Tag: chamber music

Full house Mulled Wine concert at Paekakariki with NZSM violin and piano stars

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Mulled Wine Concerts
Jian Liu (piano) and Martin Riseley (violin)

Bach: Solo Sonata for Violin, BWV 1001
Lilburn: Sea Changes and Violin Sonata
Brahms: Intermezzo in B minor, Op 119 No 1
Grieg: Sonata for Violin and Piano No 3, Op 45

Paekakariki Memorial Hall

Sunday 27 May, 2:30 pm

We’ve sadly missed a couple of earlier Mulled Wine concerts from Paekakariki: the Rodger Fox Jazz Ensemble in January and Toru (the Wellington trio of flute, viola and harp) in March, though we caught up with them at Lower Hutt recently.

This concert was perhaps more than merely a compensation, from two of the distinguished classical performance lecturers at the school of music of Victoria University.

There were three solo pieces: Bach’s solo violin sonata in G minor, BWV 1001, Lilburn’s Three Sea Changes and one of Brahms’s last compositions, an Intermezzo, the first of the four pieces from Op 119.

Bach: Solo violin
The Bach piece famously taxes a violinist, both on account of its technical challenges and its musical substance. Riseley’s playing was not of the sort that makes it look easy, nor was its intellectual character diminished through smoothing out its angularities which are rather audible in the longest movement, the Fuga.

The opening Adagio invites the most profoundly passionate interpretation, making its evolution a uniform process but Riseley almost seemed to allow the creative process behind every phrase to be heard distinctly, as each phrase seemed to be exposed to our examination. The Fuga (‘Fugue’) movement moves more quickly and its pulse carried the performance along in a more flowing and deceptively easy manner. The Siciliana is caste in a complex triple time with a slower pulse, and the violinist here found the opportunity to demonstrate a more lyrical and easy-flowing quality, sometimes almost too disarmingly.

A return to the ‘exercise’ character of the first movement comes with the last movement, simply marked Presto. Incessant semi-quaver triplets offer no relaxation and though obvious hard work lay behind the performance, its relentless pulse demonstrated Riseley’s talent and musical insight clearly.

Lilburn for piano and violin
Jian Liu followed with the first of Lilburn’s Three Sea Changes. One is used to Margaret Nielsen’s playing of these and it was a small revelation to hear something different, invested with the sensibility of pianist of a different ethnic and musical background. It was both polished and invested with a musical spirit that was European – perhaps of a Debussy-derived character. I must get to hear his playing of all three, and I hope Jian Liu is encouraged to lay down his own performances of Lilburn’s large piano oeuvre.

Liu’s other solo piece was the first Intermezzo of Brahms’s set of four piano pieces, Op 119 (there are around 20 intermezzi, most of them written in his last years, after overturning his earlier decision to retire completely). Affection for them, as with most of Brahms, simply increases with age (so there’s no need to worry!). The programme note took the trouble to reproduce Brahms’s sweet remarks to Clara Schumann about this particular one. It went so: “The little piece is exceptionally melancholic and ‘to be played very slowly’ is not an understatement. Every bar and every note must sound like a ritard[ando], as if one wanted to suck melancholy out of each and every one, lustily and with pleasure out of these very dissonances!”  It didn’t strike me like that, apart from the tendency to ritardando, and this beautiful performance certainly didn’t induce dangerous melancholy.

Martin Riseley returned to play Lilburn’s 1950 Violin Sonata (and what a pity Lilburn wasn’t surrounded by audiences calling for more chamber music; instead he was encouraged to pursue musique concrète).

I might remark here on the violin that he used. It was a 19th century German instrument on loan from Kapiti resident Bill McKeich (He was the leader of the orchestra at Wellington College in which I played the cello; we were in the same form in the upper 6th). It produced a comforting, warm sound, and here it created music that seemed more quintessentially Lilburn than one sometimes hears.  The notion had not occurred to me before that there was a Schumannesque character in this music, or at least in this performance; once such an idea arises, it’s easy to hear it confirmed as the music goes on. So, as a particularly irrational Schumann lover, I found more delight in Riseley’s playing in this piece than I have before.

Grieg’s third violin sonata
Finally, the major work in the concert, Grieg’s third violin sonata, an old favourite. I recall first hearing it at a chamber music concert in Taumarunui in …(long ago), where I was posted ‘on section’ while at Auckland Teachers’ College. (Taumarunui High School was a sought-after school because of the Whakapapa ski field; as a self-indulgent aside, poking about the music department I came across 78 rpm recordings of Roy Harris’s famous Third Symphony which struck me as remarkable in a secondary school; I suspect scarcely anyone has even heard of it today).

Anyway, the best known of Grieg’s sonatas is not much heard these days, even in towns 50 times the size of Taumarunui. So to hear it with the sound of the sea close by was a delight, not to mention the excellence of the performance, which was quite passionate, interspersed with gentle and sometimes quite prolonged lyrical passages. The partnership itself was a thing to delight in as one’s attention shifted from one to the other, the music seeming to breathe in response to its own pulse and mood from bar to bar.

Jian Liu’s playing was both elegant and deeply attuned to the spirit and poetic quality of the music, while Martin Riseley’s playing often felt as if he was observing the music from the outside yet was able to capture the whole-heartedness and complex lyricism of Grieg’s composition. The slow movement speaks so clearly in Grieg’s language, that blend of sentiment and a northern reserve; so that the music has a changeable atmosphere, alternating between E major and minor, refusing to commit to either.  And the duo captured the qualities of the last movement, Allegro animato, mixing freshness and thoughtfulness that always demanded admiration, for both the complementary elements of their styles and the fluency of their playing.

And after rather protracted applause, the duo returned and uncovered another score on their music stands; it was Tchaikovsky’s Serenade Melancholique, Op 26, demonstrating their ability to give genuinely pathetic utterance to the sort of sadness that Tchaikovsky created so movingly.

There was a predictably full house in the hall by the sea. The inducement consists in more than just the free mulled wine in the interval; it’s definitely worth more than merely a detour.

 

Talents and skills of university woodwind students in St Andrew’s lunchtime recital

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

NZSM Wind Students

Music by Fauré, Francisco Mignone, Lowell Liebermann, Gareth Farr. Krysztof Penderecki and Debussy

St. Andrew’s on The Terrace

Wednesday, 23 May 2018, 12.15 pm

It is interesting to hear music students at different levels of their courses, and of ability and achievement.  All these students, though, performed well and provided engaging music.  In most cases they were accompanied on the piano, although two students played unaccompanied pieces.  It was pleasing to see a number of school students in the audience; perhaps they are studying wind instruments. Simon Brew, acting head of winds at the New Zealand School of Music, briefly introduced the programme.  Nearly all the students introduced themselves and their music more than adequately, using the microphone.

Fauré was represented by Fantasie for Flute, Op.79, played as the opening piece by Samantha McSweeny, accompanied by Kirsten Robertson.  French composers wrote prolifically for the flute, and this was a lovely example of their work, which for me carried over nicely from the Fauré songs I heard in Waikanae on Sunday.  The piece was inventive and graceful, with a languid opening section.  It changed to sprightly and playful passages.  It was written for a Paris Conservatoire competition, so it aimed to have the students demonstrate a range of techniques, tempi and dynamics.  As well as our player doing this more than adequately, the accompaniment was full of character.

