Tag: cello

Impressive Kristallnacht commemoration in concert by Holocaust Centre and NZ School of Music

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Kristallnacht Holocaust Commemoration Concert

Music by Herbert Zipper, Mieczyslaw Weinberg, Lori Laitman, Boris Pigovat, Viktor Ullman, Laurence Sherr, Richard Fuchs and Gideon Klein

St James Theatre, upstairs foyer

Wednesday 9 November, 7 pm

Two days short of the marking of the World War I armistice, on 11 November 1918, another event took place in the country that had accepted an armistice, but not defeat, and whose sense of humiliation found expression 15 years later with the take-over of Germany by Hitler and the Nazis.

Evidence of a policy of violence against the Jews arose within days of the Nazis taking power in 1933, and the Röhm Putsch or Night of the Long Knives in June-July 1934 against the SA which Hitler felt had gained too much autonomy, demonstrated his proclivity for murdering perceived rivals. It presaged the wholesale attack on Jews and their homes, synagogues and businesses in November 1938, given the curious title Kristallnacht.

This concert was organised by New Zealand’s Holocaust Centre with its headquarters in the Jewish Centre on Webb Street, Wellington. Its chief aim is to educate children and the public about the Holocaust in particular and genocide wherever it happens, in general. This was the fourth of the planned annual concerts devoted to this subject.

Professor Donald Maurice and Inbal Megiddo of the New Zealand School of Music organised and introduced the concert. It began with the audience being rehearsed to sing the chorus of a Dachaulied, composed for fellow prisoners to sing, by one Herbert Zipper. He had been picked up after the Nazis arrived in Vienna on 12 March 1938 (the Anschluss), and miraculously survived through Dachau, then Buchenwald, and was finally released only soon to fall into Japanese hands, surviving and eventually reaching the United States, where he died in 1997, aged 93.

The song was led by Cantoris under Thomas Nikora and there was some participation by the audience.

Mieczyslaw Weinberg was born in Warsaw in 1919 and he was persecuted by the Nazis but escaped to Minsk during the war; his life changed after he sent his first symphony to Shostakovich who took him under his wing. His early years in the Soviet Union looked promising but increasing anti-semitism through the later 1940s virtually cut off his chances of becoming a professional musician. Only Stalin’s death in 1953 probably saved his life. He remained in the Soviet Union where his works began to be performed by leading musicans such as  Gilels, Leonid Kogan, Kondrashin , Rostropovich and Kurt and Thomas Sanderling.

He died in 1996. By the 1980s some of his works were being performed in other countries – The Portrait in 1983 at the Janácek State Theatre in Brno and at the Bregenz Festival in 2010; by Opera North and at Nancy in 2011.

The Idiot in Mannheim in 2013.

My first awakening to him was through reviews in British and French opera magazines of The Passenger, in 2010, at the Bregenz Festival where it was videoed and released on DVD. The same production was presented in Warsaw by Polish National Opera in 2010, and its UK première, in 2011, was at the English National Opera, broadcast live on BBC Radio 3. In 2013, its first German performance was at Karlsruhe; in 2014 in Houston and in 2015 in Chicago and Frankfurt.

In addition, much of his orchestral, piano and chamber music has been recorded.

So now, he is far from neglected. For a sample of recordings of his music, look at the Naxos catalogue: http://www.naxos.com/person/Mieczyslaw_Weinberg/18538.htm

Here Lucy Gijsbers, accompanied by Nikora played Weinberg’s Cello Sonata No 2 – the first movement. In spite of a certain meandering melodic obscurity, there was palpable emotional energy, momentum and a powerful sense of direction.

Three songs from Vedem, an oratorio by well-known American vocal composer, Lori Laitman, followed; it’s called a Holocaust opera. The songs were sung by Margaret Medlyn with Deborah Rawson on the clarinet and Jian Liu at the piano. Vedem means ‘We lead’ in Czech and it was the name of a magazine written by boys imprisoned at Terezin; the manuscripts were buried and retrieved after the war. Broadly tonal in character, the words and clarinet wove around one another, creating varied emotional experiences: unease, peacefulness, panic.

Boris Pigovat’s name is familiar in New Zealand through Donald Maurice’s friendship with the composer whose Holocaust Requiem for viola and orchestra got its second performance (world-wide) in 2008 in Wellington, from Orchestra Wellington and Maurice on the viola, cementing Maurice’s friendship with the composer. Atoll Records recorded it.

His Strings of Love was written specifically for Archi d’amore Zelanda, which consists of viola d’amore (Maurice), guitar (Jane Curry) and cello (Inbal Megiddo) – all principal tutors of their instruments at the New Zealand School of Music. The viola d’amore is a 14-string violin-sized instrument with seven playing strings and seven sympathetic resonating strings. Pigovat does himself a favour by writing in unpretentious, tonal language, in which the viola carried a big, aching melody, while guitar and cello move meditatively alongside, each instrument thus playing music that is idiomatic and natural to its character.

One of the concentration camp works that has had a notable, almost mainstream life is Viktor Ullman’s Der Kaiser von Atlantis oder Die Tod-Verweigerung (‘The Emperor of Atlantis or Death’s disobedience’); for example, there’s a production at the Theater an der Wien in Vienna in January. It was written in Teresienstadt; a biting caricature of Hitler, widely thought to have been composed in the full awareness that it would bring about Ullman’s murder. Four singers performed the Finale, a brief cynical deal struck between Death and the Emperor which allow the suffering people to be released through death. Truncated as it was, and involving the acerbic style characteristic of Weimar Germany, it was probably unrewarding for the singers (Shayna Tweed, Margaret Medlyn, Declan Cudd and Roger Wilson), as it was for the audience. In a complete, staged performance it presumably makes its impact.

Laurence Sherr’s Cello Sonata brought Megiddo and Liu back to play a piece based on Holocaust songs, at least two evidently from the Vilnius ghetto.

(Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania, was grabbed by Poland in the fractious Russian-Lithuanian-Polish struggles after WW1 and so while Lithuania gained independence, with Kaunas the capital, Vilnius remained Polish till taken by the Soviet Union under the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact of 1939. In 1941 the German invasion of the Soviet Union, Lithuania again fell under German control, but with the final Soviet victory, Lithuania regained its integrity but it became a Soviet republic along with the other Baltic states, till 1991. Those traumas involved the almost complete massacre of Vilnius’s large Jewish population {around 1900 they comprised about 40% of the population}.)

The first movement echoed German music of the turn of the century, the second, overtly emotional, hinting at Bruch’s Kol Nidrei. A third movement was a set of variations: lyrical, energetic, ferocious, a martial episode, optimistic… Attractive music, splendidly performed.

Richard Fuchs lived from 1887 to 1947, was imprisoned in Dachau after Kristallnacht, but released, remarkably, after obtaining a visa to come to New Zealand: he travelled in 1939. Typically, he was interned by the New Zealand authorities as an enemy alien. His song, a setting of T S Eliot’s poem, A Song for Simeon, was composed in 1938 (even though Fuchs knew that Eliot was an anti-semite). It was the world premiere, typically revealing the disregard of Fuchs as a composer. The song had an air of high competence, of a composer of consequence, and baritone James Clayton and pianist Gabriela Grapska delivered a stunningly committed performance.

