Tag: baroque music

Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Pergolesi Stabat Mater, with sacred music from the baroque

Felicity Smith (mezzo soprano)  with Richard Apperley (organ), Rowena Simpson (soprano), Claire Macfarlane (violin), Jenna Pascoe (violin), Michael Joel (viola) and Kat Thompson (cello)

St Peter’s Church, Willis Street

Friday, 2 July 2010

Over recent weeks Felicity Smith has demonstrated her expertise in several periods of music, in a lunch-hour concert in Lower Hutt and at the Concours de Chanson French-language song competition.  Her clear, flexible voice suited the baroque repertoire particularly well.

Accompaniment for the items in the first half was provided by a chamber organ, which made scrumptious sounds under the expert hands of Richard Apperley.  His playing was sublime, and musically supportive.

The opening hymn by Purcell, Lord, what is man? was quite lovely, and gave the audience a taste of what would be a treat throughout the concert: the splendid acoustics of the church.  The voices and instruments equally were able to achieve wonderful tone and resonance.

Schütz‘s two Kleine geistliche Konzerte were delivered with clarity and musicality.

An Evening Hymn by Purcell was given a thoroughly convincing performance by both musicians.  Words were clear and well articulated.

An instrumental interlude followed, with the four string players performing Corelli’s ‘Christmas Concerto’, his concerto grosso in G minor, Op.6 no.8.  This is quite a familiar piece, but normally played by a chamber orchestra.  Here, the use of only four instruments gave great clarity, and the acoustics enhanced the sound so that one did not miss the additional instruments.

Although the players were not using baroque instruments or bows, they played in a baroque style, with not too much vibrato, and bright, strong rhythms.

The work features movements of varying tempi and dynamics, concluding with a lovely, lilting pastorale. This was a very enjoyable performance.

The next work was Première leçon de Tenebres pour le Mercredi Saint by François Couperin.  The singers alternated in singing the verses, the translations for which, as for the Schütz, were printed in the programme.  Again, clarity and sonority were characteristics of the performance.  Trills and runs were expertly executed by both singers, who brought out the word-painting of the composer, and sang appropriately in French Latin rather than the Italianate version to which we are more accustomed.  The string players were always in touch with the nuances and timing of the singers.

The major work, the Pergolesi, occupied the second half of the concert.  A most attractive work which is heard reasonably frequently, it is an astonishing composition for someone who died at 26 years of age.  The organ and strings were superb, both on their own and as accompaniment to the singers, while the latter blended beautifully and took their cues carefully, as did the players.  This was performance of a very high calibre.

The words and their translations were printed, and were marked as to which verses were for soprano, alto, or duo.  Some of the duo movements were quite complex, but appeared to hold no fears for the performers.  The last alto solo revealed good contralto tone from Felicity Smith.  Rowena Simpson’s voice was glorious; she uses her facial resonators well, and one hopes to hear more of her singing.

Throughout, pronunciation and enunciation were excellent.  It was a solemn yet appealing work, with a joyful Amen to finish with.

There was rather a small audience present, which was a great pity; this was  concert of professional standard, in a church with a wonderfully alive sound – but cold!

Felicity should do well in her study at the Royal College of Music in London, for the associated costs this concert was a fund-raiser.  All will wish her well for her future career.

Venetian Carnival with the Wallfisch Band – Wellington

Posted on by Peter Mechen

Eizabeth Wallfisch (violin), director / Raquel Massadas (viola) / Jaap ter Linden (‘cello) / Albert-Jan Roelofs (harpsichord)

with:

Miranda Hutton, Kate Goodbehere, Shelley Wilkinson, Lara Hall, James Andrewes (violins) / Fiona Haughton (viola) / Emma Goodbehere (‘cello) / Rchard Hardie (double-bass)

LOCATELLI – Concerto in F Op.4 No.8 (à immatatione de Corni da Caccia) / Concerto in F for 4 violins and strings Op.4 No.12 / Concerto Grosso in E-flat Op.7 No.6 (Il pianto d’Arianna) / Concerto in D for violin and strings Op.3 No.1

VIVALDI – Concerto in D for 2 violins and 2 ‘cellos RV564 / Concerto in A Minor for violin and strings RV356 (L’estro armonico) / Concerto in A for 2 violins and strings RV519

Wellington Town Hall

Thursday 20th May 2010

Elizabeth Wallfisch is one of the great “characters” of early music performance world-wide, as her inspirational skills, enthusiasm, and down-to-earth sense of fun as a performer amply demonstrated in the Wallfisch Band’s recent Wellington Town Hall concert. This was no ordinary event featuring a standard “touring ensemble”, but the most recent in a series of projects by the Band, the idea for which was begun by Wallfisch in 2008. This was to bring together a core group of skilled seasoned performers and a number of promising younger players as a kind of “living masterclass” experience for the young musicians involving a number of concert performances by the ensemble as part of the experience.

