening of Part Two, with the stern focus of the accompaniment at “Behold the Lamb of God” the concentration of the playing was palpable and arresting; and the strings’ accompaniment to “He was despised” beautifully echoed the singer’s pathos and dignity. And for energy and excitement the sizzling orchestral momentum at “Why do the nations?” really delivered the goods, underlining the contrasting grandeur of the playing throughout “Hallelujah” and during those final choruses.

The standing ovation at the end of what was a fairly long haul, was a richly deserved one – a heartfelt response to richly-committed music-making from all concerned.

Douglas Mews organ recital before a Bach Cantata at Lutheran vespers

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Organ recital of pieces by Bach, Pachelbel, CPE Bach and Byrd and Bach Cantata BWV 161, ‘Komm du süsse Todesstunde’

 

Douglas Mews (organ) and Musica Lyrica – baroque voices and instruments  

 

St Paul’s Lutheran Church, King Street, Mount Cook, Wellington 

 

Sunday 12 September, 4pm

 

We are in the middle of National Organ Month. There have been a number of very fine recitals on many of the more important organs in the city, but one has been conspicuously silent.

The Wellington Town Hall organ.

 

It’s specially surprising when a CD of Douglas Mews, City Organist, playing that great organ has just been released by a British recording company, part of a series devoted to the great organs of Australasia.

 

So where has City Organist Douglas Mews been?

On Sunday he played the (rather fine) organ of the little Lutheran Church of St Paul in Mount Cook, off Adelaide Road. Not where you might expect to find the City Organist during the main organ festival of the year. But what do you do if they take away the key to your instrument?

 

I am told the reason is that the Wellington City Council had declined to support the event, and that furthermore, the council had postponed all routine maintenance on the organ this year. We haven’t spoken to Douglas Mews on the subject, but wonder whether his honorarium has likewise been suspended….

 

What’s the Council doing????

Might be worth asking Mayor Prendergast for her comment at an appropriate electoral meeting.

Wellington – Cultural Capital? Yeah, Right!

 

As well as his role as City Organist, Douglas Mews is keyboard specialist (particularly harpsichord, fortepiano and organ) at the New Zealand School of Music. He played an hour-long recital on the St Paul’s two-manual Dutch organ, before the church’s Vespers service; a service which customarily includes a performance of a Bach cantata within the liturgy. The organ recital consisted almost entirely of German music of around the Bach era.  

 

It began with one of Bach’s arrangements of other composers’ concertos – there are a lot, numbered from BWV 972 to 987. This one was from an oboe concerto by Alessandro Marcello, BWV 974 (there’s possibly another one, BWV 977, by Alessandro’s brother, the better known Benedetto). Its lack of any specially memorable tunes explains its neglect, but it offered an excellent vehicle for Mews’s decorative facility, his taste and his flair for investing this lovely little instrument, ideally suited to the size of the church, with tonal variety and musical humanity.

 

A piece by Pachelbel followed – an Aria Sebaldina from a collection called Hexachordum Apollinis, six arias published in 1699. According to Wikipedia it ‘is generally regarded as one of the pinnacles of Pachelbel’s oeuvre’. Not a complex contrapuntal piece, rather a set of colourful, mainly transparent variations that exercised the organ’s flute stops attractively.

 

The odd-piece-out was a Sonata by C P E Bach, conspicuously of a later era, filled with his irregular phrases, seeming pointedly to avoid the composing styles of his predecessors, chiefly of his father; rather intriguing.

 

An exhibition of the organ’s excellent flute and piccolo stops came with Byrd’s account of the medieval song, Carmen’s Whistle; before a return to Bach proper – the Fugue in G minor, BWV 578, known as the ‘Little Fugue’ – ‘Little’ to distinguish it from the ‘Great Fantasia and Fugue in G minor’, BWV 542, which is longer. Leopold Stokowski arranged BWV 578 for orchestra and it’s recently been recorded by the Bournmouth Symphony Orchestra. It gave us the chance to hear more of the reed stops of the organ. 

