Tag: chamber music

Young Korean piano trio at Waikanae with generally colourful, joyous music

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Waikanae Music Society

Beethoven: Piano Trio in C minor, Op.1, no.3
Gareth Farr: Piano Trio: Ahi
Dvořák: Piano Trio no.4 in E minor, Op.90 “Dumky”

Trinity Trio (Stella Kim, violin; Tina Kim, piano; Sally Kim, cello)

Waikanae Memorial Hall

Sunday 21 August 2016, 2.30pm

It was disappointing to see a much smaller audience than has been present at the other concerts of the Waikanae Music Society that I have attended this year.  Was it the beautiful calm and sunny weather that kept people away?  This was the tenth of ten concerts the Trinity Trio has given around the country for Chamber Music New Zealand.

In addition to excellent programme notes, brief spoken introductions to the works by the trio’s violinist gave useful information.  Two of the players are sisters, the third no relation, but all are ethnically Koreans.  What is it about Korea that it produces so many fine musicians in the Western genre?  Is it the very high proportion of Christians in the population that makes them somewhat Westward-looking?  Plus the high level of participation in university education?

The opening of the Beethoven trio disappointed me a little.  There was not the depth of sound from the strings that I expected.  These are young musicians, not seasoned performers however, although their brief biographies attest to not a little experience and competition successes.  I found the piano often too loud for the strings in this work, though I was sitting near the front of the audience.  The fiery first movement (allegro con brio) has plenty for the piano to do, but I would have liked to have had a more assertive contribution from the strings.

Warmth of tone and subtlety of violin playing were more apparent in the second movement, marked andante cantabile con variazioni.  The theme and its variations were most attractive.  The strings were to the fore at first, accompanied by the piano, then the roles were reversed for the second variation.  A variation in a minor key had the strings taking the major part.  Great use was made of the lower strings.  The last variation finished with a nostalgic, coda higher in the register.

The menuetto (quasi allegro) was brisk for what was originally a courtly dance.  With its trio, the minuet was short but jubilant.  The final movement (prestissimo) produced some very abrasive notes from the cellist, who appeared to have her bow wound more tightly than is usual.  In addition, she was not always totally in tune; the tempo was certainly pretty demanding.  The movement had a surprising quiet close.  This was said to be Beethoven’s favourite of his trios.

What Gareth Farr has in common (among other things) with the great composers is that he can write in a variety of styles and genres.  The trio played in this concert followed classical trio structure.  The tuneful opening melody for piano alone was then taken up by the strings.  The first movement French lullaby (as described by Stella Kim) was playful as well as soothing, with shifting tonality.  Lovely interlocking of violin and cello, then passionate declarations, before a quiet ending.

The second movement, a scherzo, was militaristic, bombastic and fiery; the violinist described it as being set in a Russian military factory.  It demanded rapid shifts and loud proclamations from all instruments.  Part of the movement sounded like a fast train speeding across the steppes; this factory must have produced arms at high speed!

The brief Interlude third movement was a gentle relief from the scherzo, while the Finale portrayed elements of gamelan music.  The repeated phrases of Balinese music were certainly there on all three instruments.  It was played with panache and fervour.  There were some brilliant passages amongst the stormy alternating phrases with their quieter repetitions, and a flourishing ending.

The ‘Dumky’ trio is probably the most popular of the composer’s writings in this genre; it is a pity we don’t more often hear his other trios.  However, its undoubted appeal makes it good programme fodder.  Grove’s Dictionary of Music and Musicians says of this trio “[It] consists of a series of six dumky [Slavic folk songs] … the majority being in binary form.  Most start with a slow meditative section and continue at much faster pace.  It was bold of Dvořák to adopt this unique, daringly simple plan, and he executed it with keen imagination… giving each dumka a distinct individuality and colouring.”

Its dramatic opening builds anticipation for what is to come.  The dance-like qualities soon manifest themselves (despite the movement being denoted lento maestoso) followed by delicacy on the piano.  The poco adagio second movement starts with a solemn cello melody, beautifully and sonorously played.  I find Dvořák a most lovable composer, with his characteristics of cheerfulness and sublime melody.  The piano, then the violin reiterated the melody, in most touching manner.