Finally, another Nazi victim, Gideon Klein’s String Trio, written just weeks before his transfer to Auschwitz and death. Klein was a Czech whose musical studies in Prague showed high talent, and Wikipedia shows an impressive number of compositions, several of which were written in Terezin where he was imprisoned from 1941. The trio was played by three NZSO principals: violinist Yuri Gezentsvey, violist Peter Barber and cellist David Chickering.  The trio had a strong folk music flavour, which seemed variously risky and untroubled, fateful, sombre, though the last movement offered little evidence of the time and place where it was composed. The performance was highly accomplished, appearing to reveal at certain moments, an unease, moments of hesitancy, but overall a determination to retain a degree of optimism.

This might have been an uneven concert in terms of real musical strength, though none was without merit. It achieved its purpose nevertheless, of marking one of the 20th century’s worst atrocities, through music produced by composers of rare talent and human resilience.

 

Enlightening, themed concert at hands of skilled, insightful musicians

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Anne Loesser (violin), Jane Young (cello), Martin Ryman (harpsichord)

Music by composers who influenced J S Bach by
Georg Muffat: Ciacona in G major
Johan Jakob Froberger: Suite No. XII in C major
Georg Philipp Telemann: Cello Sonata in D major TWV 41:D6

St Andrew’s on The Terrace

Wednesday 9 November, 12:15 pm

It was either this interestingly promoted programme of music that influenced Bach, or the nice weather that broke out at lunchtime that brought a somewhat larger than average audience to this concert.

The programme pushed a couple of useful buttons. The names of the performers, players in the NZSO and/or Orchestra Wellington, and a keyboardist whose name rang bells, and some kind of guarantee of musical worth, inasmuch as it implied that Bach would have admired the music chosen.

Those qualities proved themselves.

Muffat was of the generation before Bach, contemporary of Buxtehude, Pachelbel, Alessandro Scarlatti, Purcell, Marin Marais, Biber, Corelli, and not long after Lully and Charpentier. It’s from a collection called Apparatus musico-organisticus, mostly of toccatas, evidently designed for the organ, though here it was played on the harpsichord, and sounded fine.

Muffat, of Scottish descent, was born in 1653 in Savoy, in the French Alps, educated in Paris (perhaps with Lully), went to Prague and then to Italy to study further and finally became Kapellmeister to the bishop of Passau (on the Danube, on what is today on the German/Austrian border).

It’s little wonder that he tended to combine, deliberately or just instinctively, the musical languages of all three cultures.

The Ciacona, or Chaconne, conjures music that Bach might have had in his head when he wrote the great Chaconne that ends the Second Solo Violin Partita. It is a reasonably well-known and attractive piece, and its performance was admirable.

Johan Jakob Froberger was of a generation earlier than Muffat (in 1616). The programme notes say that “he influenced practically every major composer in Europe, including J S Bach, by developing the genre of the keyboard suite and, like Muffat, contributed greatly to the cross-pollination of musical traditions through his many travels. For much of his life Froberger lived in Vienna, where he worked for the Viennese court.”

Ryman spoke to enlarge on that but he didn’t use the microphone and his voice didn’t carry well. However, the Suite No. XII in C major did speak clearly and engagingly. The first movement, Lament, (also called an Allemande) found its message, not through the common device of falling motifs or even use of minor key, but with more subtle means, using melodic shapes that deftly created an elegiac tone, all set to rest with the slow scale rising to heaven. The Gigue had a discreet character, attractively ornamented, and subject to fleeting modulations. There was no lack of melodic ideas of real charm in the following Courante and Sarabande. We hear little of either of these composers; a rather different and in some ways more adventurous sound than is familiar from later generations of baroque composers.

Telemann represented the later generation, born just a couple of years before Bach, and thus somewhat dubious as an ‘influence’, as his music is less complex and intellectual than is much of Bach.

His Cello Sonata in D major (TWV 41:D6) was published in a journal called Der getreue Musikmeister (‘The Faithful Music Master’) edited by Telemann and a colleague. Cellist Jane Young led the way, as the harpsichord now became just a little more than polite accompanist. Young has recently taken up with the baroque cello and her instrument (well, her playing of it) gave off a fully convincing air of warm, rich sound, especially on the lower strings, in the opening Lento. Sometimes the absence of vibrato in echt baroque playing can sound odd, even pretentious, but here Young’s steady tone was perfectly unobtrusive.

The second, Allegro, movement wasn’t quite as convincing in tone, though rhythmically vigorous and the fourth movement had a similar feeling. So I enjoyed the third-movement Largo with its calm, lyrical character. Listening to this music, even though it doesn’t have the feeling of strength and, let’s say, genius that most of J S Bach has, still fills one with astonishment for its fluency and sheer fecundity.

Finally we reached J S Bach. The solo works for violin (and cello) seem to be better known, but the accompanied violin sonatas are not half bad. The Sonata in A major, BWV 1015 is the second of the Sechs Sonaten für Clavier und Violine whose BWV numbers run from 1014 to 1019. (Incidentally, ‘clavier’ translates as pianoforte; the Germans use the Italian word ‘cembalo’ for the harpsichord. And the placing of ‘clavier’ before ‘violine’ in the title suggests at least equal importance). Here, violinist Anne Loesser emerged while cellist Young remained, so turning the ‘clavier’ part into a basso continuo one. This worked very idiomatically. In fact, the cello part evolved very interestingly, occasionally picking up a melody from violin or harpsichord which, in spite of my remark above, hardly sounded the equal of Loesser’s very bright violin.

The notes pointed out that the sonata had the layout of the sonata da chiesa (‘church sonata’) with four movements of alternating character. Indeed it is no less interesting and impressive than any of the solo violin sonatas or partitas, rich in contrapuntal elaboration as well as musical invention. The last movement, Presto is the most familiar and its warmly inventive and energetic character was splendidly realised, even though neither cello nor harpsichord quite matched the much more 19th century volume and sonority of the violin here, and I might add, not quite the whole-hearted equality you get from a piano accompaniment.

The entire recital was a great success however, demonstrating how satisfying and enlightening a themed concert can be in the hands of musicians with the heart and the skill to bring off such stylistically varied music with such accomplishment and insight.

Cellist Rebecca Turner with intriguing and entertaining music on carbon-fibre cello

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

St Andrew’s Lunchtime concert

Rebecca Turner (cello) with help from electronic tape

Music by Christopher William Pearce, Carl Vine and Pêteris Vasks

St Andrew’s on The Terrace

Wednesday 3 August, 12:15 pm

There are certain benefits in forming habits, and the weekly lunchtime concerts at St Andrew’s are among the less sinful of what I’m prepared to confess to. Well, there was the weather. But I was there and though we (Middle C Incorporated) had not assigned the reviewing to anyone, Rebecca Turner’s performance of a totally unknown composer soon had me reaching for pen and notebook.