I had never heard of the Brazilian composer Francisco Mignone.  His dates were 1897 to 1986.  (It would have been useful to have the composers’ dates printed in the programme.)   Improvised Waltz no.7  was the title of the piece for solo bassoon, played by Breanna Abbott.    It was quite a jaunty piece to start with, but the deep-toned instrument made it harder to get over a light-hearted mood.  It was short, and very competently played.

Lowell Liebermann is a contemporary American composer (born in 1961) who is a prolific composer as well as a performer.  His Movement 1 from Sonata for Flute and Piano, Op.23 was played by Isabella Gregory, accompanied by Kirsten Robertson.  A leisurely opening was followed by an allegro that brought a rush of notes before falling back to gentle utterances.  In places the piano doubled the part of the flute.  A new section was slow, but both flute and piano jumped around the staves, especially the latter.  Both played angular phrases, the flute employing particularly the lower register of the instrument.  A return to slower, gentler phrases brought the piece to a smooth, mellifluous end.

The only New Zealand composer represented was Gareth Farr; Peter Liley, alto saxophone, accompanied by Catherine Norton on the piano, played Farr’s Meditation very confidently, following an excellent spoken introduction.  The piece opened with notes on the piano, followed by chords, then a slow, pensive melody.  This gradually developed and built to a high climax – most effective.  More climbing motifs – then an abrupt end.

Solo clarinet was played by Harim Hey Oh, performing Penderecki’s Prelude for solo clarinet.  Slow, quiet single notes opened the short piece.  Then the music became quite gymnastic, with quick notes darting here and there, including very high notes and very loud ones (hard on the ears!).  Then it was back to slow, quiet notes, widely spaced – and it was all over.

The other great French composer represented was Debussy, by his Première Rhapsodie for clarinet, played by Frank Talbot with Catherine Norton accompanying.  The piece was written for graduate students at the Paris Conservatoire, so was constructed to test them.  Later, the composer orchestrated it.  This was a highly competent performance, employing a lot of different techniques and idioms. The full range of the instrument’s notes and dynamics were used.  It was most enjoyable music, not only for the clarinet’s role; the piano had a very varied part also.

This was a very satisfactory demonstration of the skills of wind students at the New Zealand School of Music at Victoria University of Wellington.

 

 

 

 

Admirable, stimulating programme of piano trios from Te Koki Trio

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Te Koki Trio: Martin Riseley (violin), Inbal Megiddo (cello), Jian Liu (piano) – senior lecturers in Victoria University School of Music
(Wellington Chamber Music)

Brahms: Piano Trio in C minor Op. 101
Avner Dorman: Piano Trio No. 2
Shostakovich: Piano Trio No. 2 in E minor, Op. 67

St. Andrews on The Terrace

Sunday 20 May 3 pm

Gale-force winds outside might have been an appropriate accompaniment to Shostakovich’s frightful war-time masterpiece. But it was not necessarily a fitting way to characterise Brahms’s third piano trio. In spite of the remarks in the programme notes (in general, illuminating), and even though it’s in a minor key, I have never found the opening pages devoid of melody, or revealing an ‘unsettled nature’; though later movements might be so characterised.

However, Jian Liu’s reading of the opening chords might for a moment have supported the sense of the programme note. His first chords were so heavy that they dominated the violin and cello and I rather wished the lid had been down, as well perhaps as having the piano on a carpet. But the music soon shifts to the much more sustained, warm and heart-felt second subject that in fact seemed to characterise most of the movement, in spite of momentary returns of the more emphatic first theme. The imbalance between piano and strings didn’t recur.

The notes might have somewhat exaggerated the restless and haunted nature of the second movement which is considered the Scherzo, though not marked so. The minor key colours the entire work and even this ‘scherzo’ movement hardly produces a feeling of ecstasy or contentment. Much of it is staccato in character, permitting neither buoyancy nor delight. The singular feature of the work as a whole is the shortness of each movement – the second movement lasts only about four minutes. And the first was only about twice as long.

The Brahms we’ve waited for arrives in the third movement, and here Martin Riseley’s violin and Inbal Megiddo’s cello play alone for half a minute and they do so again after the piano had a brief contribution. The movement seemed all too short, as I couldn’t help feeling that the players longed for its prolonging and I even wondered whether there was actually a repeat that they were ignoring. There is not of course. Here was the quintessential Brahms writing the most expressive and alluring music, and the programme note’s ‘unsettled material’ and ‘irregular phrases’ were not very audible to me.

Even though the last movement remains in the minor key and there’s a seriousness of mind which the players showed their full awareness of, there’s no lack of melody, even if the tunes are sometimes stretched over a wide range, and the occasional staccato irruptions hardly encouraged the listener to drift into a feeling of contentment. The gentle rising and falling theme which becomes the heart of the movement was all too short.

Avner Dorman
The novelty of the concert was a 2002 trio by Jewish-American composer Avner Dorman. When I looked at YouTube, I was surprised to find scores of performances of a great variety of music by Dorman, though none of this piano trio. He has clearly attracted a large following for music that is distinctive and genuinely imaginative. His music seems often to begin in a comfortable, familiar manner, sometimes, like the present trio, with the utmost simplicity. It began with a simple four-note chorale-like motif, repeated in subtly changing ways, creating at least the impression of each instrument playing distinct phrases in different keys, while one became aware of the original motif continuing repetitiously below the evolving sounds above.

Dissonances slowly became more and more arresting and complex, curiously, not in a way that aroused frustration or irritation. Perhaps no dissonance can today really sound barbarous or outrageous because profligate use of it has diminished its impact, its capacity to offend. Just as swearing in public, on television and film no longer has the power to shock though I suppose there are still some who find it offensive just as some still find gross dissonance offensive. To me these passages were simply counterpoints or foils to the more conventional. The players gave every sign of commitment, persuaded that here was music that had something to say, music that was not imitative but which did not seek to be ‘original’ just to win academic brownie-points.

These situations are always interesting as some in the audience reacted with at least a little reserve, even disapproval. The second movement was faster, no less free with unorthodox harmony and darting, reckless rhythms. Sudden passages of meditative music, violin and cello bowing their way in adagio sequences; then rushing torrents, from high to low registers. One always searches for influences and these were hard to perceive; perhaps certain hints of Vasks or Pelecis came to mind, absurdly perhaps.

Shostakovich’s Piano Trio Op 67
Few pieces of chamber music in the 20th century pack the punch that Shostakovich’s 1944 piano trio does (unless it’s his Eighth String Quartet). I first came to know it through performances by the Turnovsky Trio (Sam Konise, Christopher Kane and Eugene Albulescu) in the 90s. The famous opening, starting with uncanny, false (or artificial) harmonics by using (with the cello) the thumb to shorten the length of sounding string, presaged an extraordinarily sensitive and expressive performance. One could dwell on the range of ‘effects’ employed by the piece, but it is better to consider the plain emotional impact of the music – a matter that should always come before academic consideration of the means by which it’s achieved.

Traditional descriptive musical language, Allegro con brio, hardly captures the real nature of the music, any more than the neutral moderato and poco piu mosso does of the first movement. Its brio isn’t altogether a mistake, but there’s a manic quality here, and with all the bite and energy these players adopt makes you sit bolt upright. It’s the third movement in which Shostakovich expresses the grief that war has plunged his country into, a sustained threnody which fades with dying piano notes to the piano’s grief-stricken staccato start of the last movement.

Though written presumably after the Siege of Leningrad had been lifted (January 1944; the composer had been evacuated from the city in October 1941) this movement remains one of the most graphic, emotional descriptions of war imaginable. And the playing varied from despairing to terrifying, to repetitive, violent passages interspersed with sudden pauses to reflect and regain one’s balance and equilibrium.