The results were astonishing, the young New Zealanders responding to the challenge of matching the technical excellences and musicianship of the experienced players with well-founded poise and confidence, and in places, heart-warming élan. Under these circumstances the playing naturally lacked in places the seamless technical polish of crack professional ensembles; but there was not a jot of routine or an unmotivated gesture in the music-making throughout the evening. And moulding everything together with the strength of her leadership and warmth of her personality was the remarkable Elisabeth Wallfisch, a wonderfully star-spangled presence in tight-fitting trousers whose silvery scintillations probably drew as much audience attention as did her remarkable playing, an effect heightened by the player’s standing throughout and frequently moving across the platform to a microphone to talk to her audience (as a result of these uncharacteristic extra-musical musings, I look forward to the reproving “Letters to the Editor”!).

Speaking about the Band’s “masterclass” arrangement, Wallfisch had nothing but praise for the young players in the ensemble, on the face of things a somewhat predictable tribute, but one which her straight-from-the-shoulder manner, and the subsequent performances richly upheld. She said at one point, “We worked them hard!”, and I’ve no doubt that the musicians in question would have experienced, both individually and corporally, a unique kind of enrichment by association that no amount of conventional teaching could have approached.

To the uninitiated, the concert’s programme might have seemed on the face of it to be made up of pleasant but somewhat unvaried fare – all strings for one, and each work possibly difficult to distinguish from Vivaldi’s “Four Seasons” concerti. However, Elizabeth Wallfisch set the scene for the distinctive qualities of the concert’s first item, by Pietro Locatelli, describing the opening as depicting “the mist rising over the lagoon”. The group beautifully built up layers of tone and impulses of animation as the music did its work of steeping our sensibilities in the glory that was, and still is, Venice. Further, more vigorous episodes found the players emphasizing an engaging out-of-doors flavour, with slashing szforzandi and vigorous attack suggesting rustic pursuits such as horse-riding and hunting. So, on the face of it, very like the “Four Seasons” concerti, one could say, except that Locatelli’s compositional style seemed more volatile and narrative-based than Vivaldi’s – less “pure” as music, but more anecdotal and unpredictable. As the group alternated Locatelli’s and Vivaldi’s works throughout the concert, one had the opportunity to instantly compare the two varied compositional methods.

Vivaldi’s Concerto for Two Violins and Two ‘Cellos which followed featured plenty of melismatic duo work between the “pairs” of instruments. The violins’ articulation seemed almost a blur at the rapid speed set by the leader, an effect which the composer presumably wanted! The interplay between solo instruments was filled throughout with effects such as echo and canonic imitation, the duo pairings seeming to hunt as such to give each other support. Another concerto featuring four soloists was Locatelli’s for four violins Op.4 No.12, a work described by Elizabeth Wallfisch as “an acrobatic concerto of danger and excitement”, and one which certainly lived up to its description, most notably in the finale, with its rapid phrase-passing from instrument to instrument. Though the articulation was occasionally uneven between the players in the most quick-fire exchanges, the spirit never flagged, and the timbral differences between instruments, laid bare by such an exercise, were fascinating to register.

Such was the overall bonhomie of the occasion, that Elizabeth Wallfisch’s repeated attempts to sound the top note of one of her opening phrases in the Vivaldi A Minor concerto from “L’Estro Armonico” which followed met with great amusement and interest from the audience. I notoiced that Wallfisch’s tone, though largely vibrato-less, remained warm and pliable throughout this work, a sound somewhat removed from the steely, bloodless pin-pointed lines one finds on most recordings of baroque string instruments these days, a playing-style I confess I find it almost impossible to abide, “authentic” or no.