It was by a composer friend of the cellist, 42-year-old American, Christopher William Pearce, and involved things that I often find pretentious, alienating, uncalled for, even disguising a lack of ideas. Sometimes the involvement of electronics or wacky instruments are a turn-off, but by setting aside prejudice, one can be surprised and delighted.

The first adventure however, was her cello, a black instrument without the traditional shape, but rather the shape of a large acoustic guitar. It delivered a warm and perfectly well projected sound. In spite of a normal wood-like sound produced when she hit the side of the cello, it was made of carbon-fibre which has become widespread in sports equipment and in the popular music field. It’s been accepted more recently in the non-classical field, but is still looked at askance by most classical musicians. I might have believed that too, before becoming increasingly uneasy at the madness of the multi-million dollar Stradivarius market; though I have given up claiming to detect a difference between a 1700 model and a well-made one of yesterday. There are in fact differences in the sound produced, but I suspect the untutored ear would only hear a louder and richer sound.

Rebecca played Pearce’s Variations on Wondrous Love, based on a ‘folk hymn’ from the American South, not familiar to me. It began normally, but slowly started to be interfered with by Asian sounds, a drone at the bottom end of the cello, eerie harmonics at the top, hypnotic sequences, hints of pentatonic tonality, trills and fancy efflorescence. Towards the end she parked her bow and attacked with pizzicato, which developed into a hair-raising technique as the plucking was linked with quick stroke down the string which created a sort of bowed effect. I found myself increasingly intrigued and amused (if that’s an emotion permitted of a reviewer of classical music).

The second piece was by Australian Carl Vine, some of whose music I know: not particularly main-stream.  Rebecca Turner gave some details about how it was to work. It involved a microphone placed near the cello and the activation of a tape that the composer prepared and supplied with the score. That was a bit mysterious to me; I found it hard to see or hear how she activated the tape and controlled its behaviour; how her playing actually engaged with and kept in line with the accompanying tape (and at one point with a not incongruous police siren on the street). The tape later became increasingly dominant, leaving her as an unequal contestant, threatening to obliterate the cello’s mere human-created sounds.  The sounds became increasingly complex, vying with each other, but the cello recovered its confidence and eventually subsided, as the main player, into rather gentle, lyrical music that even had touches of beguiling charm.

It did not annoy me and I had confess that for all its machine-driven aspects, the cellist’s skill in keeping abreast with the tape’s formidable demands, and the actual sounds produced, both impressed and delighted me.

Rebecca Turner, by the way, comes from Wellington – Tawa College, then a bachelor’s degree from Canterbury University, masters from Johns Hopkins and a doctorate from Goldsmiths College, University of London (where she was taught by the late cellist, Alexander Ivashkin, whom she’d followed after he left Canterbury), and where she now teaches.

Another excursion into the unorthodox was Pêteris Vasks’s Pianissimo. (Latvian: I have a special, irrational affection for Riga, a lovely, art nouveau-rich city with a splendid opera house where I got to four operas in a week, and Wagner worked in his twenties).  It is the second movement of a piece called Book. Rebecca also described some of the experimental aspects of this, helping her cause by allowing a secretive smile to appear once or twice. The excitement here was an accompaniment, not from machine but from the cellist’s own voice, as she pursued a gentle contrapuntal line, her voice nicely modulated to accommodate the cello’s strenuous line, and long sinuous glissandi down the A string. In fact, her singing voice carried quite well, though I had some difficulty catching all she said in her introductory remarks.

Though there was no mention of using tape material in the Vasks piece, there were times when the high line carrying the decorative melodic sounds were accompanied by a low drone that I couldn’t imagine could have come from an adjacent string. But in fact, it did – fingering high on the D string, accompanied by the open G string.

Here was a recital where the existence of electronic elements and fairly unusual techniques seemed really at the service of music rather than, as I have too often felt, being experiments for their own sake. In any case, I enjoyed all three pieces for their musical interest and the impressive skill and musicality of the cellist.

 

 

“Orchestras Unite” – a brilliant success for youthful Wellington musicians

Posted on by Peter Mechen

Wellington Youth Orchestra and
Te Kōkī New Zealand School of Music Orchestra
presents:

ORCHESTRAS UNITE!

Lavinnia Rae (‘cello)
Kenneth Young (conductor)
Wellington Youth Orchestra and
Te Kōkī New Zealand School of Music Orchestra

MUSORGSKY (arr. Rimsky-Korsakov) – Night on a Bare Mountain
SHOSTAKOVICH – ‘Cello Concerto No.1 in E-flat Op.107
VAUGHAN WILLIAMS – Symphony No.2 – A London Symphony

Michael Fowler Centre, Wellington

Wednesday 3rd August 2016

These days I count myself proudly, if also a little ruefully, among the grey-headed majority who attend classical concerts – of course, these are the people whose loyal and continued support of our various concert series and occasional special events helps to ensure their continuance. Nevertheless it was a refreshing change to find myself sitting in an auditorium for a classical concert with what seemed like hundreds of heads of different shapes and sizes sporting youthful hues and colours of all kinds – egad, it was actually a youthful audience!

Did I say a classical concert? With such a preponderance of young people in attendance, the programme would surely have gone for a kind of “instant appeal” impact – plenty of “wow!” factor, of the kind that would make such an audience want to come back for more, yes? Let’s have a look! – er, what’s this? – Shostakovich? The First ‘Cello Concerto? – Good grief! And Vaughan Williams’ “London” Symphony? Crikey! – That’s a bit of a haul! What’s that?  Musorgsky? – Night on a Bare Mountain? Well, yes, that’ll go down well, but what about the rest?

I could go on, most tiresomely, in a similar vein, expressing further open-mouthed stupefaction at the makeup of the orchestra and the youthfulness of the soloist in the concerto, none of which has any great relevance to the business in hand, that of reviewing a splendidly-performed concert.  More seriously, what needs far more urgently to be emphasised and approved most enthusiastically is the gesture of the Wellington City Council with support from the NZSO in enabling Wednesday night’s concert at the Michael Fowler Centre to be a FREE event for the public! In my book that’s the kind of support so badly needed by the arts at present, in this case giving young people a golden opportunity to experience some wonderful music-making at first hand and at no cost!

Which is where the “Orchestras Unite!” concept worked so brilliantly in every way. Shostakovich, Vaughan Williams and all, the exercise provided one of the best possible “advertisements” for classical music and music-making that I’ve even witnessed. Under the watchful eye and inspired direction of conductor Kenneth Young, the Wellington Youth Orchestra and the New Zealand School of Music Orchestra came together, plus a number of tutor-players from both the NZSO and Orchestra Wellington, together forming a co-operative ensemble of almost 100 musicians whose amalgamation was itself a positive endorsement of music-making in the capital. With such forces it became more than possible to perform works such as the Vaughan Williams “London” Symphony, the numbers generating the requisite weight of tone which helped the piece really work.