I found the whole programme, the choice of works and their committed and accomplished performance by these three senior lecturers in the School of Music totally engrossing. As I seem to say often, it deserved a far bigger audience; a few short years ago these concerts in the Ilott Theatre in the “How long must we wait?’ Town Hall used to attract a couple of hundred people, even in blizzard conditions.

 

Diverting Debussy-inspired trio charm a responsive audience at Lower Hutt

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Toru Trio: Karen Batten (flute), Sophia Acheson (viola), Ingrid Bauer (harp)
(Chamber Music Hutt Valley)

Debussy: Sonate pour flûte, alto et harpe (1915)
Bax: Fantasy Sonata (viola and harp, 1927)
Tabea Squire: Impressions (2018)
Wendelin Bitzan: Zoologischer Garten for flute and viola (2011)
William Mathias: Zodiac Trio (1976)

Lower Hut Little Theatre

Wednesday 16 May, 7:30 pm

Te reo Maori for the numeral 3 is toru; thus ‘Toru Trio’ is a redundancy. This instrumental trio comprises harp, viola and flute, modelled on Debussy’s war-time piece; all are players in Orchestra Wellington. All the pieces were composed in the last 100 years (though the Debussy himself was a couple of years outside that frame).

Their arrival on stage made a striking impression: Karen Batten in a dramatic gold dress, Ingrid Bauer a dress of more coppery gold, and Sophia Acheson wore a near luminous, black dress. And while the Little Theatre is an intimate space with a dry acoustic that leaves performances quite exposed, a distinct compensation is the players closeness. That means the audience could be diverted by three attractive, personable and versatile musicians who use their instruments to produce often unfamiliar sounds and visual experiences; in particular, the harpist’s manipulations of hands and feet on her formidable instrument were always intriguing.

Three of the five pieces engaged all three players while the Bax and Bitzen were scored for only two of them. The way the cards fell resulted in the omnipresence of Sophia Acheson’s viola in all five works.

The concert presented several unusual aspects: the uncommon instrumental combination, that only one piece was by a composer whose name would have been familiar to all the audience, that the trio had invited a young New Zealand composer to compose a piece for them, and that they were in the middle of a Chamber Music New Zealand tour to eight smaller towns and cities from Warkworth via Gisborne, Motueka, etc to Gore in the south.

Debussy creates a new musical form
Debussy started it all. At the beginning of the First World War, Debussy decided to write six sonatas, for different combinations of instruments referencing eighteenth century French musical traditions. Just as Ravel had done with his Tombeau de Couperin, Debussy wanted to make a patriotic French gesture in support of French soldiers facing the horrors of the war. He wrote only three of the six – for cello and piano, this one, and one for violin and piano: he died too soon. The other three were planned: Debussy had written in the manuscript of his violin sonata that the fourth sonata should be written for oboe, horn and harpsichord, the fifth for trumpet, clarinet, bassoon and piano, and the sixth for all the preceding instrument plus others.

For the sixth and final sonata, Debussy envisaged: “a concerto where the sonorites of the ‘various instruments’ combine, with the gracious assistance of the double bass”, making the instrumentation: flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, horn, trumpet, harp, piano, harpsichord, violin, viola, cello, double bass; it would have been a masterpiece. Debussy’s three non-existent works would, like this trio, have inspired scores of works for those new combinations.

In some ways it’s a risky business to combine three such disparate instruments, and to play in such an exposed acoustic as the Lower Hutt Little Theatre, poses an even greater challenge; it’s one thing to be able to hear with such clarity the distinct sounds of each instrument, but it’s something else to deal with the challenge of achieving real blending; and that might be a minor criticism of their playing. Debussy makes a feature of their utterly different sounds by asking each player to introduce her part in its characteristic way, exploiting quite interestingly the differences in compass and tone.

It creates striking effects, viola and flute pursuing very different ranges; early on the harp plays very high while the viola plays repeatedly a very low note. The sonorities are most curious at times; we are not very used, for example, to the viola playing alone over such long passages. The programme note usefully described each theme and their instrumental treatment, and drew attention to their repetition in a different order.

The minuet second movement, primarily in triple, minuet time imperceptibly changes to common time, at times misleading the listener, while the Finale returns to 4/4, and employ the harp at the start in a low register, rather murmuring. For the most part the playing was so sensitive and each player clearly paid such attention to what others were doing that the music began to sound inevitable. While I am familiar enough with it, I remember many years ago finding it elusive and tonally rather disparate. It’s one of those pieces – many of Debussy’s are – that slowly, deeply takes root, more in the instinctive mind than the intellect.

A Bax Fantasy
The Bax piece, for viola and harp, called a Fantasy Sonata, which had become a fashion after English musicologist and a notable compiler of a great encyclopaedia of chamber music, W W Cobbett (it’s near my desk), established a competition that seeking to revive the 16th century English musical form. Numbers of works were produced (Armstrong Gibbs, Bridge, Howells, Ireland, Britten).

Bax’s was perhaps more straight-forward melodically than Debussy’s trio; I didn’t know it, but it’s an attractive piece, and presenting less of an instrumental challenge. And again the players revealed a happy rapport handling dynamics sympathetically, idiomatically.

Tabea Squire is a young Wellington composer whose composing gifts have led to several commissions. This piece, for all three instruments, was not on a large scale and the task was to simulate sounds in nature: the contrasting colours of the kowhai, the image of children dancing in the rain, and a fantail fluttering among trees in the sunlight. While this kind of inspiration for music generally usually doesn’t seem very fruitful (to me); in fact I think it’s more likely to succeed as music without visual or literary or some intellectual construct. Its variety and the handling of parts for each instrument, individually or in ensemble, and the evidence of plain musical invention are enough.

Flute and viola then played a piece by a young (at my age, ‘young’ seems to refer more and more to anyone under 40) German composer, Wendelin Bitzan. This time, zoo animals in curious situations, but stimulating the composer to devise often amusing sonic imagery. Occasionally, the sounds were evocative enough, not to create pictures of the creatures named, but to be engaging nevertheless; moments that were amusing, even bizarre, both in concept and actualisation.

Astrology in music
Then a third piece that had an extra-musical origin: William Mathias’s Zodiac Trio which again presented a scenario that seemed to demand a lot from the imagination, if one sought useful characterisations from Mathias’s impressions of that nature of Pisces, Aries and Taurus. One of the players (I think, violist Sophia Acheson) claimed a Zodiac association with one of the three signs employed by Mathias; I can claim none, so I was able to listen without prejudice to the musical interpretations of these forces.

These three pieces might have been obscure astrologically, but as I wrote above, that was irrelevant; they were attractive musical creations, sometimes beguiling, occasionally droll and often musically inventive. Taurus did indeed suggest the force, energy and danger of a loose bull, as there were moments where these very disparate instruments truly came together in an integrated way.

Debussy’s trio has given rise to an impressive body of musical descendants and to as many threesomes devoted to their performance (look in Wikipedia). There is a rich and every-so-often very rewarding field for Toru to cultivate.

Given that this Hutt Valley concert was Toru’s only appearance in the Wellington region in the course of an eight-concert tour, its excellence deserved a bigger audience.