Mutes were produced for the andante.  Again the cello was to the fore, with a delicious melody.  There was a delightful strummed passage for cello, imitated on the piano, before a pensive ending.  The fourth movement (andante moderato) again had a cello solo, with staccato accompaniment on the other two instruments.  Sprightly passages were interspersed.  A slow dance intervened before the return of the theme.

The allegro fifth movement features a joyful opening that always makes me smile.  This quick movement provides a welcome change – not that there is no fast music elsewhere; there certainly is, despite the tempo markings.

Lento maestoso is the marking for the final movement, as it was for the opening one.  Exclamations are a feature, as are alternating fast and slower passages (‘from doleful to exuberant’ as the programme note had it) characteristic of dumky.  The folk music element is prominent here.

The Trio played an encore: Café Music by Paul Schoenfield.  It was bright, jazzy dance music – but personally, I’d rather have been left with Dvořák.

 

Renaissance of the song recital heralded with Poulenc and ‘Songbook’ at St Andrew’s

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Songbook: A breath of Poulenc

Songs and woodwind sonatas by Francis Poulenc

Barbara Graham (soprano), Rebecca Steel (flute), Deborah Rawson (clarinet, Bruce Greenfield (piano)

Adam Concert Room, New Zealand School of Music

Sunday 14 August 2016, 2pm

This time, pianist Catherine Norton, the promoter of Songbook, took a rest from the piano.  Seasoned accompanist extraordinaire Bruce Greenfield did the honours.

The concert was but an hour long, and concentrated on one composer instead of the many composers featured in April’s concert.  Despite the promoter’s title for the group, this concert featured woodwind music, beloved of a number of French composers, as well as song.  With top musicians performing, it was a pity the audience numbered not more than around 30.

A breath of fresh air Poulenc was (along with a number of his contemporaries), leaving behind the sometimes ponderous solemnity of Saint-Saëns and Franck.

Bruce Greenfield arranged the recital and its order, and included in the printed programme notes from Poulenc’s diary that gave some of his philosophy regarding his songs.  Applause was requested to be given only before the short break in the middle of the programme, and at the end; a great idea for allowing continuity of the music.

The songs were settings of poems by Louise de Vilmorin (1902-1969) and Louis Aragon (1897-1982), poets of Surrealism.  Several were very humorous.  Most of the compositions were written during World War II.  The recital began with ‘Violon’ from Fiançailles pour rire (Betrothals for fun?) by Vilmorin.  Through all her songs, Barbara Graham’s language was clear and beautifully pronounced.  Having words and translations printed for us made the songs so much more than ‘mere’ good singing.  The singing was in character with the words, e.g. ‘On the string of disquiet / to the chords on the hanged strings…’

This was followed by the allegro malinconico first movement of the composer’s Sonata for flute and piano.  I wondered what Poulenc would have thought of the silver flute, with its rather more brittle tone than that of the traditional wooden flute.  Poulenc’s writing for the piano was far from just being accompaniment; he gave much delicious music to the piano.

The next song from the same Vilmorin cycle was ‘Fleurs’.  This was no traditional sonnet in praise of flowers.  I loved the expression translated as ‘Flowers sprouting from the parentheses of  a step’.  I have a few of those.  The more sensitive, benign character of this song suited Barbara Graham’s voice better than did the first song.  The slower tempo allowed the words to be pronounced more fully.

Deborah Rawson now played the first movement, allegro tristamente, from the composer’s Sonata for clarinet and piano.  It was not easy to find anything sad in this allegro.  Some of the delightfully spiky accompaniment was in a minor key, but sadness was difficult to detect.

The third song from the cycle, entitled ‘La Dame d’André’, was mellifluous, with quirky touches typical of Poulenc.

The second movement of the familiar flute sonata followed, its description ‘cantilena’ very appropriate in this recital.  The pattern or structure of the work is classical, but the components, i.e. melodies, harmonies and rhythms were not at all.  The beauty of Poulenc’s writing here for flute is incomparable.

Another song from Vilmorin’s cycle was entitled ‘Mon cadavre est doux comme un gant (‘My corpse is as soft as a glove’).  Here again, Poulenc’s treatment of the words was wonderful.

The romanza movement from the clarinet sonata came up next.  There is no doubt about the skill of these musicians: they indeed allowed Poulenc to speak with his own breath.  This movement was like a song – I could almost imagine the words – yet Poulence traversed the range of the instrument, with taste and invention.