 

During the Vespers service which followed Mews’s recital, there is always the singular spectacle of the pastor, Mark Whitfield, who moves between priestly activities, vocal offerings as cantor, and occasionally organist.

 

The principal music attraction however, was Bach’s Cantata BWV 161, performed with the baroque ensemble Musica Lyrica and four voices – Rowena Simpson, Katherine Hodge, John Beaglehole and David Morriss.

 

The ensemble was the same as had played a fortnight earlier and reviewed on this website – 29 August. Plus Cellist Emma Goodbehere who, it will be recalled, had departed on that occasion after a minor accident with her cello, now returned with her cello repaired to provide a most welcome string texture to the bass lines.

 

Not a well-known cantata, the performance was charming, with fine solos from soprano Rowena Simpson, alto Katherine Hodge and tenor John Beaglehole. The voices together with recorders and baroque violins, viola and cello turned a morbid text – ‘Komm du süsse Todesstunde’ – into a good time, which was the way the church, naturally, would have it.

 

In all, an excellent place to bear in mind for an empty end of a Sunday afternoon.

 

Magnificent Tudor Consort in Schütz and Domenico Scarlatti

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

The Tudor Consort: A German Requiem

Schütz: Musikalische Exequien, Op. 7
Domenico Scarlatti: Stabat Mater

St. Mary of the Angels Church

Saturday, 4 September, 8 pm

Despite the programme stating that the concert was at Sacred Heart Cathedral, it did take place in the suitably more ornate and comfortable (though cold) St Mary of the Angels, with its excellent acoustics.  There was a large and appreciative audience.

A small instrumental ensemble (Emma Goodbehere, cello, Richard Hardie, bass, Steve Pickett, theorbo, Douglas Mews, organ, and Donald Nicolson, harpsichord) accompanied the choir; the conductor was Matthew Leese (brother of Anna), who is currently studying and working in Illinois.  He is in New Zealand to conduct what is probably the first production in this country of  Monterverdi’s  Orfeo, widely considered to be the first genuine opera.  It is to be performed in Dunedin, where Matthew studied for his undergraduate music degree, as part of the Otago Festival, next month.

Before the concert began, Michael Stewart (the regular conductor of the Consort) gave a short talk about the works to be performed.   He discussed Luther’s reforms, and the difference between the latter’s view of death and the Catholic view (this in a Catholic church!).  He referred to the possibility that Brahms had modelled his Ein Deutsches Requiem on this work of  Schütz, the score of which Brahms apparently had in his library.

The Musikalisches Exequien were composed for the funeral of Count Heinrich Posthumous Reuss in 1635. The work intersperses Biblical verses with poetic meditations, alternately utilising chorale settings and solo passages with continuo.  The work consists of Kyrie and Gloria, Motet (‘Herr, wenn ich nur Dich habe’) and the canticle Nunc Dimittis.  The work was entirely in German,  including the introductory plainsong.

The work opened with the instruments, whose sound was quite gorgeous.  However, in this movement it took a little time for the ten singers to penetrate through the instrumental sound.  When they did, they produced a lovely sound.  A few notes were not quite spot on, but as the concert progressed, intonation and timbre were mostly perfect.  An unusual feature was that the conductor also sang, as one of the basses.

A solo section in the Kyrie, ‘Siehe, das ist Gottes Lamm’, was beautifully sung by tenor Dan Carberg.

The Gloria did not sound particularly gloryifying, being made up mainly of texts contemplating the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.  Variety in expression was achieved by solos interspersed with choral sections, and some solos having organ and cello accompaniment only.

Another fine tenor solo, ‘Ach, wie elend ist unser Zeit’, was from Dan Carberg  from the United States, although there were a few rum notes.  (He will sing the main role in Orfeo.)

The motet, ‘Herr wenn ich nur Dich habe’ had the choir reformed into two choirs.  This was a lively rhythmically and harmonically strong piece, quite in contrast to the previous more contrapuntal music, that wove its way beautifully around the space.