Piquant and entertaining programme from guitar and viola d’amore at St Andrew’s

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Jane Curry (guitar) and Donald Maurice (viola d’amore)

Music by Locatelli, Hindemith, Bruce Paine, Pablo de Sarasate, Ciprian Porumbescu and Miroslav Tadeć

St. Andrew’s on The Terrace

Wednesday, 9 May 2018, 12.15 pm

I heard these two musicians last year, and once again I can only say that their playing is highly skilled and utterly delightful, and the repertoire charming.

A sizeable audience, including numbers of young people, heard them play a diverse range of music, not all of it composed for precisely this instrumentation, but all of it well worth hearing and apt for the combination.

The Locatelli Sonata Op.2, no.4 was enchanting.  Originally written for flute and continuo, it worked very well in this instrumentation, the guitar performing the continuo part, amply producing a sound closer to the harpsichord than the piano would in an arrangement that exists for violin and piano.  The sweet tone of the viola d’amore in the hands of a thoroughly competent musician is a treat to hear.  The movements, adagio-allegro-largo-allegro were beautifully contrasted, the subtle nuances and variety of tone of the viola d’amore giving everything character and life.

Paul Hindemith was one of the first of the modern composers to write for the old instrument; his Kleine Sonata Op.25, no.2 was indeed short.  There was much lively interplay between the two instruments, and discordant passages part of the humour of the composition

Bruce Paine is an Auckland =based guitarist and composer.  His Finchdean Duet is named after a peaceful village in England, and was originally a solo piece.  Maurice employed the deeper, richer tones of his instrument in this work, which I found attractive but not adventurous.

Pablo de Sarasate was a nineteenth century Spanish violinist and composer.  He wrote many pieces based on Spanish dances, for his instrument.  ‘Playera’ was one in a collection of such dances for violin and piano – though according to my Spanish dictionary, the word literally means ‘canvas shoes’.  It was appealing music.

Romanian composer Ciprian Porumbescu had a short life, and his ‘Balada’ was  probably written in confinement to his home region, where his political views kept him.  He contracted tuberculosis, which accounted for his early death.  It was a sad piece (written for violin and piano), but eloquent and plaintive.  It had these two instruments sounding so well together; the effect was lovely, and elegant.

The final offering in the concert consisted of two ‘Macedonian Pieces’ by Miroslav Tadeć, a Serbian now resident in the USA.  He is a prolific guitarist, composer and recording artist.  Maurice’s parts in ‘Jovka Kumanovka’ and ‘Cajdarsko Oro’ were originally written for flute.  The first one was rather wistful but folksy in character.

The second sounded like a folk dance, fast and very rhythmic.  The viola d’amore made it sound quite skittish. It rounded out a piquant and entertaining programme.

 

 

 

 

 

Behn String Quartet opens Wellington Chamber Music’s 2018 season – brilliantly

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Behn Quartet
Kate Oswin (Christchurch-born, violin), Alicia Berendse (violin, Netherlands), Lydia Abell (viola, Wales), Ghislaine McMullin (cello, England)
(Wellington Chamber Music)

Debussy: String Quartet in G Minor
Jack Body: Three Transcriptions
Shostakovich: String Quartet No. 3 in F major, op. 73

St Andrew’s on The Terrace

Sunday 22 April, 3 pm

Wellington Chamber Music Inc opened its 2018 season of seven concerts with a multi-national string quartet (naturally, one cannot use the word -ethnic when speaking of members of several nations inhabited by one ethnic group, European peoples), led by a New Zealander.

It’s probably unusual for a musical group to adopt a literary name. Aphra Behn was a late 17th century English woman playwright and novelist. She’s always interested me: go to the end of this review to read a bit more about her.

Debussy String Quartet
An excellent programme began with Debussy’s only string quartet. It caught my attention at once with the gorgeous warmth and homogeneity of sounds produced by the four women, and it prompted some inadmissible thoughts that might be sexually discriminatory towards male string players. It struck me that, unlike some male players, here there was absolutely no sense that any player was in the least concerned about being distinguished individually.

I have never felt that Debussy’s writing for quartet led particularly to sounds that were so closely knit, not just in their ensemble, but more strikingly in their unified tone. Furthermore I was enraptured by their subtly elastic rhythms and pacing, and that was even more evident in the second movement, Assez vif et bien rythmé. Where they could play up the hesitancy that seems inherent in the music, and to permit the varied musical personalities of the players to be heard. Here for the first, but not the last time, the viola of Lydia Abell which opens so vividly over pizzicato from the others, made the kind of sound that really justifies the distinct role of the viola in a string quartet. But her sound was never at the expense of the ensemble which remained so happily at one.

The second violin of Alicia Berentse opens the third movement (Andantino, doucement), but the viola soon takes up its plaintive song and I began to wonder whether I was becoming rather unhealthily obsessed with it; but I realised that it was actually the violist alone whom I could see properly, and so tended focus unduly on her playing, from a position a bit too far back to see the other players (sight lines are a bit of a problem when players remain at floor level). But the cello of Ghislaine McMullin took its turn with the ultra douce melody, with equally rapturous playing, and the viola enjoys a particularly striking episode later in the third movement. The remarkable pause in the middle of the third movement never ceases to surprise me.

However, the cellist too has rewarding episodes, particularly in the last movement where she opened secretively with her winding theme which suddenly springs to life. And while the two violins play distinctive, energetic roles, it was again the interesting contributions by viola and cello that mostly impressed me.

Jack Body’s Three Transcriptions has become a fairly popular piece, and a unique piece it is. Being based on three very different folk pieces for exotic instruments, the translations to string quartet do strike one from time to time as eccentric, somehow eviscerated and without the authentic character which would, I’m sure, have been uniquely arresting and enlivening. But they are what they are, and these performances, different of course from what I’ve heard from the New Zealand String Quartet, stood their ground. They captured the essence of the Chinese Long-ge, jew’s harp as well as simulating the jagged rhythms of the Ramandriana from Madagascar. But they couldn’t really replicate the excitement of a great deal of Balkan musical traditions (I’m much more familiar with Greek and Serbian folk/popular music). Yet they were fired with the music’s energy and handled capably the exotic playing techniques that Body demanded, with an occasional shout simulating the ecstatic response of the dancers.

Shostakovich’s Third String Quartet, written at the end of the war, in 1945, begins in a surprisingly cheerful way, making no reference to the horrors just ended, but soon an unease arises over what Stalin now had in store for his people now that the Communist Party could get back to its main purposes. It’s in five movements, though the programme note could have been misleading, showing the fourth movement as Adagio – Moderato; Moderato in fact describes the fifth movement.

The second movement calls up a somewhat funereal quality with a slow, rising, minor triad on the viola; the notes call it a sardonic waltz; how would Andrei Zhdanov (who led the 1947 attacks on ‘formalist’ music that devastated Shostakovich, Prokofiev and Khachaturian) have interpreted this uneasy music? For there is little scope to misinterpret the heavy opening strokes by all four players in the third movement, and they employed just the right weight to the compelling rhythms that shift, rather imperceptibly from a 2/4 to ¾ beat. The ending, abrupt like the suddenness of an execution, and shocking in its calm acceptance, brings art and politics into immediate and inseparable proximity.

A similar air dominates the fourth movement, with meandering, uneasy motifs, the most telling parts with viola and cello, though the atmosphere lightens when violins do join, and there’s no mistaking the very temporary lifting of the pervasive tone of apprehension here with the slow disappearance of hope as violas and cellos are alone over the last minute or so. And though the last movement is a little quicker, in what sounds like triplets in duple time (actually 6/8 rhythm), the fifth movement does little more in terms of painting a picture of political life in Soviet past-war period, than suggest a low profile and the best one can do to maintain a happy face.