Another motivating energiser in the scheme of things was the presence of ‘cellist Lavinnia Rae, whose performance of the first of Shostakovich’s two ‘Cello Concertos was eagerly anticipated. An NZSO National Youth Orchestra player, and leader of the Wellington Youth Orchestra ‘cello section for the last three years, she had already won numerous awards and scholarships during her studies, and is currently working under the tutorship of Inbal Megiddo at the New Zealand School of Music. Again, having a soloist of Rae’s calibre willing to tackle one of the repertoire’s 20th Century classics contributed inestimably to the programme’s lustre.

In thanking the various people and organisations that had helped get the show “on the road” conductor Ken Young himself made reference to the excitement of having so many players to work with, particularly in relation to the Vaughan Williams symphony. He cited the work as a particularly apt challenge for youthful orchestras as there was, as he put it, “plenty for everybody to do”. He didn’t keep us waiting long, as we had already heard from NZSM boss Euan Murdoch and Orchestra Wellington Music Director Marc Taddei adding their endorsements of the occasion, so after the talk had been dispensed with we were quickly and magically transported to that realm of infernal carousing immortalised world-wide by Russian composer Modest Musorgsky.

As most people will already know, Musorgsky was one of a group of composers (who came to be known as “the Mighty Handful”) who wanted to forge a distinctly “Russian” style of composition free from the somewhat more conservative, German-influenced style espoused by the establishment. Much of Musorgsky’s music was, however, considered somewhat harsh and clumsily written, even by his associates, one of whom, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, took it upon himself, after Musorgsky’s tragic early death, to “improve” and make what he thought would be more acceptable versions to the public of some of his colleague’s well-meaning but outlandish-sounding efforts. These “corrections” of Rimsky’s included an entire opera by Musorgsky (Boris Godunov) and the piece played in the concert this evening, St. John’s Night on a Bald Mountain. The programme note really ought to have read “RE-orchestrated by Rimsky-Korsakov” as there does exist a fascinating “original” of the piece by Musorgsky, somewhat differently constructed to Rimsky’s, and with a far more abrupt and sardonic ending.

Still, the more familiar revised version which we heard tonight continues to pack plenty of punch in places, and the players seemed to literally throw themselves at the piece’s dramatic and theatrical contrasts as if their lives depended on the outcome. It was all tremendously exciting, and expertly-played – the very opening triplet figure on the violins depicting the arrival of the infernal spirits from out of the air in all directions had a focus and a stinging quality that made the hairs on the back of one’s neck stand up in gruesome delight and anticipation!

With weighty percussion providing plenty of bangs and crashes, the brass chiming in with portentous fanfares, and the winds creating a suitably “eerie” atmosphere, the music built up through its various episodes to a suitably orgiastic ferment, at which point somebody sitting towards the back of the orchestra dropped something on the floor with a clatter, to add to the general sense of chaos and abandonment! To the rescue came the orchestral bells signalling the first indications of morning light and the gradual dispersement of the spirits into the air from whence they came. Here, the strings and winds drifted and oscillated beautifully, supporting beautiful solos from firstly the clarinet and then the flute. It was all presented most beautifully and serenely, even though the ending wasn’t Musorgsky at all, the whole of the final morning-bell-tolling sequence being that man Rimsky-Korsakov’s invention!

Lavinnia Rae’s entrance and deportment gave an initial impression of a David (the ‘cellist) pitted against something of a Goliath (the orchestra), which the music’s opening measures seemed to confirm – the ‘cello, repeating a variant of the composer’s own DSCH motif, seemed to be trying to lighten the mood, while the orchestra seemed to want to keep the soloist firmly in check. Lavinnia Rae spun her line most resolutely throughout, perhaps wanting a touch more girth with some of her more assertive figurations, but keeping her music buoyant at all times. She interacted magnificently with the solo horn, leaving the winds wailing as the music trotted away with the soloist, and leaving them to manage only a brief, petulant outburst before the movement came to a sudden end.

The slow movement was one of Shostakovich’s angst-ridden affairs, with the solo horn adding to the strings’ anguish, the mood warmed by the ‘cello’s entry – apart from a brief intonation lapse, some gorgeous playing, here, from the soloist, matched a few moments later by the strings’ chilly beauty. So many moments-per-minute in this music! – we were able to experience at first hand why the soloist in her programme note nominated this as the music from the work she felt the most emotionally connected to….the solo horn posed its question and the soloist mused on the answer amidst haunting harmonics-coloured exchanges with the celeste, the music absolutely rapt and beautiful.

The remarkable cadenza-like third movement also held us in thrall with Lavinnia Rae’s playing, a heartfelt outpouring which gradually articulated more and more freely and urgently, quoting the opening four-note theme amid the agitations, and then suddenly striding out and beckoning the orchestra to follow – keystone cops chasings, headstrong waltz-rhythms, and giant-like rhythmic angularities led to a full reconciliation with the DSCH theme, which, pushed enthusiastically along by the ‘cello’s repeated notes, blared out triumphantly on the winds at the end. What a work and what a performance!

All this, and Vaughan Williams’ “London” Symphony to follow after the interval! – as with the Musorgsky work, one felt a satisfying “weight” of tone register as the “London” began and unfolded, the fruit of having such a numbers of players, and of the composer’s scoring emphasising the potential for depth and richness of sonority. Ken Young and his players caught the music’s “living stillness” at the work’s outset, and the sense of something hanging in the early morning air about to be awakened. The Big Ben chime gradually roused the music from its slumber, leading from a crescendo to a harsh, strident outburst which seemed, on the face of things, unduly forceful and discordant a note to strike by way of introducing a great and much-beloved city – still, as other parts of the work were to demonstrate, the composer was definitely not about to regard the “flower of all cities” through rose-tinted spectacles in this work!

In the past I’ve often regarded Ken Young as a particularly no-nonsense interpreter of whatever music he conducts, sometimes to a fault in music where I’ve felt the need for a touch more spaciousness and breadth in the playing. Here, by contrast, there was time and space aplenty – and the playing of the young musicians blossomed, I thought, as a result! Every phrase, every figuration had room to sing and unfold as it should, while every surge and diminuendo of tone had the freedom to mix spontaneity with obviously well-rehearsed gestures, making for what sounded like a particularly rich and deeply-felt interpretation. The final crescendo leading up to the movement’s end was simply terrific in impact.

The slow movement was another vivid evocation, with conductor and players allowing the music all the time and space in the world to paint and colour the music’s hues and round and shape their lines and contourings, all the time giving rise to such intensities of feeling – the composer’s description “Bloomsbury Square on a November afternoon” begs the question of the music’s deeper intent – things like the superbly-played trumpet solo, and the instrumental detailings accompanying the gently-jingling carriage harness sounds were, I thought, preludial to something deeply melancholic about the work as a whole – my notes read at this point, “such passionate climaxes!”, ones which seem to suggest as much tragedy as any other kind of feeling as the bottom emotional line. This was reflected in places, too, by sensitive instrumental detailing as tellingly as red-blooded climaxes – a beautiful viola solo, for example, at the movement’s end was as richly-wrought a gesture as any in the work.