‘Paganini’ is a song from another of the same poet’s cycles: Metamorphoses.  With a title like that, it was obvious that this was another song about the violin.  However, the juxtaposition of the instrument with seahorse, mermaid and Mary Magdalen was surreal indeed – stream of consciousness stuff.  The setting matched the diversity of  poetic thoughts, with its various musical images.

The flute rejoined the piano in the final movement of the sonata.  The presto giocoso had a similar flighty, headlong character to the preceding song.

The last song from Fiançailles pour rire was titled ‘Il vole’, probably to be translated as ‘Thief’.  The song contained plays on the words from the verb voler, to fly, and voler, to thieve.  Some of this was lost in reading the English translation.  The sentiment of the last line ‘Je veux que mon voleur me vole’ reminded me of ‘Sweet thief’ in Menotti’s opera The Old Maid and the Thief.

The final movement of the clarinet sonata, allegro con fuoco, was indeed furious – a race to an exciting end.  This excitement was carried over into the final song.  Before it, we heard ‘C’ from Deux Poèmes by Louis Aragon (1897-1982).  The poem introduces images of war among its varied figures, beginning ‘J’ai traverse les ponts de Cé’.  The second poem, ‘Fêtes galantes’ was a fast and furious tongue-twister.  I could not read the English translation as fast as Barbara Graham could sing the French words!  The ironic text points to its having been written during the war, e.g. ‘You see [On voit] fops on bicycles/ You see pimps in petticoats/ You see brats with veils/ You see firemen burning their pompoms’.  It made a glorious end to the recital that illuminated the many-sided talent and innovation of Francis Poulenc.

I’ve long wanted, nay, needed lieder (or art song, if you prefer) in Wellington; the Songbook is the answer to that need, although I do not find this venue the most desirable; it is too resonant for loud solo singing or playing, in my view, and detracts from the beauty of the music.  I noticed that at long last the street-lamp-orange fluorescent lights have been replaced by normal-coloured ones.  Maybe this is not recent, but I haven’t noticed it before.  It’s certainly a vast improvement.

 

Gems from the tutors at the Aroha String Quartet’s music academy

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

St Andrew’s Lunchtime concert

The Aroha String Quartet’s International Music Academy 2016: Tutors’ concert

Music by Schumann, Beethoven, Mozart and Mendelssohn

St Andrew’s on The Terrace

Wednesday 10 August , 12:15 pm

The Aroha String Quartet is more than ten years old and has, through two or three personnel changes, become an important feature in Wellington’s musical scene.

They take their position seriously, now contributing to the teaching, coaching and support of young (and adult, non-professional) musicians. The Academy takes place at St Andrew’s between 9 and 14 August, with two public concerts on Sunday the 14th. The coaching is done by the quartet’s members plus a number of other international musicians, most of whom participated in this recital.

There was only one complete work (Mozart’s Sonata in D, K 381) and three single movements by the other composers.

The piece played in its entirety was a reasonably familiar sonata for piano, four-hands, played by Songwen Li and Xing Wang. They played it in a brisk, staccato manner rather than seeking its lyrical character. Their style no doubt tended to expose possible ensemble flaws in a piano duet, though there was little of that to bother about, with all four hands hitting the keyboard in a well-practised manner with fine ensemble. That applied to the outer movements while the middle, Andante, revealed a more song-lie quality: it was by far the longest of the three movements.

The first item on the programme was the first movement of Schumann’s wonderful piano quintet (Op 44), from the Aroha Quartet (Haihong Liu and Simeon Broom, violins; Zhongxian Jin, viola; Andrew Joyce, cello) with Jian Liu contributing the piano part. It might have reflected the players’ positions, or mine, in the organ gallery, that Jian Liu’s piano and Andrew Joyce’s cello (he had replaced an ailing Robert Ibell) dominated the soundscape. Given that the piano was Schumann’s first love, it’s never surprising in his chamber music that the piano tends to take charge.

Then came the first movement of Beethoven’s ‘Ghost’ piano trio (in D, Op 70 No 1) in which Simeon Broom (second violin in the quartet) and Andrew Joyce were joined by pianist Rachel Church. Here Broom assumed a conspicuous space while Church’s piano was beautifully subdued and genial but by no means obscured; and as usual, Joyce’s cello was a lovely contribution; he attracts immediate attention no matter how gentle or subdued his playing, or how good the other players are.