The last part of the canticle ‘Nunc Dimittis’, (which in English would be ‘Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord’) was set for a main five-part choir, while two sopranos, one bass and the theorbo removed to the side-chapel to create a antiphonal effect, though their music was no mere echo.  It was inevitable that one would think of Brahms’s beautiful setting of these same words.

The choir was accomplished as always, but there was not a lot of dynamic variation in the music, compared with the Scarlatti that followed.  Matthew Leese’s beat was clear, and the blend of the voices excellent.  I felt that some of the bass parts were a little low for his voice and also for that of the other bass, meaning that the sound was not the best quality that they were capable of.

The Stabat Mater was surprisingly cheerful, given its subject, compared with those of Pergolesi and others.   The second movement, ‘Cujus animam’, featured gorgeous harmonies and a lovely organ part played by Douglas Mews.  The balance of the instruments was somewhat of a difficulty throughout the work.  I could sometimes hear the cello when all instruments were playing, because often its part was doubled on the bass, but not always.  The harpsichord came through quite well (it was not used in every movement), but despite my sitting almost at the front of the church, I very seldom heard the theorbo.   Its quiet timbre simply did not penetrate through the sound of the other instruments and the singers – or through the music stand.

The choir produced superb tone in the third movement, ‘Quis non posset’, depicting the feeling of the words, describing Mary seeing her son scourged and dying.  This was especially true of the tenors.  Soaring contrapuntal lines seemed to weave in and out of the architecture of the church, with its arches and pillars, in the fifth movement ‘Sancta mater’; it ended with an exquisite cadence.

The ‘Inflammatus’ eighth movement excitedly demonstrated the theme.  Tenor Carberg and soprano Erin King were very accomplished, singing these fast passages.  The complex final movement was a tour de force of 10 solo singers rather than choir.

Balance was good through most of the concert, though in the last two movements, two sopranos were a little too strong for the rest of the choir, at least from my position.  Another disadvantage was that since Matthew Leese was both conducting and singing, his position meant he had his back to people on the right-hand side of the church a great deal of the time.

Heartfelt applause greeted the end of the concert; one could only say ‘Bravo!’ to another magnificent performance by the Tudor Consort.

Good Taste in the Art of Musick: Geminiani at St Paul’s Lutheran

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Songs and sonatas from Scotland, by Geminiani

Musica Lyrica: Dougals Mews, Rowena Simpson, Kamala Bain, Brendan O’Donnell, Shelley Wilkinson, Peter Walls, Ann Goodbehere

St Paul’s Lutheran Church, King Street, Mount Cook 

Sunday 29 August 5pm

This concert was advertised as part of St Paul’s Lutheran Church’s regular concerts, many of them associated with the church’s normal vespers services, when Bach cantatas, eventually all of them, are performed.

But this was different.

Peter Walls (in other lives, Professor of Music at Victoria University and now CEO of the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra) had talked during the week on RNZ Concert’s Upbeat, and in his introduction to the concert, about its nature and aim, offering interesting bits of scholarship about violin practice as well as about the byways of music in 18th century Britain.

The great Italian violinist and composer, Geminiani, a leading pupil of Corelli, had moved to London in 1714 and developed an interest in Scottish folk music. As well as his treatise on violin playing, which gave its name to this concert, he collected a large number of folk songs in a volume called Orpheus Caledoniensis.

But before the concert could start, cellist Emma Goodbehere, had a mishap with her baroque cello, damaging the finger board, and she had to withdraw from the performance. It left a number of the songs and instrumental pieces short of bass substance, and caused the dropping of the Cello Sonata, Op 5 No 2, which would have been the major instrumental piece.

But the rest of the concert was pure delight. Soprano Rowena Simpson took all the song parts, and she decorated her lines with the most natural sounding ornaments as her voice proved an idiomatic vehicle for these fresh and melodic songs. They made it easy to understand how the folk songs of Scotland later became such hot property, encouraging publishers to commission composers like Haydn and Beethoven to make arrangements of them. 