Being a deeply political person I find this, and much of Shostakovich, engrossing and disturbing, particularly as it is once again becoming relevant in the second decade of the 21st century. The Behn Quartet, whose name suggests acknowledgement of a comparable affinity between the temper of the political world and that of the arts, also played as if they thoroughly understood what Shostakovich was saying in this powerful and eloquent work.

 

About Aphra Behn
I confess I didn’t have to Google the name ‘Behn’ as I was familiar with it both through my father’s knowledge (he was chief librarian of the Turnbull Library for nearly 30 years, and his discourses at home shaped me. Milton and 17th century literature (and music) are among the library’s international strengths) and my own English literature studies at university. I knew her place in Restoration England (the reigns of Charles II and James II, and later), in theatre and writing in general. Though details of her life, including the way she rose from very modest origins to literary distinction are a bit sketchy, she was successful in both fiction and drama; and she was a rare, feisty, liberated woman writer who at one point had acted as a kind of double agent for the English Crown in the Netherlands.

She was noted as a writer of some fairly bawdy tales, dealing frankly with Lesbians, and being remarked at the time as writing in a vein that was more likely from a male than a female pen (the Restoration was a famously licentious period in literature and the arts).

She lived from 1640 to 1689, and her musical contemporaries were Purcell and John Blow; and on the Continent, Lully and Corelli.

Her other contemporaries were Dryden, Newton, Boyle, Pepys, Bunyan, Nahum Tate (famous as the librettist of Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas), Christopher Wren, and Milton was in his last years; philosophers: John Lock, Spinoza and Leibnitz.

I heard the distinguished 17th century scholar speak at the recent Festival: A C Grayling, an inspiring, strong minded figure with admirably sane political and religious views.  Read his The Age of Genius: The Seventeenth Century and the Birth of the Modern Mind.

 

Inbal Megiddo (‘cello) and Te Kōkī Trio record music for the ages

Posted on by Peter Mechen

DEBUSSY – Two Instrumental Sonatas and a Piano Trio
Violin Sonata in G Minor (1917)
‘Cello Sonata in D Minor (1915)
Piano Trio in G Major (1879)

Te Kōkī Trio: Martin Riseley (violin)
Inbal Megiddo (‘cello), Jian Liu (piano)
Rattle Records 0069 2017

JS BACH – Six Suites for solo ‘Cello BWV 1007-12
Volume One ( Suites 1-3)

Inbal Megiddo (‘cello)

Atoll Records ACD 228

Inbal Megiddo is presently the head of ‘Cello Studies at the New Zealand School of Music, Victoria University of Wellington, and has appeared in numerous concerts in Wellington both as a soloist and as a member of Te Kōkī Trio, an ensemble in which she is joined by two other faculty members, Martin Riseley, and Jian Liu, the respective heads of violin and piano studies at the school. Her career as a performer and teacher had previously taken her to various places throughout Europe, Asia and America before she came to New Zealand to take up a position at Victoria University’s Music School.

She’s now made recordings for Rattle, the first half of a set of Beethoven’s ‘Cello Sonatas with Jian Liu (the second disc is currently in preparation), and here with Te Kōkī Trio as listed above, in a recording of two of Debussy’s instrumental sonatas and his Piano Trio. She’s also recording for Atoll Records what’s intended to be a complete set of JS Bach’s Suites for Solo ‘Cello, the first disc of which is reviewed here. Prospective buyers may prefer to wait for her integral 2-disc set of these works, though people wanting a sample of her playing of this repertoire will be more than happy with this single CD, as the performances, to my ears, are strongly recommendable.

Recorded a year before the Bach/Atoll CD, the Rattle recording features Te Koki Trio, whose members variously bring together three chamber works by Claude Debussy. There are two instrumental sonatas from the composer’s last years, one for ‘Cello and Piano (1915) and the other for Violin and Piano (1917), the latter being the composer’s last completed work. The trio then comes together for the disc’s final work, an early Piano Trio (1879).

The Violin Sonata begins the concert, here given a strong and atmospheric performance by Martin Riseley (violin) and Jian Liu (piano), the opening, perfectly-poised piano chords straightaway taking us into the composer’s characteristic sound-world of wonderment, joined after a few seconds by the violin’s more questioning voice. As the first movement moves, kaleidoscope-like, through its different realms, the instrumental interactions change from assertion to surrender with easy mastery, all brought off beautifully by the players. The violin’s exotic-sounding inclination to slide between notes in two or three places add to the mystery of the discourse, as do the beautiful balances achieved between the two players in the softest moments, realising the composer’s flights of fancy with intense concentration and focus.

There are a couple of strangely protracted between-movements pauses on this recording, as here, sharpening the listener’s eagerness to engage with the rest of the work! The quixotic second movement then delivers us playing of such impish drollery at the beginning, I found myself smiling (sometimes out loud!) at the po-faced audacity of it all! But what melancholy both Riseley and Liu brought to the music’s lovely middle section! And how easefully they then charted the course as the music moved disconcertingly between humour and wistfulness over the final pages. The final movement opened in a dreamlike manner, before the instruments roused themselves with alacrity, the violin in particular rushing about, rather like a caged bird wanting to break free, and compelling its partner to dance. As everywhere, I liked the performance’s risk-taking with these volatilities, the various figurations delivered by the players with engaging spontaneity rather than mere crystalline perfection. Again, Debussy’s fertile imagination takes the music unexpectedly into sultry, suggestive climes, violinist and pianist relishing the volatility of it all, Liu’s piano suddenly scampering away, with Riseley’s violin in hot pursuit. The music returned to the movement’s opening “caged bird” energies, but then surprised the listener once again, as the violin slowed the note sequences down to become almost childlike in expression. After a final accelerando from the depths and back into the light, the players suddenly and exuberantly threw their notes skyward in a gesture of wry finality.

Where the Violin Sonata began pensively and poetically, the ‘Cello Sonata opened with solemn grandeur and ceremony, the piano preparing the way for the ‘cello to adopt a similar mode, though both players soon relinquished the grandeur for more poetic exchanges, Inbal Megiddo’s instrument singing in beautiful accord with Jian Liu’s well-rounded tones. How excitingly the two instruments then raced together, as if for possession of a hilltop or a favourite hiding-place, before stopping to fully relish the surrounding silent spaces, the soft playing of both cellist and pianist a breath-holding sequence of pleasure at the end!

Something of a “how-de-do” marked the exchanges at the second movement’s opening! –  in pizzicato mode the ‘cello became a kind of conspirator with the piano’s terse utterances. Again in an exotic-sounding setting, the instruments whimsically switched from staccato/pizzicato to legato/arco, while exploring as many timbres in between as fell in with fancy, making for a somewhat hallucinatory ride through a dreamscape! Impulsively, the finale breaks the mood with lively figurations from both instruments, the energies then giving way to introspection throughout a central section, until Megiddo and Liu revitalised the music’s tumbling aspects with almost manic focus, to the point where the music suddenly cried “enough”, and curtly silenced their efforts.