The Locatelli Concerto Op.7 No.6 that immediately followed the interval was a depiction in music of the Greek myth of “Ariadne on Naxos” – Wallfisch told us the music would depict calm seas turning tempestuous, deep lamentations as Ariadne is abandoned, and a tragic ending. Certainly the music’s descriptive and narrative capacities rivalled any such sequence in Vivaldi’s “Four Seasons”, the playing by the ensemble making the most of the composer’s penchant for richly-wrought narrative textures. As cautioned, we were ready for the work’s conclusion when it came, a heart-rending single, rapt, long-held note gradually merging with a pitiless silence. After that we needed something a bit more ebullient, and Vivaldi came to our rescue with his Op.3 No.5 Concerto for Two Violins, with its brilliant, varied interchange between the soloists, the music’s volatility suggesting that Vivaldi could occasionally sound like Locatelli.. This was so brilliantly brought off that the group chose to encore the finale at the end of the concert.

But it was Locatelli who brought the scheduled music-making to its conclusion with his Op.3 No.2 Violin Concerto, Elizabeth Wallfisch making the point before this work was played that the composer had a reputation for a certain roughness of manner as a player, and that he tended to wear out his bowstrings before anybody else. It may have been due to tiredness that Wallfisch had a couple of intonation lapses in the first movement and seemed actually to lose her poise for a second or two just before the cadenza, though her ensuing filigree “soft as a whisper” playing could hardly be faulted. The slow movement featured some high-wire decorative work by the soloist, along with one or two confidently-played portamenti, a startling effect to these ears!  Still, it was in the finale that the virtuoso element was explored in all its “baroque-like” glory – Locatelli’s high writing required a spooky, almost skeletal effect, a distinctive timbre which the soloist brought off wonderfully, if not without the occasional spill – the cadenza allowed Wallfisch to conspire with the audience via a knowing look and a sudden plunge back into further complex figurations after the orchestra had readied itself for the expected cadential entry – all tremendous fun, and thrown off with great verve. The aforementioned encore rightly refocused our attention upon the collaborative nature of the music-making that had been such a distinctive and memorable feature of the concert.

Bravo, the Wallfisch Band and its associates for a splendid evening!

Musica Lyrica in the 17th and 18th centuries

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Musica Lyrica

A concert embracing visiting Auckland cellist/gambist Polly Sussex, of music the 17th and 18th centuries. By Jean-Baptiste Barrière, Johan Jakob Froberger, Joseph-Hector Fiocco, Handel, Buxtehude and Anon. 

Rowena Simpson (soprano), Shelley Wilkinson (baroque violin), Emma Goodbehere (baroque cello), Douglas Mews (harpsichord) and Polly Sussex (cello, piccolo cello and viola da gamba)

Hunter Council Chamber, Victoria University

Wednesday 21 April 6.30pm

Perhaps this concert was presented by the New Zealand School of Music because Polly Sussex was in town; she had played in the weekend with the baroque/classical ensemble Musica Lyrica at St Paul’s Lutheran church in Mount Cook. Sussex teaches at Auckland University and has an international reputation as a specialist in the early cello and viola da gamba. The ensemble, formed with the support of the church to perform Bach cantatas in their original Lutheran setting, comprises a total of about 15 musicians, varying according to requirements. 

In its advertising the concert was characterized by a Latin proverb Musica laetitiae comes medicina dolorum (music is a companion to joy and a balm of sorrow). No one can quarrel with any attempt to keep a vestige of Latin alive now that it has been almost entirely banished from the New Zealand school system (I heard that only 25 candidates sat Latin for NCEA Level One, alias School Certificate, last year).

The Hunter Council Chamber – the former main library that was socially central to students of my era, laid out with book-lined alcoves and shelves rising to the ceiling on all walls, reached by two levels of narrow iron gangways – may now be visually bereft, but it offers excellent acoustics for small instrumental ensembles though not so good for an orchestra.

The players presented a pretty sight. In addition to the delicately adorned harpsichord, a viola da gamba with a body of contrasting laminations and a cello, lay on the floor. While a piccolo cello and a normal cello were in thee hands of Polly Sussex and Emma Goodbehere, the two string players for the first piece, by Barrière. Barrière lived in Paris in the 18th century in the early years of Louis XV and became a virtuoso cellist.

The two cellos created a sound blend that I had never heard before, flowing harmonies that combined their voices in an utterly enchanting way. I was surprised by the sound of the piccolo cello, distinctly more open and sweet than many violas, and less nasal than the typical cello played high up the finger-board.