Typically, the song was performed first, and then followed by a sonata based on it, using Peter Walls and Shelley Wilkinson on violins, or treble recorders* (Kamala Bain and Brendan O’Donnell) plus a continuo that was provided by Douglas Mews at the harpsichord and Ann Goodbehere on the viola.

Kamal Bain played a descant recorder* with  a couple of items and these were quite disarming, especially for one who has never felt very drawn to the instrument.  Her playing was fluent and utterly charming; without too much effort the sound of the bagpipe could be imagined.

The last of the Sonatas, based on ‘The last Time I came o’er the Moor’ used the two violins which elaborated on the song even more that the voice itself had, and it ended with a postlude the led to a graceful slow dance.

Bear these concerts in mind for a late Sunday afternoon: the standard of music making is very high.

*We had the sizes of the recorders wrong in the original review. The sizes here are now correct (L.T. 3.09.10)

“Johann Sebastian – Mighty Bach!” from Orpheus

Posted on by Peter Mechen

J.S.BACH – Mass in B Minor

Madeleine Pierard, Lisette Wesseling (sopranos) / Christopher Warwick (counter-tenor) / Paul McMahon (tenor) / Daniel O’Connor (bass)

Orpheus Choir

Vector Wellington Orchestra

Michael Fulcher (conductor)

Wellington Town Hall

Sunday 22nd August, 2010

Because JS Bach’s Mass in B Minor is such an established part of the choral repertoire, it’s interesting to reflect on the somewhat piecemeal origins of the work – as an entity it was assembled by the composer in 1749, one year before his death, but parts of it were actually composed up to almost thirty years before, with some of these parts intended for other works – the Sanctus dates from 1724, and the Kyrie and Gloria come from 1733, used by the composer in one of his “Lutheran” Masses – though ironically the Latin settings suggest the Catholic liturgy as much as the Lutheran. Bach had composed this earlier Mass for the new Catholic Elector of Saxony, at whose court he had hoped to get an appointment as court composer (he got the job!). Opinions among scholars differ as to the likely dates of composition of the rest of the B Minor Mass – most are agreed that the work took its final shape throughout the 1740s, though the Credo setting continues to divide opinion regarding its origin in time and place.

What has all of this got to do with the performance we heard on Sunday of the Mass given by the Orpheus Choir and the Vector Wellington Orchestra, with an excellent team of soloists, all directed by Michael Fulcher? Well, it’s just that, despite this somewhat checquered compositional assemblage, the mighty work continued to amaze and inspire and profoundly satisfy on practically all counts. The performance was a splendid achievement, taking into account the usual “settling-in” period from both choir and orchestra, and a few glitches of the kind readily associated with live performance – once things started coming together there were places when a burnished glow came over both singing and playing. I thought the choir particularly good at maintaining those long-breathed sonorous melodic lines in the grander, more declamatory music – so the openings of each section of the work sounded particularly resplendent, with the women’s voices particularly strong and focused, and the men’s invariably characterful and accurate, though not as full-sounding. The orchestral soloists were, without exception a joy to hear; and once the rest of the players got into their conductor’s vigorous stride (the opening of the Gloria was a particularly breathless affair, especially for the brass), they were able to articulate the music with precise attack and homogenous tones.

What the work really does is present the listener (and performers) with a kind of compendium of Bach’s compositional styles and techniques, an assemblage that, thanks to the sheer composer-craft of technique and imagination of invention, sounds as though its constituent parts flow from one to another as if conceived in the same melting-pot at the same time. Neither its composer nor the performers or audiences of the time thought there was anything unusual about it or about how it was put together – baroque composers were so much less “purist” about their own music than we are about it, and Bach was no exception, if the genesis of this Mass is anything to go by. While the work doesn’t in my view achieve the variety of invention and profundity of feeling that do the two major Passions, St.John and St.Matthew, it still tests the technical skill and interpretative depth of any musician involved with its performance.