Then finally, the quartet, alone, played Mendelssohn’s last string quartet, first movement, Allegro vivace assai (in F minor, Op 80) written shortly before he died. For many a music lover, for whom Mendelssohn may not be among the top ten, an exception is made for this: beautifully crafted, infused with a depth of feeling and musical inspiration that is moving and completely arresting. A pity that it took his beloved sister’s death and his own failing health to inspire him to commit it to paper; and the only problem was their stopping at the end of the first movement, and that he didn’t feel the impulse to write more of such genius.

Try to get along to their public concerts at St Andrew’s on Sunday: 3 pm and 5:30 pm.

Piano quartets from Diedre Irons and NZSO string principals

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Wellington Chamber Music
Vesa-Matti Leppänen (violin), Julia Joyce (viola), Andrew Joyce (cello), Diedre Irons (piano)

Schubert: Adagio and Rondo Concertante in F, D 487
Fauré: Piano Quartet in C minor, Op 15
Brahms: Piano Quartet in A, Op 26

St Andrew’s on The Terrace

Sunday 7 August 3 pm

There was little doubt that a piano quartet comprising three of the principals in the NZSO plus one of the most admired New Zealand pianists would produce a delightful concert. And the composers to be played were further assurance of a couple of rewarding hours.

That expectation could withstand the unknown quantity of the first piece, by Schubert. Written aged 19 and therefore, in Schubert’s case, the work of a thoroughly experienced, even mature, composer. After all, he’d already written more lovely music than most composers do in a long life: seven operas, four symphonies, eleven string quartets, scores of songs and piano pieces.

This was practically the only music he wrote for piano quartet. Diedre Irons’s programme note remarked on the prominence given to the piano, and I thought she was to be admired for making little effort to disguise that feature. There were occasional moments when, for example, the cello sounded as if it might be offered something worthwhile to do, but often that was just a passing distraction; and one of the violin’s appearances soon led to a defeated sounding, descending arpeggio.

That was the introductory Adagio part. The Rondo proved a bit more interesting, though it still sounded rather like a piano sonata with obbligato strings. However, there was more liveliness here and better evidence of Schubert’s singular musical gifts. For all the comparative reticence by the three stringed instruments, the players explored all the latent possibilities of colour and dynamics and varied pacing that are to be found in Schubert.

The first of Fauré’s two piano quartets, probably his most popular piece of chamber music, brought us to well-known territory. And there was never a moment’s doubt about either its musical worth or its illuminating playing by these four musicians. By the time Fauré was about 30, when this was written, he was displaying great maturity in handling ensemble music and in creating interesting, well balanced music that evolved in an imaginative way. In this work he seems to be seeking as full and varied a sound as possible, even striving towards the spirit of an orchestral work, perhaps the piano concerto he never wrote.

Often in music these days, what I look forward to is the slow movement (when I was young it was usually the fast, exciting parts). So in this quartet, I particularly enjoyed the Adagio with the slow, thoughtful theme that was introduced by the piano and cello, though soon it encompassed all the strings which were particularly beautiful. And the cello’s return later in an extended passage was especially captivating. The strongly contrasted finale – Allegro molto – created a feeling of inevitability with some moments in which the piano became quite insistent; but the work’s overall feeling is of a generous and perfectly reasonable sharing of all the musical material among the four players.

Brahms was five or six years younger than Fauré when he wrote his two piano quartets. It’s the other one, Op 25, that’s rather better known, and more popular; so this outing was most welcome.

It might seem odd that Op 25 is in a minor key (G minor) while this, which a generally fairly peaceful and meditative, is in the most sanguine of keys, A major. The experts hear a good deal of Schubert in this piece, in the handling of the piano by itself in, to mark out a big extended tune as the strings murmur along. It’s been observed that with these chamber works Brahms was responding to the discovering, unearthing, in the 1850s (much by Schumann), of a great deal of Schubert’s music which had simply been filed away, unplayed and unpublished.

As I listened, I had begun to make notes to the effect that in this quartet, Brahms was stretching the limits of convention by injecting greater variety in each movement with unexpected mood changes and a disinclination to adhere literally to the character of each movement as announced by its title.