The Sonata II a tre, for piccolo cello, cello and harpsichord, comprised four short movements, some treating the two in canon, some as a normal duet. There was nothing complex or musically rich, but much that was technically tricky and quite charming.

Johan Jacob Froberger lived a century earlier, in Germany, Italy and England, and his influence was widespread, through Bach and Handel even perhaps to Mozart and Beethoven. It was a harpsichord Tombeau – a memorial honouring a dead person, in this case one M Blancrocher – that Douglas Mews played next. It offered an admirably warm and clear display of the sonorous possibilities and playing techniques of the harpsichord, in interesting harmonies: very slow and quite elaborate in conception.

Mews also played the famous last movement of Handel’s ‘Harmonious Blacksmith’ keyboard Suite in E.

Jean-Hector Fiocco was Belgian, a contemporary of Barrière. Soprano Rowena Simpson had the company of the two cellists and Mews in his Lamentatio prima which, according to the programme note, is a setting of Chapter 2 of the Book of Jeremiah. Rowena returned three years ago from years of study and singing in Holland and elsewhere in Europe and her voice projected confidently, reflecting that experience not simply in early music but also in dramatic interpretation; sustaining her breath over quite elaborate passages and handling decorations, including a cadenza near the end, with ease.

She also sang the next piece – a German aria of the 1720s by Handel: ‘In den angenehmen Büschen’. It was distinctly more modern sounding, though light in spirit and unlike his typical operatic writing of that time. The accompaniment of baroque violin (Shelley Wilkinson) and harpsichord however connected it clearly enough with an earlier era.

Then came a surprise: an anonymous viola da gamba sonata recently discovered in the Bodleian Library. Polly Sussex explained what was known of its provenance: found in 2006 in a collection, bearing the hallmarks of a French viol piece of the late 17th century, though described on the modern printed score as of Lübeck. It was pretty, exercised the player’s technique and the resources of the instrument, a normal seven-string bass viol of the time.

Finally Rowena Simpson returned, accompanied by Wilkinson, Sussex and Mews to sing Buxtehude’s cantata ‘Singet dem Herrn’, one of the few vocal works of this mainly organ composer. It exercised the musicians while proving most engaging, with undulating dynamics and attractive passages of tremolo or trilling.

It’s encouraging that such small, specialist ensembles keep arising around Wellington, evidencing the abundance of musical talent ready to take initiatives to attract audiences of both aficionados and newcomers to the genre in question. This ensemble has talent to spare.

Freiburg Baroque Orchestra – sounds from the Old World

Posted on by Peter Mechen

HAYDN – Symphony No.91 in E-flat Hob.1:91

MOZART – Concerto for Horn and Orchestra in E-flat K.495

MOZART – Symphony No.38 in D Major “Prague” K.504

Teunis van der Zwart (natural horn)

Freiburg Baroque Orchestra

Rene Jacobs, conductor

New Zealand International Festival of the Arts Concert

Wellington Town Hall

Wednesday 17th March, 7.30pm

Without a doubt, a Festival highlight – two concerts on consecutive evenings in the Town Hall by the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra with conductor Rene Jacobs gave local aficionados the chance to hear a crack European “authentic instrument” ensemble perform. Recent recordings, mostly on the Harmonia Mundi label, have already established something of the group’s and the conductor’s name and reputation in this country, and the concert programmes mirrored some of that repertoire, such as the Haydn and Mozart symphonies featured. And how interesting, for people both familiar with and as yet unaware of those recordings, to hear these live performances in a local context, in venues where we’re accustomed to hearing our own orchestras play.

My brief was the first of the two concerts; and although each was similar in format – Haydn Symphony/Mozart Concerto/Mozart Symphony – there would have been ample interest and variety for those fortunate enough to attend both.  Each Haydn symphony (No.92 in the second concert) would demonstrate the composer’s incredibly fertile invention and contrapuntal skills, the different Mozart concertos (the “Turkish” Violin Concerto featured on the second night) would bring out the specific instrumental character in each case; and having the “Jupiter” Symphony (Thursday) follow the “Prague” on the previous evening would, I think be a Mozart-lover’s heaven.