Playing the disc to anybody unfamiliar with the music would probably invite shock and disbelief on the listener’s part upon being told that all three works presented here were by the same composer! As a demonstration of how much distance someone’s creativity can travel in a lifetime, Debussy’s Piano Trio of 1879 makes for a profound listening experience in retrospect, while remaining totally enjoyable on a visceral level. Its first movement is the longest of the four, a graceful Andantino with songful lines for each instrument, the material conventional, but with everything confidently and meticulously wrought. A whimsical Scherzo has an attractively exotic feel to its opening gait, its central Trio section given the right amount of contrasting sentiment and circumspection by the players – while the slow movement’s Andante Espressivo, again beautifully set out for the instruments, charms with its slightly perfumed lyricism, Te Kōkī Trio allowing the music to speak for itself within a salon-like context.

Marked “Appassionato”, the last movement works up an acceptably “charged” level of feeling within the music’s own range and scope, again impressing with its workmanlike construction and level of expression, and indicating something of the boy Debussy’s obvious potential as a creator in years to come. Full credit to Te Kōkī Trio for taking so much trouble with the work, here in Rattle’s crystalline recording, sounding gloriously prodigious, if a tad disconcerting regarding content, in the company of its two more sophisticated “latter-day” siblings!

Turning to the Atoll disc of Inbal Megiddo’s performances of the first three of JS Bach’s ‘Cello Suites, one encounters something of the rarefied world of Debussy’s late Sonatas in terms of the relationship between economy of means and richness of expression. Inbal Megiddo’s playing, recorded by Wayne Laird in the precincts of Stella Maris Chapel, at Seatoun, in Wellington, sounds equally as glorious, her characterful playing captured in all its variety of utterance as a truly lifelike
representation, which I can’t wait to hear again on completing my task of committing these thoughts regarding the disc to the record.

Megiddo’s performances are recorded in numbered order, so I began my listening with the Prelude of the very first Suite, a performance which combined heart and mind, reaching for its emotional points with such surety and purpose, while keeping the music’s structures intact – the figurations were at once surely negotiated and yet imbued with a sense of liberation which empowered the listener to surrender to the music and the playing with the utmost confidence. After a freely-flowing and fanciful Prelude, the Allemande continued the process of unlocking the music, drawing from the player such strength and confidence as to enchant the listener. The Courante combined forthright impulse and purpose with a sense of fun – an unbuttoning of joyful expression, music which here expressed the idea of life’s essential cheerfulness in the face of worldly troubles, rather as Schubert was wont to do in his music. The Sarabande, deeply-felt and long-breathed in its phrasing, was Romeo to the Courante’s Mercutio – the figurations here spoke of imaginings and projections of thoughts and feelings beyond earthly boundaries. The Menuets were properly contrasted, the first confident and eager in its deportment, and the second, contrasting dance its more circumspect side, the opening a descent rather than the upward-leaping figure of the first dance, the legato of the figurations adding to the solemnities. I liked the rustic twang of the repeated opening dance’s final phrase. Dance-like, too was the final gigue, the player vigorous but flexible in her trajectories, impulsiveness hand-in-glove with a teasing flexibility, the sounds of sympathetic strings activated adding to the warmth and bustle..

Suite No.2 begins with D Minor circumspection, the playing expressing a care for solemnity of mood which gave the music the feeling of a soliloquy, one rising to expressive heights with beautifully-phrased ascents towards long-held notes. The Allemande seemed no less serious at the outset, the figurations eloquently speaking with the tones of a philosopher, the repeats nicely hinting at variations in emphasis, setting nothing in stone, but seemingly open to conjecture. Impulsively interrupting the discourse, the Courante burst in, all elbows and knees, proclaiming action rather than thought, clearing the way for the somewhat ceremonial pronouncements of the Sarabande, grand and stately, though Megiddo’s repeat of the opening made one catch one’s breath at its extra “layered” quality, the second time round, the dynamics given more open spaces to explore. Megiddo warmed the music to its task in the second part, sharpening the intensities, while keeping the beautiful shape of the whole. She found positive minor-key purpose in the first Menuet, making the major-key relaxation in Menuet II a joy, and links these nicely to the Gigue in mood, the playing resonantly voiced, and almost peasant-ish, in some places, in its suggestion of a dance-like drone.

We got plenty of C Major splendour in Megiddo’s opening of the Third Suite, great, confidently-arched roulades of sound, and with the player not afraid to saturate the music’s tonal palate with richly-wrought repeated arpeggiations, fearlessly and generously generated for our pleasure. After this, the Allemande seemed more-than-usually light on its feet, putting the following Courante even more on its mettle, the energies playful and teasing, the tones adding different kinds of timbral emphases to the narrative, to “spice up” the story. Very free at the outset in the Sarabande, Megiddo gave the music a full-throated voice, before varying the intensity in the repeated passage, expressing the emotion, and then stepping back to re-experience its effect at a distance – in these measured, beautifully controlled sequences she seemed to play both player and listener roles, the music having transfixed both and bound them inextricably together. We then got two Bourees instead of Menuets (these always remind me of sailors’ dances!), the first of which Megiddo gleefully propelled through its figured routine, pausing for reflection throughout the second of the two episodes, and then returning to the more overtly physical of the dances with renewed vigour. But the most unbuttoned exuberance was left to the final Gigue, which here under Megiddo’s fingers swept everything before it in a torrent of unbridled joy and confidence, the music-making compelling in its detailings and infectious in the sheer elan of its execution. (Sustained applause!)

 

 

Admirable, enterprising concert of Dvořák from Orchestra Wellington players

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Players from Orchestra Wellington

Dvořák; Serenade for winds, cello and double bass in D minor, Op 44 (B 77)
Merran Cooke and Louise Cox – oboes, Mark Cookson and Chris Turner – clarinets, Leni Maeckle and Penny Miles – bassoons, Shadley van Wyk, Dominic Groom and Vivian Reid – horns, Brenton Veitch – cello, Paul Altomari – double bass

Dvořák: String Quintet No 2 in G, Op 77 (B 49)
Monique Lapins and Konstanze Artmann – violins, Sophia Acheson – viola, Brenton Veitch – cello, Paul Altomari – double bass

St Andrew’s on The Terrace

Friday 13 April, 12:15 pm

Dvořák wrote two serenades: the first, for strings in 1875 and the second, for winds plus cello and bass, in 1878. We heard the latter.

His two serenades occupy a rather special place in music of the Romantic era, the wind one especially, as there had not been a work of comparable charm since Mozart’s 80 years before, and none quite as fine later. Though perhaps not influenced by Dvořák, there were two comparable works within a decade of his Serenade: Gounod’s charming Petite Symphonie approaches it, and Richard Strauss’s Op 7, a prodigious 18-year-old’s remarkable work which really stands on its own feet!

The Wind Serenade
The first impression of the playing was of a bold sound when my feeling of the music is for a somewhat neutral beginning, reflected in its minor key; it’s Moderato, quasi marcia. I wondered whether it would compromise the scope later, for dynamic variety, but that feeling soon evaporated. But what I did miss a little was a warm, easy flowing momentum which the minor mode also seems to suggest. There was a good deal of excellent playing, and early on oboe and bassoon caught my ear particularly.

The second movement is a minuet (the single sheet programme didn’t indicate movements), and I actually spent a little time wondering whether it was a minuet, with its interesting duple time running alongside the minuet rhythm. But there was no alternative of course, and there was, properly, a contrasting trio, much more sprightly, in the middle which might indeed have been in some other dance style. The alternating oboe and clarinet phrases were a delight. This movement had the happy effect of demonstrating the composer’s quite beguiling use of wind instruments,

It was only in the slow movement (Andante con moto) that the absence of flutes struck me, following the instrumentation of the great Mozart Serenade for 13 wind instruments (but not for Strauss who does use flutes); only reeds allowed! But there were some lovely horn ensembles and time to rejoice in the composer’s intuitive handling of all his instruments in turn, even the cello and bass. It’s my favourite movement (when I was young I liked the fast movements best), but I had to admit that when the finale – allegro molto – began, it carried me along in its intended joyful spirit.