This became so erratic and puzzling that when I got home I looked up the movements of Op 26 and discovered that those printed in the programme related to Op 25, and of course, my notes conformed much better to the real names of the movements, as they should have been shown: 1. Allegro non troppo, 2. Poco adagio, 3 Scherzo – Poco allegro, and Trio, 4 Allegro. The main discrepancy was the reversing of the fast and slow, second and third movements. (Op 25’s second movement is marked as in the programme, Allegro ma non troppo and a Trio: Animato). Then it fell into place.

In any case, the players seemed to rejoice in the idiosyncrasies in Brahms’s composition, and there was a real feeling of pleasure and engagement. In the Finale the piano led the way at once with the strings contributing cohesive support for it, though individual strings took their turn in the limelight. And here I had remarked that, if Brahms had intended to inject a gypsy element in it (‘alla zingarese’, in the G minor quartet), he seemed to have encountered a fairly sedate gypsy band that day. However, there was a touch of the zingarese here, though nothing to remark on.

Happily, of course, the mistake probably bothered only the one who was trying to keep track of what was going on, in order to be able to write something that was vaguely sensible.

It was a most satisfying concert, a mixture of the known and the not well known and the unknown; but all rewarding and performed with the greatest musicality, zest and imagination.

 

 

 

 

The New Zealand String Quartet – a “new look” ensemble….

Posted on by Peter Mechen

The New Zealand String Quartet presents:
Heartland Classics In Wellington

HAYDN – String Quartet in D Op.71 No.2
FARR – Quartet “Te Tai-O-Rehua” (The Tasman Sea)
SCHUBERT – String Quartet in C Minor D.703 “Quartettsatz”
DVORAK – String Quartet in F Op.96 “American”

The New Zealand String Quartet
Helene Pohl, Monique Lapins (violins)
Gillian Ansell (viola), Rolf Gjelsten (‘cello)

Hunter Council Chamber, Victoria University of Wellington

Friday, 5th August, 2016

Having gotten so used to the familiar line-up of faces, performing aspects and collaborative interactions which for such a long time “were” the New Zealand String Quartet, one found oneself, to one’s surprise, initially unnerved by the prospect of experiencing a change in the order of things – especially in view of the long-term and all-round excellence of the ensemble. Of course, it stood to reason that the group, having determinedly wrought such standards of achievement, would choose a replacement for second violinist Douglas Beilman worthy of maintaining and enhancing those same standards. The thought was reassuring – one did, after all, TRUST the artistic judgements of these people!

Nevertheless, I could still feel a certain tension amid my expectations, while awaiting the appearance of the players in the Hunter Chamber Auditorium at Wellington’s Victoria University, concerning the change in ensemble which had brought Australian violinist Monique Lapins into the picture. Receptivity to individual styles of music-making is a funny thing – I’ve sometimes found myself at odds with opinions expressed by others regarding what musicians are seen and heard to do, recognising that such an individualisation is part-and-parcel of a real and personal connection with things. One can, of course, admire what a player does without feeling very much engagement or empathy with what is produced. I’d gotten so very used to being so very “engaged” with the NZSQ’s music-making, I found myself feeling anxious that such feelings would continue.

It sounds like a cliché to say that I needn’t have worried, but from the outset of the concert there seemed an uncanny “business as usual” aspect to the playing, which I suppose could partly be attributed to Monique Lapins’ undoubted abilities as an ensemble player – every concerted gesture and individual interaction between her and her colleagues had a confident, and nicely “involved“ aspect that suggested sympathy, accord, rapport – whatever one would like to call it! Naturally, I was giving her contributions more-than-usual attention, and, given that there was probably a fair degree of relief in my observations, was not being particularly dispassionate at that point in time!

So, having gotten those “concerns” off my chest, I feel now as though I can make appropriately delighted noises of welcome regarding Monique Lapins – and, as a Wellingtonian myself, wishing for her not only the enjoyment of many “great cups of Wellington coffee” whenever she gets the chance to spend time in this part of the world, but also for her and the ensemble a fruitful collaboration of many performance successes and satisfactions to come.