A lot of focus was centred on soprano Madeleine Pierard, whose activities overseas, particularly in the operatic field, give an impression of a career developing steadily and rewardingly. She made a delightful impression on a previous return visit to Wellington in 2008 to sing in “Messiah”, and was just as vocally attractive and interpretatively insightful on this occasion. The singer gave Bach’s lines a wonderful mixture of strength, purity and emotion that really made the music come alive, the technical accomplishment she’s already achieved allowing her to concentrate on the text and the line and their interaction to make an expressive effect.The difference this time round, apart from that of the music, was in the quality of her soloist colleagues in this concert, enabling her as a matter of course to engage with them in equal partnerships, true give-and-take affairs that brought out the best in the participants.

As second soprano, Lisette Wesseling brought her own distinctive tones to both ensemble pieces and solos, making a fine job of the lovely “Laudamus te” from the “Gloria” (even at Michael Fulcher’s lively tempo, phrasing her lines with elegance and grace), and earlier blending characterfully with Madeleine Pierard in the “Christe eleison”. Australian tenor Paul McMahon contributed a similarly interactive role with Pierard in a gorgeously-sung “Domine Deus”, also from the “Gloria”. Here, and also with McMahon’s lovely singing of the “Benedictus” from the “Sanctus”, flutist Karen Batten won our hearts with some lovely, limpid playing, generating with the singers many subtle light-and-shade gradations of tone and phrasing.

I recently heard counter-tenor Christopher Warwick sing in the Wellington performance of the Monteverdi Vespers, and was impressed on that occasion by his ability to hold long lines of true tone with real quality – and it was that ability he brought to his singing of the “Agnus Dei”, as well as contributing, plangently and long-breathedly, to the duet with Madeleine Pierard from the Credo “Et in unum Dominum”. He was less comfortable with his first solo, “Qui sedes ad dexteram Patris”, one whose slightly awkward intervals gave him the occasional pitching problem – but his contribution to the general ensemble was most estimable.

Yet another soloist to give pleasure was the bass Daniel O’Connor, whose focused, agile singing was nicely set off by the horn obbligato in the Gloria’s “Quoniam tu solus sanctus”, and again by some lovely instrumental work in “Et in spiritum sanctum” from the “Credo”, this time with a pair of oboe d’amore adding their lines in thirds and carolling a memorable refrain. It was somewhat diverting to experience such deep, sonorous tones coming from so youthful-looking a figure, but nevertheless one who obviously has great potential as a performer, and who can already hold his own in more experienced company.

The performance took place in the Wellington Town Hall, which couldn’t be a better venue as regards sound. Bach would have written this music for performing in a church, but one suspects that he expected the focus to be well and truly on the music, considering the care he took and the intricacies that he created – he obviously meant these to be heard rather than delivered in a matter-of-fact way as a background to something else happening. In the Wellington Town Hall the acoustic was perfect for the work – a warm and rich sound that nevertheless allowed detail to come through. And there’s something about the venue – I think it’s partly the sound, but also the  “shoebox” shape of the auditorium – that encloses you and makes you feel as though you’re in the same performing space as the musicians, which gives the music-making a greater sense of intimacy. The Orpheus Choir’s performance was one that first and foremost sounded good, given that Bach’s part-writing is extremely demanding, and often written for voices as though he didn’t expect them to need to breathe – so the occasional loss of tone in the more torturous contrapuntal part-lines was something which a lot of performers experience when undertaking this work. And the Wellington Orchestra, after a bit of a scratchy start, gave the music a warm, richly-toned instrumental response throughout. Michael Fulcher kept everything together with great skill – he liked swifter speeds in places than I wanted, most notably in the “Laudamus te” which almost EVERYBODY I’ve heard, both in live performance and on record, goes too fast (Mathew Ross, his violin soloist for this performance, coped with the tumbling figurations most skilfully) – but his choir and his singers and players were almost invariably equal to the task, giving us a strong and direct realisation of this marvellous, somewhat quirky work of “Johann Sebastian – mighty Bach!”.