Because I did continue to feel a little overwhelmed by the volume of sound produced (I was in the fourth row; a friend seated at the back told me that he had no such experience), I was looking forward to the string quintet, since I usually find strings better adapted to the church acoustic.

String Quintet Op 77
The numbering of Dvořák’s works is confusing as he adopted a very cavalier approach to the matter so that musicologists would be able to justify their time spent in the hilarious task of working out just when and how his compositions were written. He bestowed Op 77 on his second string quintet, though it was a relatively early work, originally with an earlier opus number 18, written in 1875 when he was 34. It is unique in being scored for string quartet plus double bass; the first string quintet (for orthodox instruments) had been his second work, in 1861, aged 19; he gave that Op 1. A third quintet, in E flat, Op 97 was written after the string quartet in F, Op 96, ‘American’, when he was in the United States in 1893.

It’s a lively, imaginative, though underplayed work. Why, when musicians think of Dvořák chamber music, is it always the ‘American’ (used to be called the ‘Nigger’) quartet or the wonderful piano quintet?

I last heard it played by the New Zealand String Quartet and the virtuoso NZSO bassist, Hiroshi Ikematsu, in 2011 at St Mary of the Angels.  It is a delight; it starts from the bottom, bass and cello intoning secretively, then engaging the higher instruments one by one, up to the bright-toned violin of Monique Lapins; ready for the first big theme, naturally bass heavy, to burst out fully formed. It’s entitled Allegro con fuoco.

The performance was full of energy. One normally hears these players, generally briefly, within the symphonic sound mass of Orchestra Wellington, and it was both a revelation and pleasure to hear them as polished chamber musicians too. After the first elaboration of the main theme, Brenton Veitch delivered his energetic yet lyrical account of it before they all took over. In fact, throughout the first movement Veitch’s part was particularly distinctive.

The same thrusting energy appears in the second movement which, though in triple time, is not a minuet but Scherzo, allegro vivace. There’s a distinct change of tempo and tone in the middle, slower and more lyrical and the quintet demonstrated a more meditative quality.

The slow movement is marked Poco andante and its wistful opening theme was not only musically related to its predecessors, but was the first opportunity to hear the quintet’s more legato, lyrical playing. It’s not especially Slavonic in spirit, as I think Dvořák wanted to establish his reputation in conventional western European, let’s say, Germanic, music. His nationalistic music was largely expressed in the Moravian Duets, the Czech Suite, Slavonic Dances, the first set of which, Op 46, were written in the same year as the Quintet; and so on. And the last movement, conventionally Allegro assai, is very driven and full of energy. It can probably be played with even more passion and brio than these players produced.

Coda
This was a performance that achieved two things. The unearthing of some chamber music (if we can stretch the term a bit for the Serenade) that doesn’t get much attention in a string quartet dominated world, and there’s a great deal more of it – quintets, sextets, septets, nonets and so on by many of the great composers (Mozart’s wind serenades of course) and some not so great – just two: Spohr’s Nonet, Berwald’s Septet (we do get plenty of octets by Schubert and Mendelssohn).

And secondly, I am delighted that Orchestra Wellington is moving in this enterprising direction, filling the musical gap I mention, as well as putting themselves before the public more often, letting people know that excellent musicians also inhabit Orchestra Wellington. It’s an initiative that presents worthwhile music instead of (or in addition to) being drawn in the direction of pop, film music and other kinds of cross-over material which I have serious misgivings about.

And it needs to be noted that this concert, very modestly priced, drew the biggest crowd at St Andrew’s that I’ve seen for such a concert for a long time.

 

 

 

 

New Zealand String Quartet at Waikanae deliver major works with assurance, passion, delicacy

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

New Zealand String Quartet (Helene Pohl, Monique Lapins, violins; Gillian Ansell, viola; Rolf Gjelsten, cello)
(Waikanae Music Society)

Schubert: String Quartet in C minor, “Quartettsatz”
Debussy: String Quartet in G minor, Op.10
Beethoven: String Quartet in E flat, Op.127

Waikanae Memorial Hall

Sunday 25 March 2018, 2.30pm

How fortunate we are to have such a fine quartet performing to us frequently!  They are national treasures – worth their weight in gold.  And that is how they appeared at this concert: in new, gold encrusted outfits.  In Rolf Gjelsten’s case it was restricted to his tie, but the women’s tops were much more flashy – but not so much as to be a distraction from the wonderful music performed.

The order of the works was changed from that printed in the programme, and began, rather than with the Beethoven, with the shortest item: Schubert’s lovely single movement quartet.  As always with Schubert, this was a highly melodic work.  The extent of his invention leaves one astonished.  The players also astonished, with the delicacy but clarity of their pianissimo playing.  Every delicious detail was brought out by these highly accomplished musicians.  The lyrical music was mainly in a joyous mood, but tinged with melancholy.  The short, lovely quartet is a great introduction for people not familiar with chamber music.

The Debussy quartet was in quite a different language.  Use of modes and of gamelan influences are among his innovations.  The latter (gamelan) music he would have heard at the great Paris Exhibition of 1889, four years before the quartet’s composition.  This was quite a distance from the German music which had dominated European music for most of the century.

This year is the centenary of the composer’s death, so a lot of his music is being programmed and broadcast.  The first movement of his only quartet, marked animé et très décidé, is based on a single melody; indeed, it is used throughout the work.  After an emphatic, concerted opening, many refined elements appeared on individual instruments, varying from delicacy to firm and strong, to excited.

The second movement, assez vif et bien rythmé, begins strikingly with a repetitive melody on the viola and a pizzicato accompaniment from the other instruments.  The first violin then took over the melody, followed by the cello.  A mysterious quality came over the music, which had been quite emphatic, sliding chromatically.  Bold statements intersected a shimmering accompaniment, then the pizzicato returned for all players.  The movement was enchanting in its effect.

The slow movement is marked andantino, doucement expressif.  A slow, thoughtful movement, it featured the use of mutes early on, and again towards the end.  There were frequent viola solos based on the quartet’s main theme.  Use of the deepest cello notes was significant.

The finale is marked très modéré.  It illustrated again how different are the musical colours, rhythms and textures in this work from those in the compositions of Schubert and Beethoven.  The movement had a level of gaiety not apparent in the earlier movements; in fact, it became frenetic at times, despite the tempo marking.

These musicians all play with assurance and deep familiarity with the music.  The playing is in no way pedestrian; all is pointed, intense and significant.  The lovely final chords completed this stunning performance.

Beethoven’s late quartets are pinnacles in music history; their profundity, moods, melodies and unflinching confrontation of despair and infirmity are without precedent – or successors.  This, the first of these late quartets, like its fellows, larger in scale than previous compositions in this form.

As with the other works, the brief spoken introduction by a member of the quartet (this time, Rolf Gjelsten) was informative and illuminating, without being too long.

As a portent of its scale and solemnity, the first movement is marked maestoso – allegro.  The majesty of the opening soon gives way to an allegro of interweaving parts; the opening passages return several times.  This was playing on a grand scale, with splendid tone.  It had great impetus, constantly driving forward, yet with subtle variation of dynamics and tone.