To the actual concert, now – and as ‘cellist Rolf Gjelsten made clear in his spoken introduction to the first item on the programme, there was simply no better way to begin an evening of music for string quartet than with a work by the composer “to whom we owe everything – Josef Haydn!”. We heard the second Quartet from the Op. 71 set, written for the composer’s second visit to England after his first had proved such a great success. With these quartets Haydn took care to write more “orchestrally” than previously, as the public performance venues outside Esterhazy (where he had worked for so long) were larger, and required bigger and bolder gestures than in his previous works in the genre – hence the spacious opening chords of this work, played here with a rich, warm sound. And how richly-voiced were the interchanges between all four instruments in the allegro which followed, the music’s high spirits as much generated by the flow between the players as by the themes and rhythms themselves.

The prayerful opening to the Adagio was buoyed along by a dotted rhythm, then floated beguilingly throughout murmuring sequences, with everything shaded so subtly and beautifully, the textures almost orchestral in places as the players dug into their phrases – here, I was particularly enjoying the partnership between first and second violins, Helene Pohl’s bright, eager sounds at once matched by and contrasted with Monique Lapins’ poised, more burnished tones. Then, what delicious fun was conveyed by the players with the brief Minuet, and how much sheer delight made by Helene Pohl of the arpeggiated twist at each phrase-end, something amusingly “thrown off” by all the players at the end of the dance.

Haydn seemed to almost “leg-rope” his players at the finale’s beginning, giving the music a curious “limping” quality, which after due extended consideration suddenly animated into a “proper” allegro, the music energising players and listeners alike as all four instruments were made to scurry into and through a divertingly dovetailed latticework of lines (pardon the alliteration!), here, piling on the textures and pushing out the ambiences as they did so! It was great and engaging music-making from all concerned.

Next on the programme was Gareth Farr’s string quartet Te Tai-o-Rehua (the Tasman Sea). I liked the quote from the composer concerning the quartet – “a really interesting dinner party for four people” – though I can’t remember whether or not Monique Lapins repeated that quote for us in her introduction to the work or whether I read or heard it elsewhere. Still, it seemed entirely appropriate that the Quartet’s new member air her thoughts about the music, given its trans-Tasman associations – Farr had originally written the work for Australia’s Goldner Quartet to play as part of a co-commission between the musicians and Chamber Music New Zealand, to mark the 21st anniversary of the Wellington/Sydney sister-city association in 2013.

At the beginning we heard chant-like patterns from the second violin in tandem with more exotic-sounding elements sounded by the other instruments, mysterious tremolandi and counter-harmonics, with a wide, folksy vibrato coming from the first violin. The viola took over the rhythmic trajectories allowing the others to interact, using angular pizzicati and eerie harmonics. I thought the sonorities conjured up by these configurations and unreservedly delivered to us by the players produced a sometimes startling aural and deeply-felt experience, with the sounds ranging in effect from utmost delight of delicacy to grim and purposeful vehemence. Gareth Farr’s work has always been rhythmically driven, sometimes to the point of obsessiveness – here, in so many places I was struck by the music’s balance between rhythm and colour, and for the composer’s inventive, unpredictable deployment of those sounds, making for whole sequences of incident that lost no time in moving between the pictorial and the emotional. It all made for a darker, more volatile work that I perhaps expected to hear something which excitingly stretched one’s sensibilities.

Having remarked so frequently in the past on the NZSQ’s capacities for bringing a whole-heartedness to whatever it performs, enabling its listeners to really get to grips with the music, I was grateful to once again be transported by the experience, in particular with a work such as this, after all, conceived and written about relatively familiar territories – it was, as Douglas Lilburn once said “music about ourselves”, with as much variety and range of expression as such a quality might bring forth. I thought that, especially in a programme devoted largely to European music, the work served notice that universalities of human emotion can often be expressed just as meaningfully in local accents as in the tones of more standardised and established figures.

Gillian Ansell introduced Schubert’s Quartettsatz (literally, “Quartet-Movement”) written in 1820, after the interval. This music was intended to be part of a larger work, and would have been the first of the composer’s complete “mature” works in this genre – but for some reason – we don’t know why – Schubert abandoned the work after completing just one movement and the first few bars of a slow movement. The music was just too good to be ignored as a “failed attempt” at a complete work and so the Quartettsatz has become an often-played item at string quartet concerts. Schubert did go on to complete three further quartets, including the famous “Death and the Maiden” Quartet. Perhaps the agitated nature of the writing of this quartet movement is a clue to what might have been happening in Schubert’s life at this time. It all seemed to me to be a kind of study depicting the interaction between light and dark, with the light in this case seeming so frail and tentative, vested with a kind of vulnerability in the face of the dark’s onslaught. The tones are spectral, almost “spooked”, as if waiting for the next debilitating outburst.