As much as I applaud in theory the work of “authenticists” who try to perform baroque, classical and early romantic music as the composers themselves would have heard it, I confess to finding the results in many cases disappointing, my pet dislike being pinched, vibrato-less string-playing in particular, a horror invariably compounded by impossibly rushed tempi and brusque phrasing – all of which is frequently served up in the name of “authenticity”. In the pioneering days of authentic baroque and classical performance many musicians seemed to be seized with a “born again” fervour in their rigid application of the “no vibrato” rule for either string players or singers. Fortunately, there’s been a degree of modification on the part of some of these performers in their playing style, allowing for some warmth and flexibility in a way that, to my ears, the music often cries out for. So, what kind of “authenticated” impression did the musicians from Freiburg make during their concert?

Tempi were generally swift, apart from the rather more relaxed interpretation of the Mozart Horn Concerto, whose trajectories gave both soloist and players plenty of time to “point” their phrases and make the most of the music. Mozart’s “Prague” Symphony went several notches more swiftly in its outer movements than I’ve ever heard it taken previously, to exhilarating effect, as the players still seemed to have ample time to phrase and point their accents. Perhaps having had a solo career as a singer, conductor Rene Jacobs was able to impart a flexible, “breathing” quality to the orchestra’s playing, in a way so as to make nothing seem unduly rushed – though I generally prefer slower tempi for this music, I found the performance of the “Prague ” Symphony on this occasion quite exhilarating. I’d never before heard the connections between this work and “Don Giovanni” so underlined, with great timpani irruptions and minor key explosions in the slow introduction to the work. Then, again like in Don Giovanni, the mood switches from tragedy to an “opera buffa” feeling with the allegro, energy spiced with great trumpet-and-timpani interjections.

Rene Jacobs got a “flowing river” kind of feeling from the slow movement’s opening, with winds full-throatedly singing out their contributions. I loved the D-major “drone’ sound mid-movement, lovely and rustic, bringing forth some lovely ambient timbres from the winds, and contrasting markedly with the darker, more dramatic utterances of the development and recapitualtion. The finale’s near-breakneck speed worked, thanks to the skills of the players, miraculously able to articulate their phrases at Jacobs’ urgent tempo, strings and winds even managing a giggle with the trill just before the fanfares at the end of the exposition. It was fun to listen to, while perhaps at once regretting that so much wonderful music was literally speeding by – thank heavens for the repeats, both of the exposition and the development, which means we got to enjoy those marvellously angular syncopations of the melody twice over!

Still, I enjoyed the Haydn Symphony that began the programme even more – there’s something abut the tensile strength and muscularity of this music that responds to vigorous treatment, more so, I think, than does Mozart’s. I thought the players produced a lovely colour throughout the introduction, which was followed by a fleet and flexible allegro, with unanimity from the strings and solo work from the winds that reminded me of Charles Burney’s oft-quoted remark concerning the Mannheim Orchestra of the time – “an army of generals” – even a mishap concerning a broken string of one of the violins disturbed the music not a whit!  A briskly-walking Andante featured beautiful phrasing from a solo basson at one point, and some exciting dynamic contrasts, the lively tempo enlivening the textures and giving the music a strong sense of shape. Even more sprightly was the Minuet, with whirling passagework for strings, and lovely “fairground” trio section, horns chuckling off the beat, and winds counterpointing the strings’ tune the second time round, and with a “nudge-wink” dash to the end. Again, in the finale, the players exhibited the capacity to nicely sound and phrase the music at rapid speeds, the rapid, hushed figurations creating real excitement and expectation, the infectious joy breaking out accompanied by whoops of joy from the horns and rollicking oom-pahs from the lower strings.

Just as life-enhancing was the well-known Mozart Horn Concerto K.495, the one whose finale was adapted by Michael Flanders and Donald Swann to perform in their “At the Drop of Another Hat” concerts. However, this performance had its own set of distinctions, largely through being played by a soloist using a valveless horn, of the kind that Mozart would have written the music for. I had never heard such an instrument played “live” before, and marvelled both at the sklll of the player, Teunis van der Zwat, and at the remarkably distinctive tones produced by his instrument – many of the notes sounded “stopped” or “pinched”, giving the sounds a kind of “other-worldly” ambience in places, quite pale but very characterful – a wonderful cadenza, with great low notes and lovely trills, and a final flourish that brought in the orchestra on a low chord before the cadence.

In the slow movement in particular, the scale passages brought out notes of different individual timbres so that the music had a kind of “layered” effect, almost antiphonal in places. I wondered to what extent the soloist deliberately engineered this effect with his hand-stopping, or whether the variegated timbres happened anyway when he played. His tones were quite withdrawn for a lot of the time, even in the finale, though he brought out an exciting rasping effect on the repeated triple-note patterns, and some nice out-of-door flourishes at the work’s end which pleased the punters immensely.