Having praised the interpretation’s spaciousness I must admit to feeling, in places in the scherzo, that the music could have done with a bit more ginger in its step – a hypercritical thing to say, perhaps, in view of my enjoyment of the whole. The players certainly caught the music’s “gait” – and the short, canonical “church-bell-like” section for strings came across with great verve and “schwung”. However, I did feel the brief Trio section hung fire ever-so-slightly at its beginning, even if the more flowing tempo suited the strings’ warmth when they took up the tune just before the return to the scherzo proper. Still, one was prepared to forgive Ken Young almost everything after experiencing the visionary power of what he and the musicians were able to do with the eerie, throbbing pulsations at the movement’s end – another instance of the composer hinting at a darker side of things beneath the surface gaiety.

That “darker side of things” was certainly given full rein at various places in the work’s final movement, not least of all right at the beginning! An almost Mahlerian cry of despair flashes across the face of the orchestra, not once, but twice, before the music settles down grimly to what some commentators have called the “March of the Unemployed”, though the composer was rather less specific when characterising the music’s inspiration. Here, Ken Young and his musicians seemed to emphasise the music’s purposeful and positive energy, with playing that unleashed the magnificence of the composer’s orchestral writing, grand and ceremonial.

After this the musicians galvanised the allegro section, awakening tremendous energies marked by surging strings, roaring winds and flailing percussion, energies which  embedded themselves in the textures of the “march” theme’s return, and literally conflagrated the music – what baleful, menacing, utterly overwhelming playing! One was left wondering how a city’s image could possibly survive such savage treatment!

The answer came with the work’s epilogue, which in its turn brought out some of the evening’s most heartfelt and moving playing from the two orchestras. Vaughan Williams characterised the symphony’s ending by quoting a passage from a novel by H.G.Wells in which the writer describes in allegorical terms the passing of things as we know them via a voyage down a river – “the river passes, London passes, England passes…..” Here, it was all so moving, so heartbreaking and yet so filled with wonderment and magic – the playing caught the music’s timelessness and inevitability, its beauty and its tragedy – the somewhat Wagnerian two-note cry which began the finale was sounded once again on muted trumpets, signifying much the same kind of dissolution (albeit in a less incendiary manner) as the minor-key version of the Rheingold motif from Götterdämmerung.

Very great work from all concerned, and to those people, for all of it much gratitude and appreciation.

Hammers and Horsehair speak volumes – Douglas Mews and Robert Ibell

Posted on by Peter Mechen

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

Music by BEETHOVEN, BREVAL, MOZART, ROMBERG and MENDELSSOHN

Douglas Mews – Fortepiano
Robert Ibell – ‘Cello

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

Wednesday 13th July

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Change of players leads to interesting programme nevertheless

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Hutt City Lunchtime Concert Series

Mike Curtis: Five Huapangos
Bréval: Two Airs for violin and cello
Schulhoff: Due for violin and cello

Konstanze Artmann (violin) and Margaret Goldborg (cello)

St. Mark’s Church, Lower Hutt

Wednesday, 6 July 2016, 12.15pm

Sadly, the change from the advertised programme, Maaike Christie-Beekman, mezzo-soprano, with Catherine Norton, piano, was caused by the singer’s illness.  We trust that she is making a speedy recovery.

In its place was an interesting instrumental programme – a different combo from what we usually experience: violin and cello.

Mike Curtis is a contemporary American composer and bassoonist, much influenced by Mexican rhythms, as here, in his suite of Huapangos.  The huapango is a Mexican dance that mixes different time signatures.  The first movements are all named after cities, towns or locations in Mexico. The first, “Santa Cruz” was fast, while the second, “Las Islitas” was slower and more graceful.  The third had a familiar ring to it: “Miramar”.  As well as being a suburb of Wellington, Miramar is a beach resort in south India, and a city in Mexico.  The solo cello played a large part of this movement, a faster one than the previous dance.

“Ofelia” followed, and was more doleful – whether because the location in Mexico City is sad, or due to the famous character in Shakespeare’s Hamlet, I do not know.  Again, there was an unaccompanied cello section.  Finally, we heard “El Llano” (the name of a municipality, i.e. county, in Mexico), a light and airy, strongly rhythmic piece.  The entire unfamiliar work was admirably well played, and enjoyable to listen to.

Jean-Baptiste Bréval (1753-1823) seems to be having a small local revival; his music is being performed by Robert Ibell and Douglas Mews in their current series of concerts around the country for Chamber Music New Zealand.  We were told that his writing for cello was in the viola da gamba style.

The first Air was in theme-and-variations form.  There was much work for the cellist high on the fingerboard, and a great deal of double-stopping for the violinist.  A few intonation lapses in this piece did not spoil the delightfully simple melody line.  The complex variations added a lot of difficulty, however.

The second Air was in a minor key.  Again the air was stated, followed by increasingly complex variations.  The melody alternated between the instruments, which were very well balanced tonally.  The whole had a pleasing effect.

Jewish composer Erwin Schulhoff  (1894-1942) was born in Prague; he died in a concentration camp during World War II.   His duo, written in 1925, was full of interest.  The first movement, Moderato, incorporated left-hand pizzicato for the violinist and playing sequences of harmonics for both musicians.  Mutes were employed to great effect towards the end.  “Zingaresca” lived up to its gipsy name, being bouncy and highly rhythmic.  Left-hand pizzicato was required of both players, and glissandi added excitement.  The movement had a dynamic and jolly effect.

Andantino was the inscription for the third movement.  It began with a sombre theme, and employed lots of pizzicato.  Finally, the last movement was marked Moderato again,  followed by Presto fanatico.  The first part became quite impassioned, then returned to its opening serenity.  That was replaced by chords, followed by the fanatico.  The cello played spiccato, the bow bouncing on the strings while the violin played pizzicato chords.  These effects were interspersed with repeated anxious phrases.

The overall effect was intriguing and musically interesting.

The audience was most appreciative of a concert of unfamiliar but exciting works and of the excellent playing of the musicians, called on at short notice.

 

 

Another appearance by cellist Rustem Khamidullin with Sarah Watkins, at Paekakariki

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Mulled Wine Concerts Paekakariki

Rustem Khamidullin (cello) and Sarah Watkins (piano)

Schubert: Sonata in A minor ‘Arpeggione’
Schumann: Three fantasy pieces, Op 73
Rachmaninov: Sonata in G minor – the 3rd movement, Andante
Franck: Sonata in A (for violin, arranged for cello)

Paekakariki Memorial Hall

Sunday 19 June, 2:30 pm

I had gone to my third encounter with Rustem Khamidullin, not to write about it but just to enjoy without a pen in my hand, to hear him in another context. And of course, the pleasure of being able to get there by train, being able to look at the heavy seas and Kapiti Island from high on the cliffs north from Pukerua Bay rather than seeing little while driving on the road, and then a pleasant 12 minute walk to the hall. (Witnessing the thousands of one-to-a-car commuters from Kapiti, and their passion for Transmission Gully, I wonder that the population seems indifferent to its lovely train service).

It was such a treat that when I got home the computer keyboard seemed to plead for attention.

Word had got out that this would be a great concert, and so it was, with a full house. But it was not just the Russian cellist who made it such a fine recital; it was also his collaborator Sarah Watkins, well known at Paekakariki as part of the NZ Trio, who proved just as excellent in duo as in trio. I couldn’t help thinking that the cellist would have been delighted to find such a fine, totally empathetic pianist.