The slow movement, adagio, ma non troppo e molto cantabile, is a set of variations, but not in an obvious way – these were subtle and indirect in their manner; shifting harmonies accompanied beautiful, contemplative melodies.  While mainly restrained and elegant, the music was passionate at times, including a contrasting short, jolly, highly rhythmic dance-like middle section..

This was a long movement, with its variations on the main themes.  The return to the sombre mood came with the melody initially on the first violin and staccato accompaniment.  Then the viola takes it up, followed by a return to the violin.  It is intense yet eager music, full of twists and turns.

At last the scherzando vivace third movement arrives, to relieve our dark mood.  Its playful dance is quick; its rhythm creates a liveliness that makes the music less profound than that in the other movements.  It is still complex in places, however.

The finale is fast, with a positive and emphatic mood.  It makes its way through different keys and tempi, and grand statements, to proclamations of great confidence, a virtuoso ending and jubilant final chords.

 

Largely successful Japanese chamber music concert at St Mary of the Angels

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

New Zealand Festival
Chamber Music Series

‘Distances’
Dylan Lardelli (conductor and guitar); Miyata-Yoshimura-Suzuki Trio(sho, koto, recorder); soloists from Ensemble Musikfabrik (Peter Veale – oboe, Hannah Weirich – violin, Makiko Goto – bass koto); Yuriko Sakamoto (shamisen)

Music by Chris Gendall, Dieter Mack, Keiko Harada, Kikuoka Kengyo, Rebecca Saunders, Dylan Lardelli, Samuel Holloway

St Mary of the Angels, Boulcott Street

Friday 9 March 2018, 6 pm

There are, inevitably, concerts where a critic feels out of his depth; music that is almost of the future, or from a sophisticated culture that one has little experience of. One often approaches them with trepidation, fearing that it will be music that is so remote in spirit and language from familiar Western music that one has no touchstone by which to assess it fairly, certainly with any sense of authority.

So it didn’t help when a young man came out after the stage had been arranged, seats and music stands, to tell us something about changes to the programme. He was on the right; I was seated on the far left; clearly he had little experience in projecting the voice, unamplified, into a big space and I caught about one word in 10.

However, it emerged that two items had been deleted – by Takemitsu  and a recorder fantasie by Telemann, and a couple of others had their order reversed.

What remained as a challenge was simply the style of much of the music from the Gagaku, ancient Japanese court music, from around the 8th century. Though I have heard this music in various contexts over the years, I don’t recall a concert where such refined and sophisticated examples dominated most of the programme. Unfortunately I was not at Chamber Music New Zealand’s concert by this Japanese trio in February 2016 (you’ll find the review by Peter Mechen in Middle C) which would have somewhat acclimatised me to the sounds here.

The remoteness of the music was compounded by the appearance of the word ‘extended’ in the programme note, a word that usually implies that the musicians are taking liberties with the traditional performance styles by exploiting extremes of pitch range or articulation to produce multiphonics (two or more notes simultaneously) on a wind instruments.

The SHO
One was launched unceremoniously into one of the most refined and attenuated pieces of the evening with an anonymous, traditional piece, Hyojo No Choshi (described as ‘an extremely elegant performance ritual’), played by Mayumi Miyata on the sho. It is a Japanese reed instrument where a bundle of reeds are tied together vertically, and held in front of the face. The sound might be compared to a very high reed stop on the organ, though it struck me that the bamboo reeds produced a hint of string sound as well.

The music evolved with extreme slowness, two or more notes sounding simultaneously – multiphonics, some a semitone apart thus producing what to most ears would be discords. The visual effect too was very striking: Mayumi Miyata in white stood behind the altar, freshly painted in white or similar colour under very bright light. Behind her was the beautifully carved reredos.

Two or three minutes were spent between most pieces to rearrange seats, music stands and to bring in or take out various instruments – the most conspicuous being the 13-stringed koto and the even bigger bass koto (I assume also having 13 strings), which could be likened to a lute, zither or cimbalom, though played by plucking rather than using mallets.

Gendall: music and joinery
Both were brought out next, played by Nanae Yoshimura and Makiko Goto. The piece was by Chris Gendall: Reverse Assembly, which the notes described as “a rather adorable internet-search translation of a type of interlocking Japanese joinery”. One had to assume that Gendall had managed to create a piece, regardless of its recondite inspiration, that measured up to the Gagaku aesthetic tradition. Four other players, including two New Zealanders: oboist Peter Veale and guitarist Dylan Lardelli, handled sho and recorder (Tosiya Suzuki) and violin (Hannah Weirich). While the six players indeed created an singular, alien sound, and the inspiration of Japanese joinery quite escaped me, I confess to falling under the spell – eventually.

Dieter Mack: a trio with koto
Next was a piece by German composer Dieter Mack, with a more familiar title: ‘Trio VII for oboe, violin and bass koto’ (commissioned by the German element in the group, Musikfabrik). My notes included words like ‘squeaks’ and ‘screeching’ (violin harmonics) but later my response to Veale’s alternating oboe and cor anglais, the emphatic, low notes on the kotoa, hints of melody, indicated a degree of curious appreciation.

Keiko Harada
The fourth piece was a quartet from a Japanese composer, Keiko Harada: a ‘quartet for sho, recorder, guitar and bass koto’ composed specifically for these players. Suzuki used three recorders: one, the biggest I’ve ever seen, standing more than two metres high with a long mouth-piece that extended, unlike the bassoon, to the top of the instrument; the other two, conventional. Clearly a most serious intention underlay the ensemble of sounds, often most arresting, occasionally evocative even if at the end my notes recorded a degree of mystification: I could only feel that its real secrets rather eluded me.

The shamisen arrives 
Kikuoka Kengyo’s Iso Chdori (Beach plover) brought out Yuriko Sakamoto’s shamisen, a mandolin shaped three-stringed instrument, with a very long neck with a febrile, delicate sound. The other plucked instrument, filling the lower register was the koto whose player, Yoshimura, also gave voice occasionally. This struck me as more evocative of a traditional Japanese idiom, with subtle, coherent tunes, derived from real musical impulse rather than an urge to experiment.

Glance back to Europe with Saunders
Next, a piece the composer Rebeca Saunders attributed to inspiration by lines from a poem by Samuel Beckett: To and Fro, for oboe and violin. Opening with slow warm notes on the G string, some multiphonics from the oboe. Though no Japanese instruments were employed, nor overt references to Japanese music, her obscure, perhaps pretentious inspiration could well have derived from an ultra-refined eastern culture; this listener felt that occasional arresting passages gave the music coherence in spite of the sense of Beckett’s words escaping him altogether.

Lardelli conducts Lardelli 
Dylan Lardelli’s composition, Holding, involved five players with Lardelli conducting; they were arrayed from the left: sho, oboe, koto, violin and bass recorder. Their impact was to create a generally convincing coalescing of European and Japanese cultures; in this instance Lardelli’s words contrasting sound and silence, intimacy and distance, light and shadow did reflect something of the music’s spirit.

The summing up, by Holloway
Finally, six players; sho, recorder, oboe, guitar, shamisen and bass koto performed Samuel Holloway’s Japonisme, a comment, reflection on European approaches to Japanese culture, including ‘appropriation and misrepresentation’, involving what seemed a deeply ingested understanding of the complex processes of cultural integration experiments.

In spite of a frequent sense of being out of my depth, of failing to be sufficiently familiar with the spiritual nuances of Japanese music, this was a most interesting and largely successful attempt in cross-cultural creativity.