I should add that Rene Jacobs and the orchestra gave us a lovely bonus item, in fact the finale of the Haydn symphony programmed in the second concert, the “Oxford”. Its delicately-scampering opening measures and full-throttled tutti passages made the perfect “sweetmeat” encore – and, of course, was the perfect “taster” for those intending to go the following evening. Joyous, exhilarating playing, bringing out the music’s wit alongside its colour and brilliance – marvellous sounds, indeed, from the Old World.

Two Lunchtime concerts: Old St Paul’s and St Andrew’s on The Terrace

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

1. Richard Apperley (organ)

The German Chorale: Pieces by Mendelssohn, Buxtuhude, Reger, Kuhnau, Hauff, Böhm and Karg-Elert

Old St Paul’s, Tuesday 11 August

The scheduled performer at this free lunchtime concert, Michael Fulcher, organist at the Cathedral of St Paul, had to make an urgent trip to Australia and assistant cathedral organist Richard Apperley stepped in.

He drew mainly on the repertoire that his CV describes as his particular interest: Buxtehude and contemporary organ music, and there were side trips from those centres. For example, as well as music by Buxtehude himself, he played attractive examples of three other of his near contemporaries; but nothing closer to our own age than Reger and Karg-Elert, both of whom died in the first half of the 20th century.

The two Little Chorale Preludes (‘Lobe den Herrn’ and ‘O Haupt voll Blut und Wunden’) of Reger, were indeed short yet they served to whet my curiosity to hear more of this somewhat neglected composer’s organ music. Today, Karg-Elert’s organ works are even less known, though I heard his music, and his name stuck I my memory, when I was a student; and this Chorale Improvisation, ‘Nun danket alle Gott’ renewed my interest, though perhaps it’s not typical of the composer whose music is usually more impressionistic (listen to his Kaleidoscope, Op 144).

The recital started with Mendelssohn’s third organ sonata, music that I hear as too serious, too venerating of Bach and of the spirit of 19th century Protestant religion. I’ve tried, having started with a secondary school friend whose own interest in the organ at least educated me a bit to the mysteries of the remarkable instrument. He was learning the Mendelssohn sonatas and I tried my hand too but was not hooked.

However, this performance, employing bright registrations, interestingly flavoured with flute stops made a very good case for it, but the feel of seriously pious music looking backward was undeniable.

Four of the other pieces were from the generation before JS Bach. Two were famous as his mentors: The two chorale preludes by Buxtehude and Böhm had some of the intellect and formal shape of Bach but not the imprint of genius that most of Bach’s music bears. Richard Apperley’s playing provided them with clarity and sufficient tonal variety and complexity to excite interest.

It’s a while since I’d heard the organ at Old St Paul’s played in a formal recital. Having heard it played without much apparent appreciation of its strengths and weaknesses, and sensitivity to the acoustic of the church, it was a pleasure to hear it played with such discrimination and attention to both its character and to the space it has to emerge in.

2. Baroque Workshop, New Zealand School of Music

Music by Telemann, Willem de Fesch and Sweelinck.

Olga Gryniewicz (soprano); instrumentalists: Brendan O’Donnell (flute), Judy Guan (violin), Emma Goodbehere (cello), Tom Gaynor (harpsichord and rogan), Douglas Mews (harpsichord)

St Andrew’s on The Terrace. Wednesday 12 August 2009

The lunchtime concert on the following day was another chance to hear several of the most talented musicians in advanced stages of their studies at the New Zealand School of Music. Intentionally or not, all the music was of the 18th century or earlier; it started and finished with pieces by Telemann.

The first was a Fantasia (No 7 in D minor) for flute and violin (Brendan O’Donnell and Judy Guan). While O’Donnell played it on the recorder, which I felt robbed it of the slightly more interesting texture produced by the flute, the two soprano instruments were played so scrupulously, with such calm, that the experience was rather enchanting both in the gentle Alla francese and the faster Presto, of the character of a courante.

A close Dutch contemporary of Telemann, Willem de Fesch (even closer to Bach and Handel) wrote the next piece, a cello sonata that was played by Emma Goodbehere and Douglas Mews at the harpsichord. There was a slow prelude followed by a quick movement in common time and two minuets, a most accomplished performance adorned with tasteful ornaments that were kept grounded by a carefully balanced harpsichord.