Khamidullin’s secret is the unusual subtlety and the secretiveness with which he handles soft passages, and which Watkins mirrors so perfectly so that neither ever obscures the sounds the other is making. That helped make the Schubert sonata, for the short-lived hybrid called the arpeggione, into a more interesting and attractive piece than I sometimes feel it is.

The Schumann pieces, which he cast primarily for the clarinet, are pretty familiar; he envisaged them also as suited for viola or cello. The three pieces hold challenges for both piano and cello and I was very impressed by the flights of virtuosity and the virtually flawless ensemble that the two maintained.

After the interval the duo played the slow movement – Andante – from Rachmaninov’s cello sonata (actually the only piece in the programme written specifically for the cello), where the wide-spaced melodies caught the spirit of the second piano concerto which he’d completed just before this sonata; some of the piano writing is of concerto-style virtuosity, though it was never cluttered as one instrument made room for the other to take the spotlight. My only problem was what wasn’t played before and after the Andante. But that would have taken over half an hour.

Finally Franck’s violin sonata, which is so emotional and unashamedly melodic that it gets borrowed by other instrumentalists, even the flute (recently by flutist Rebecca Steel with Diedre Irons, which I thought wonderful). But I’ve loved Franck ever since hearing the then National Orchestra play the Symphony in D minor in the 50s (I suspect) and then hearing this sonata shortly after.

This was a quite seriously passionate performance, starting with the calm Allegretto moderato which seems a sort of smoldering anticipation of the Allegro where, particularly, the piano part is excitable while the violin/cello maintains the lovely melodies.

A most enjoyable concert, that attracted a full house. We got two encores (Hora Staccato and Rachmaninov’s song ‘How fair this Spot’, Op 21 No 7), in response to the entire audience coming to its collective feet at the end of the Franck.

 

Popular Russian orchestral show-piece, unfamiliar cello concerto and colourful, Hungarian, folk-based music

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

New Zealand Symphony Orchestra
Scheherazade

Kodály: Dances of Galánta
Lalo: Cello Concerto in D minor
Rimsky-Korsakov: Scheherazade

New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Miguel Harth-Bedoya, with Johannes Moser (cello)

Michael Fowler Centre

Friday, 17 June 2016, 6.30pm

The programme attracted a nearly full Michael Fowler Centre on Friday.  I had the previous day heard Eva Radich interview Johannes Moser on the Upbeat programme, on RNZ Concert.  What a lovely man he sounded!  His cello sounded lovely too, as we discovered in Friday’s concert.  How good it was that he played a different concerto!  While always loving to hear the Dvořák concerto, it was a great pleasure to hear something different – in fact, so different, and as interesting in the case of the Lalo concerto.

Galánta
The first work on the programme had a striking opening. The different modalities of Hungarian music were almost immediately apparent.  The composer’s collection of Hungarian folk-songs and dances are the basis of most of his music.  This work was composed in 1933.  We heard wonderful subtleties on the clarinet in a slow dance.  The large assembly of strings sounded particularly sonorous here, and when playing pizzicato while flute and piccolo produced soaring melodies.  The French horns had their turn at leading things – all five of them.  Percussion players had many delicate – and some not so delicate – interventions.

The work was a delight of colour, rhythm and finesse, contrasted with exuberance.  It was a feast of fine orchestration, and provided a jovial boost to any Friday weariness.  A furious rush of music towards the end was followed by a sublime clarinet solo, and a final burst of jollity.

Lalo’s cello concerto
The tall, youthful cellist came on; like the conductor, he was not wearing formal evening dress.  He played the concerto without a score.  Harth-Bedoya used the score only for this work (a necessary precaution in a concerto).  Moser’s cello produced a superbly warm, rich tone in his hands.  To have had two cellists of such calibre as Moser and Rustem Khamedullin in the space of a week has been a luxury.

Written by the French-born, Spanish-influenced Lalo in 1876-77, the concerto seemed to have hints of Brahms and Schumann – the latter’s concerto was written over 25 years earlier – and even of Elgar, whose concerto was written over forty years later.

The orchestra began the concerto grandly, and there was much work for the brass to do.  However, the soloist was to the fore almost throughout the work, mellifluous phrases following one after another, with staccato interjections from the winds; indeed, the latter ended the first movement (Prélude: lento – allegro maestoso).

The second, Intermezzo: andantino con moto – allegro presto, began with muted strings.  There was more gorgeous romantic melody from the soloist, and phrases of the utmost delicacy.  Sparse orchestration in this short movement meant no brass or percussion.

The final movement (andante – allegro vivace) opened enigmatically; the soloist with very quiet string accompaniment, initially only cellos.  Suddenly the brass erupted.  Dotted rhythms predominated here and elsewhere.  Parts of the solo in this movement were elegiac.  The playing was never flamboyant, the cello producing a variety of tones that were always lambent, passionate, tender, thoughtful, or whatever was needed.

An encore after a concerto now seems to be an expected addition to the programme.  Moser played the sarabande (another Spanish influence here) from the first Bach Suite for unaccompanied cello.  This he took slower than had Khamidullin on Wednesday in the latter’s sarabande from the third Suite.  It was soulful, considered playing, and at times the utmost pianissimo gave an ethereal quality.  The audience greeted the encore with rapture.

Scheherazade
The major work in the concert was Rimsky-Korsakov’s suite, based on The Arabian Nights.  Scheherazade calls for a large orchestra: there were five horns, nine double basses, a tuba, and large numbers of other instruments too, compared with the requirements of the Lalo concerto.

It is wonderfully dramatic music – I just wish that Radio New Zealand Concert did not play it, or parts of it, quite so frequently.  After the portentous opening depicting the Sultan, it was magical to hear the harp and violin duet denoting the princess (or Scheherazade herself).  These two themes are played countless times, often with melodic, rhythmic or tempo variations, throughout the work’s four sections.  Then the sea took over, relatively calmly at first.  The waves work themselves up gradually, before calm is restored with horn and woodwinds.

The rougher seas return, repeating loudly the theme we first heard as the delicate solo violin and harp near the beginning.  The theme is varied and given many manifestations before returning to the gentle opening.  This ends the section entitled “The sea and Sinbad’s ship”.

This same theme opens the second section, “The Kalendar prince”.  This part follows the pattern of all the sections, in having a variety of tempo markings through its course.  Muted double basses accompany sumptuous oboe and bassoon solos most effectively.  Then a cello joins in, and takes over the solo.  Sinbad’s ship appears to strike some trouble, the brass sounding warnings.  But then everything becomes jolly and highly rhythmic before the bassoon again asserts itself over pizzicato, and the theme returns.

The excellent programme notes (apart from misspelling ‘sprightly’ as ‘spritely’ more than once) mention ‘Rimsky-Korsakov’s mastery of instrumentation’, so much to the fore in this section.  The following one (“The young prince and the young princess”) opens with lyrical music that almost sounded like English music, with its calm melody.  However, it becomes increasingly exotic, and the orchestration richer.  After various goings-on the harp and violin theme returns, then full orchestra takes over again.