An anonymous piece, rather slight, called the Duke of Norfolk or Paul’s Steeple was played by Judy Guan on the violin with cello and harpsichord continuo: a set of variations on a popular dance tune. Though the violin was a little too bright for its context, it was the violin’s piece and gave Guan another opportunity to display her instinct for and taste in early music.

Jan Pieter Sweelinck lived a full century before Telemann and Bach, one of the most important composers of his age, particularly in the development of the organ. Thomas Gaynor played his Variations on ‘Mein junges Leben hat ein End’ which had a lightness that rather belied its morbid subject. Considering the modest colour palette available on the church’s chamber organ, Gaynor invested it with great interest and variety.

A cantata by Telemann brought the concert to an end: ‘Lauter Wonne, lauter Freude’, accompanied by recorder which had well articulated, ear-catching figures at several points, cello and with Gaynor on the harpsichord. Olga Gryniewicz (whom we heard singing the role of Iris in Semele a few weeks before) was the soprano soloist. It was good to hear her in another setting, her voice comfortable if a little tight, evincing some production problems, in the high register, agile, with a quick vibrato under good control.

Her performance was vivacious, the arias expressive, as if she really meant what she was singing, her recitatives dramatic, committed. In the second aria she created striking contrasts between moments of laughter and lamenting. She conveys youthful delight in performance, which transmits immediately to her audience. However, for all Gryniewicz’s accomplished performance, the success of the cantata rested just as much with the instrumentalists accompanying her.

Musica Sacra: first of three baroque concerts

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Harmonische Freude – German Baroque music – directed by Robert Oliver

Telemann: ‘Sei getreu bis in der Tod’, TWV1:12184, Quartet No 6 in E minor; Phillipp Heinrich Erlebach: Songs from Harmonische Freude, Nos 12, 21, 14, 2; J S Bach: ‘Der Herr denket an uns’ BWV 196.

Baroque Voices (director: Pepe Becker; Katherine Hodge, John Fraser, David Morriss), Academia Sanctae Mariae (leader: Gregory Squire, with Anne Loeser, Shelley Wilkinson, Katrin Eickhorst-Squire, Robert Oliver, Douglas Mews)

Church of St Mary of the Angels, Sunday 2 August 2009

The collaboration of two groups, vocal and instrumental, under the title Musica Sacra, has been presenting a series of concerts in the latter part of the year at St Mary of the Angels for a number of years. As far as I’m aware, the Academia performs in no other context, but Baroque Voices has a long-standing presence in Wellington as a chamber choir.

This was the first of the three concerts of their 2009 series, this one devoted to German sacred music: two familiar composers, but one unknown, I imagine, to most of us.

Telemann came first, with a cantata that could well pass for Bach to all but the specialist. Instruments played a slow introduction and then the four solo voices entered one at a time, well contrasted and stylistically sensitive. The following sections allowed each voice its turn; David Morriss’s bass seems to have developed in both projection and resonance since I last heard him; in the alto part, Katherine Hodge displayed a most attractive timbre that expressed the gentle piety of the words. The combination of Pepe Becker’s ecstatic soprano with Robert Oliver’s bass viol seemed rather at odds with the scourging words, reviling ‘vain pleasure’; and finally John Fraser sang the more sprightly tenor aria with a voice more at ease with the physical world, accompanied by violins.

Telemann wrote six instrumental quartets – not really the forerunners of Haydn’s – for Paris. Some features: the flute part taken by Katrin Eickhorst-Squire on a ‘voice flute’ = recorder, Squire’s violin given to flamboyant cadenzas, Robert Oliver’s viola da gamba, enjoying some particularly attractive passages, and Douglas Mews at the chamber organ (lent by the NZ School of Music) duetted charmingly with the recorder in the second movement. The organ, often embedded in the continuo textures, supplied a bass timbre in genial contrast to the bass viol.

In contrast to the cantata, these chamber pieces for a Parisian audience, much in triple rhythm, showed signs of the emerging ‘galant’ style, marking the end of the Baroque age.

The programme note enlightened (most of) us about the composer Erlbach, of the generation before Bach. Most of his works were lost in a fire but these songs, for all the strangely naïve piety of the words, proved beautifully adapted to soprano, alto and tenor and also offered rewarding passages, for example in song XIV, for violinists Squire and Loeser and gambist Oliver. The music, one had to say, was a rather more cultivated than the words.