The bombastic sultan theme reappears followed by the harp and violin, this time in most virtuosic twists for the latter; Vesa-Matti Leppänen’s solo passages were quite beautiful.  Syncopated rhythms and exciting percussion burst forth,  with lots of concerted string playing, along with brass and percussion interjections.  The strings repeat the big theme.

Wikipedia quotes Steven Griffiths about this work (A Critical Study of the Music of Rimsky-Korsakov,1844-1890. New York: Garland, 1989): “The reasons for its popularity are clear enough; it is a score replete with beguiling orchestral colors, fresh and piquant melodies, with a mild oriental flavor, a rhythmic vitality largely absent from many major orchestral works of the later 19th century, and a directness of expression unhampered by quasi-symphonic complexities of texture and structure.”.

The audience gave a very appreciative response; Harth-Bedoya more or less forcibly removed the orchestra from the stage at the end of quite a long concert.

 

Another hearing from wonderful cellist Khamidullin, at St Andrew’s

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Rustem Khamidullin (cello)

J.S. Bach: Suite no.3 in C for cello solo, BWV 1009
Gaspar Cassado: Suite for cello solo (1926)

St. Andrew’s on The Terrace

Wednesday, 15 June 2016, 12.15pm

Obviously many of the people in the large audience at St. Andrew’s – perhaps most – had heard this brilliant young cellist play with Orchestra Wellington last Saturday night (I did not), and were delighted at the chance to hear him playing solo.

This amazing young man has just turned 27, but has the accomplishment of a much more experienced performer.  His was a demanding programme carried off with great musicality, but no flashiness or histrionics.  He comes from Ufa in Bashkortostan in Russia.  I have to confess that I had heard of Ufa, but not Bashkortostan; Wikipedia reveals that Ufa is a city of over a million people.  Rustem is the son of a pianist mother, and his grandfather was a leading cellist.

In addition to Rustem’s playing last Saturday and today, he is to play at Paekakariki on Sunday, and we have another cellist, Johannes Moser playing the Lalo cello concerto with the NZSO on Friday.  For lovers of this magnificent and versatile instrument, it is a feast.  Today’s music was all based on dance forms.

The Bach Suite is a necessary, but difficult, part of the cellist’s repertoire.  Throughout, this cellist produced a fine tone, and his interpretation was varied and not at all routine.  While he had the score in front of him, he only looked at it in a couple of the later movements; most of the work was played from memory, while for much of the time Rustem’s eyes were cast upwards.

Within the beautifully phrased music there was much subtlety of dynamics.  Mostly, one was not aware of the difficulties, such was the fluency and elegance of Rustem’s playing, not only in the phrasing, but also in the double-stopping, and the rapid bow movements between strings.  It goes without saying that this winner of the Gisborne International Music Competition (2014) and of numerous European prizes had impeccable intonation.

The rendition we heard of the dance movements (prélude, allemande, courante, sarabande, bourrée I and II and gigue) had colour, variety, delicacy and panache.  The sarabande was distinguished by rich and soulful playing, whereas the two bourrée movements had a light, playful touch.  The gigue was fast, despite all the challenges it presents.  The loud passages set  the strings ringing.  This was exemplary cello playing.  Rustem expressed Bach’s wonderful music like a seasoned professional; very impressive.

Gaspar Cassado (1897-1966) was a name I did not know.  He was a Catalan cellist and composer.  His suite was played from memory.  Naturally, it was more romantic than Bach’s music, but also, being twentieth century, was more daring harmonically.  Passages in the opening movement, Preludio-Fantasia based on  Zarabanda (yes, the Spanish origin of the word ‘Sarbande’) were played very high on the finger-board; the piece used the cello to the extent of its possibilities.  It was not technique for technique’s sake, though.  Much of the music was soulful, and almost always the tone was exquisite, although I found the number of times the lower strings slashed the finger-board rather excessive.  The use of harmonics created, as usual, an ethereal sound, but with this player, the tone of these notes was superb.  The playing shared with the Bach its intensity and variety.

The second movement, Sardana, was based on a Catalan round dance of that name (Google shows pictures of it being danced in the open) began very high-pitched, and indeed was very dance-like.  Considerable variation followed.  Nuances abounded.  There was rapid passage-work alternating with soft, pensive, melodic lines.

The third movement, Intermezzo y Danza Finál, was ‘a Jota…a waltz-like dance originating in Aragón’.  A strong opening was followed by pizzicato, then rapid fingering all over the fingerboard.  This is a virtuoso piece indeed, but Rustem was right up with its demands, which were sometimes extremely great.  Despite the numerous technical issues, it was always music that emerged.

A most appreciative and attentive audience heard a phenomenon; someone who is in for a big career.  We were glad to have heard such an outstanding artist at a lunchtime concert.

 

Triumphant concert from Orchestra Wellington and Orpheus Choir: Beethoven and Haydn

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Orchestra Wellington, Orpheus Choir, conducted by Marc Taddei with Rusem Khamidullin (cello)

Haydn: Cello Concerto in C, Hob. VII-1
Beethoven: Symphony No 9 in D minor, Op 125 ‘Choral’ (soloists: Jenny Wollerman, Elisabeth Harris, Henry Choo, Warwick Fyfe)

Michael Fowler Centre

Saturday 11 June, 7:30 pm

First of all.
What’s happening to Wellington’s orchestra? In the last five or six years the orchestra, now known as Orchestra Wellington, has built a quite extraordinary record of successful concerts with pretty full houses, which seem to have gained their popularity through attractive prices; and imaginative thematic programmes, usually the entire series adhering to a common theme of some kind; plus the choice of soloists, whose concertos have often been related to the theme.

Ticket prices have been kept surprisingly low, vindicating the belief that any feared loss is more than compensated by the sheer number of seats sold; so as well as achieving a perhaps better financial result, there have often been sold-out concerts which must indicate that many non-regular concert goers have been enticed to come. And many of them are seduced by the power of great music.

I must also mention free programmes; such an intelligent policy, as it ensures people know about things like the number of movements (and so, when to clap), but more importantly offers a bit of basic information for newcomers to classical music. It is disturbing to note the numbers who turn away from programme sellers at other musical events when the price is mentioned: how absurd to waste all the effort and expense on a booklet that not very many read, when there is a glaring need to take every chance to enlarge musical knowledge in audiences that have been left ill-educated by our education system.

In 2015 and this year, a new policy has been adopted: selling the six-concert series, sight unseen in terms of programmes and soloists, for a really low price. This year, as information has been drip-fed, the season price has increased, to a level rather beyond the impecunious.
It works!

This year’s series is called Last Words, and the first five concerts include works written shortly before the composers’ deaths. Perhaps no more than five presented great orchestral works in their last years, though Franck, Bruckner, Rachmaninov, Prokofiev, Shostakovich would seem to be candidates (one can think of several who wrote beautiful piano, chamber or choral music or opera in their last years, but didn’t produce orchestral music that made it).

Haydn from cellist Khamidullin
The Russian cellist Rustem Khamidullin won first prize in the 2014 Gisborne International Music Competition; this concerto date was presumably part of the prize. He was born in Ufa in the Russian republic of Bashkortostan (Chaliapin, Nureyev, and the distinguished bass Ildar Abdrazakov were born there too); his name suggests Volga Tartar origin, the same ethnic origin as the eminent composer Gubaidulina.

Anyone who was inclined to think that the early Haydn concerto was just a filler, would have had a big surprise, as Khamidullin delivered a performance of the first of the two concertos, in C major, that carried us far from any predictable expectations. Haydn’s fame is not founded on his concertos, though there are four for violin, the famous trumpet one, several for other wind instruments, perhaps about 10 for keyboard, and the other cello concerto written about ten years after the first.

Khamidullin immediately established an atmosphere that was quite entrancing: refined, of the utmost delicacy, almost spiritual in character, which Taddei’s direction implanted with the orchestra in absolute sympathy with the soloist. His playing was fluid, indulged sometimes in ‘scoops’ (portamenti) that no one of any sensibility could have criticised, as they were in perfect accord with the musical canvas that he was painting. And though the occasional bravura flourishes were brilliant, they too were much more an aspect of the dreamy and graceful interpretation, not only of the Adagio, but also of the more extravert outer movements.

He delighted in producing a warm intimacy on his lower strings, alternating, in the Allegro molto last movement, with exciting staccato phrases, crisp and lyrical. It was a flawless performance, accompanied by a suitably pared-down orchestra whose playing had the same light-footed and finely-spun quality.

Without a great deal of urging, though his reception was exuberant, Khamidullin sat down and charged through the violin show-piece, Hora Staccato (Grigoraş Dinicu), as if it been written for his own instrument.

The Choral Symphony
Beethoven, and certain other composers, seem to attract the critical ear of many critics (that’s their job, sadly), in respect of use of authentic instruments, employing the ‘right numbers’ of orchestral players, delivering ornaments in keeping with the aesthetic tastes of the music’s era, and adhering to the speeds suggested by the composer (if these are credible), or by those musicologists currently in fashion, who allow themselves to pronounce on those things.

The first thing that struck me with this Choral Symphony, was its fervent, ebullient character, part of which was tempi. The first words in my notes, in fact, included, ‘fast’, ‘secure’, ‘excitement’, which represented my response to a feeling of huge exhilaration. Taddei did not have the score before him, and while that must not be regarded as clear evidence of absolute mastery or musical superiority, it often suggests that a conductor doesn’t want to find his eyes wandering needlessly away from the faces of the players and singers, with whom a conductor’s first priority should rest.

Orchestra Wellington is of course fortunate in being able to borrow players from the NZSO (in a few key positions in the basses, one or two winds and timpanist Larry Reese) and having a few former NZSO players in its ranks. But the orchestra’s manpower consists almost entirely of native Orchestra Wellington players.  Trumpets, horns, woodwinds made impacts that were exciting, there was clarity and warmth in the strings, and the entire orchestra sounded as if the speeds demanded were well within their abilities.

The contrasts between the big thematic statements and the more meditative, evolving passages in between were dramatically captured, the tension sustained, though the music was quieter and elegantly crisp.

The Scherzo, Molto vivace, held no terrors for the orchestra, as replica, 18th century timpani, with hard sticks, inspired the orchestra to ever more exertion, with triplet quavers and the impact of incessant dotted rhythms, through momentary accelerations. Here were repeated displays of beautiful woodwind playing, Merran Cooke’s oboe distinctively, that often determined the movement’s character.

The third movement is long and beautiful, and it was only here that I had slight misgivings about the pace; not that it was too quick, but whether it quite sustained the transfiguring spirituality that has to dominate it. But the second theme, in the hands of the strings, took firm hold and later, horns, soon proved that Taddei remained in command of the propulsion and momentum of the movement, drawing attention to Beethoven’s imaginative command of orchestration, in spite of total deafness by this time.

Singers enter for An die Freude
The half-hour long last movement opened with the overwhelming confidence of a bigger and more famous orchestra, hard timpani and a cacophony of wind instruments, soon followed by cellos and basses presaging the baritone’s recitative-like opening, ‘O Freunde, nicht diese Töne’. Any earlier wondering about the weight of the cellos and basses after their commanding pronouncements, dissipated at once; yet where the big theme, later to take charge as ‘Freude schöne Götterfunken…’, was announced by cellos and basses, all the hushed spirituality was there.

The baritone’s lone entry, calling things to order, is probably scary even for the most experienced singer, but Warwick Fyfe was firm and confident, as if the first notes were comfortably within his range, every word clear. As well as the timpani, the bass drum, on the left, also made a stunning impact. Finally the choir arrived, very large, and clearly responding to a command to ‘give it all they’ve got’; not only was the force of Schiller’s words thrilling, but somehow their numbers made the fortissimo singing, perhaps not nice in a small choir, totally arresting. The words were remarkably clear and delivered as if the future of mankind really was in their hands. It was one of those inspirational occasions when one dreams of imprisoning the world’s worst criminals and terrorists in a mighty concert hall to hear this, and watching their evil character fall away as the spiritual power of words and music delivered an ecstatic message that none could withstand (as long as the Alla marcia didn’t have the opposite effect).

The soloists for the fourth movement were placed behind the orchestra, at the front of the choir, a position that is sometimes felt to diminish their impact. I was sitting on the left (facing the orchestra) and so was not able to tell whether there was any problem in the body of the auditorium; but when the soloists entered with ‘Wem der grosse Wurf gelungen’, it came with a reassurance that their sounds were undiminished.

Tenor Henry Choo and Fyfe found themselves alone with their ‘Freude trinken alle Wesen’ (Schiller’s third stanza); a happy pairing. And after the Alla Marcia, tenor Henry Choo was conspicuous in his solo with words from the fourth stanza, ‘Froh, froh wie seine Sonne’.

Certain parts are intensely moving: the return of the first chorus after the long, 6/8, Alla marcia episode, and the descent to the hymn-like ‘Seid umschlungen, Millionen’ for tenor and bass soloists, with its octave parts.  The women’s voices alone provided one of the most glorious passages, both through their dynamic impulse and their expression of such passion through the words. And though neither soprano nor mezzo soloists, Jenny Wollerman and Elisabeth Harris, had the exposure that tenor and baritone enjoyed, their singing in the quartet was always vivid , spiritual in its message, in perfect accord and interestingly, a bit apart from the tenor and bass singing with them.

All soloists singing alone, particularly their last passage with ‘Freude, Tochter aus Elisium’, contributed a particular ecstatic emotion, The chief glory of the performance was the power and almost unbridled ecstasy of the choir, partly a result of its sheer size, even more, the conspicuous care taken with diction and admirably scrupulous ensemble. And that energy never diminished till the choir’s final pages, their fortissimo clamour finally taken up by the orchestra, which sustained it with total excitement right to the final spacious chords.

The applause was tumultuous and it encompassed everyone from Mark Taddei, through the orchestra, the choir and all the soloists.