I couldn’t help reflecting on the nature of contemporary English or French poetry, both with several centuries of prolific, more polished and cultivated literary activity than had taken place in German lands. And their civilizations had not been rent by a Thirty Years War.

Yet the words and music again gave Pepe Becker, alone in Song II, scope for floating the long flowing lines that were beautifully enhanced by the church acoustic.

The programme note claimed this to have been the New Zealand premiere of Bach’s Cantata No 196 (it must be very hard to be certain), thought to be for a family wedding. This performance should result in its gaining a foot-hold, for it is a setting of great musical delight, starting with a chorus of celebratory vitality. And then an aria for soprano and a duet for tenor and bass, a chance to hear David Morriss, this time, in happy wedding spirit.

The programme had been devised so that lesser but by no means worthless music laid the ground for this fine, entertaining Bach cantata and it left the audience well contented.

Adam Chamber Music Festival, Nelson

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Bach by Candlelight

Cantatas, Solo violin sonata, Passacaglia and Fugue BWV 582, Brandenburg Concerto No 6

Jenny Wollerman, Catrin Johnsson (sopranos), New Zealand String Quartet, Prazak Quartet, Martin and Victoria Jaenecke (violas), Hiroshi Ikematsu (double bass), Douglas Mews (harpsichord)

Nelson Cathedral, Friday 30 January

The evening concert was held in the Cathedral: an all-Bach programme. The main draw was the appearance of two singers to perform cantatas. Four cantatas, each consisting in just one section and calling for one or two solo voices. The scoring was reduced in each case to a violin or viola plus continuo (Rolf Gjelsten’s cello and Douglas Mews on the harpsichord; in the case of the Cantata No 78, ‘Wir eilen’, Hiroshi Ikematsu added his plucked double bass to the continuo).

Three chamber pieces and an organ work were included n the programme. It began with the Sonata for Bass Viol in D, BWV1028, with the Prazak Quartet’s violist Josef Kluson who weighed in with a rather unbaroque density that was sometimes uncomfortable with Mews’s harpsichord.

Mews, on the cathedral organ, played the Passacaglia and Fugue in C minor, BWV582, a very fine performance indeed, careful of registrations and of the building’s acoustic. Though we were there primarily for the cantatas, this was a highlight. Brandenburg Concerto No 6 was also well done; it includes no violins and this performance used violists from the two string quartets plus the Nelson violists Martin and Victoria Jaenecke, cellist Rolf Gjelsten and Hiroshi Ikematsu (lending a most welcome weight and richness, even brilliance) and Mews on the harpsichord. I enjoyed this performance hugely.

The four cantatas might have been the centre-piece in terms of concert planning, and the singers, with well contrasted soprano and mezzo voices, each brought excellent qualities to these works. Johnsson’s voice has colour and interesting grain which she used astutely in Cantata 11 and in duet with Wollerman in Cantata 78.

Wollerman is singing better than ever, singing on her own in Cantatas 36 and 58; her voice is very attractive, with just enough character to lend proper discretion to these religious works. It is technically very secure, keenly focused and even in articulation throughout her range. No 58, ‘Wir eilen’, is a lively, secular-sounding cantata, in which the cello bow dances on the strings and Ikematsu’s double bass plucks its way joyously throughout.

The surprise of the evening was a musicological curiosity. Helene Pohl had been exploring a recent study by a musicologist specializing in numerology, whose calculations and consideration of the circumstances surrounding the composition of Bach’s violin sonatas and partitas has led to speculation that they were composed, in a sense, as elaborate accompaniments to certain chorale melodies. I let that pass; however, Pohl played, with remarkable accomplishment, the Solo violin sonata in A minor (BWV1003). A different chorale was pressed into service for each sonata movement and they did indeed fit together harmonically, creating the sort of spiritual feeling heard in Gorecki’s Third Symphony.

I heard one or two remarks about the violin’s dominance over the voices; that to me was the point, and not inappropriate, for the violin sonata was the essential element. It was an interesting game, the result of numerological studies to which Bach has long been subjected and in which he himself was believed to be interested.

The whole project was admittedly very speculative and I suspect might fall into the same class of ‘scholarship’ as the deniers of Shakespeare’s authorship of the plays.