Need I say more than that the Quartet in characteristic fashion threw themselves at the music, making it an intensely visceral happening. The players unhesitatingly brought out the music’s fierce and brutal contrasts, giving the entire sequence of exchanges an intensely fatalistic character, almost Tchaikovskian in places. The intensities reached such levels that one was left with the feeling at the end that it seemed somewhat voyeuristic to have “enjoyed”music which conveyed so much suffering! Still, perhaps music enables a kind of understanding of such extremes, while recognising that “human kind cannot bear very much reality”.

I was surprised when Helene Pohl told us, by way of introducing the concert’s final item, that, at a Canadian chamber music festival she had recently attended, an “audience-poll” had on that occasion identified none other than Dvorak’s “American” String Quartet as the gathering’s out-and-out favourite piece of chamber music. Having tantalised us with this piece of information, the Quartet proceeded to demonstrate why this was perfectly possible, with a performance that conveyed in the music such love of life and intensity of feeling as to enable us to feel we were hugely enjoying the company of somebody energetic, gregarious and unfailingly warmhearted.

I remember reading, long ago, a remark made by some commentator or other, to the effect that Dvorak’s music was frequently “an expression of joy that brings one close to tears” – given that human responses to art are individual, and of course subjective, I do find myself returning to that remark whenever I hear certain passages in certain works by the composer. The quartet brought out this quality both in their soft playing of the first movement’s second subject, and in some of the beautifully-poised duetting passages of the slow movement, between first and second violins. And what a beautiful sequence shortly after the Scherzo’s beginning, with the two violins in melancholy duet and Rolf Gjelsten’s ‘cello singing in reply, the viola adding a gorgeous “snap” to its rounding-off comment by way of completing the circle.

After all of this, what exhilaration there was to be had from the finale’s opening rhythms! – especially from violist Gillian Ansell’s engaging sense of “schwung” throughout the opening, one taken up readily by the other players, the music’s sense of forward movement seeming to spring from a deep-seated desire to express “this worlde’s joye”. And with what ease and spontaneity the players modulated between completely different territories, taking those measures of veiled retrospection in single, deep-seated breaths before reactivating the opening’s energies and driving the music brilliantly and vigorously onwards to its joyously beckoning conclusion!

After these outpourings of physicality, the composer’s beautiful Cypress No.3 (“When thy sweet glances on me fall”) was like the proverbial balm in places, operatic and passionate in a brief middle section, then rapt and achingly lovely at the end. It was a haunting and dream-like way to finish the concert, leaving us with a kind of fully-engaged contentment with what we’d heard throughout the evening, and, in a troubled world, some reassurance in the continuance of things that are necessary for us to go on living in it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Second of New Zealand String Quartet’s 12-concert tour in fine auditorium of Porirua’s Pataka museum

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Heartland Tour
New Zealand String Quartet (Helene Pohl and Monique Lapins violins; Gillian Ansell, viola; Rolf Gjelsten, cello)

Mozart: String Quartet no.16 in E flat, K.428
Gillian Whitehead: Poroporoaki
Dvořák: Cypresses, nos.3 and 11
Mendelssohn: String Quartet no.3 in D, Op.44 no.1

Pataka Art + Museum, Porirua

Wednesday, 3 August 2016, 7.30pm

In the Quartet’s Heartland Classics tour, a number of smaller venues are being visited.  This was the second on the 11-centre tour.  It attracted an audience of approximately 100; the outstanding programme and playing received generous applause from those present.  It was good to see some children there.

The programme began with one of Mozart’s ‘Haydn’ Quartets.  In her remarks, Gillian Ansell informed us that the first performance was played by four composers: Haydn, Mozart, Dittersdorf and Vanhal (also spelt Wanhal).  The first movement (molto allegro vivace) had sombre opening chords that soon gave way to euphonious jollity.  There was both expression and dynamic variety in the playing.  The subtlety of utterance was quite breathtaking.

The opening of the andante second movement was gorgeous: smooth, lyrical, blended, idyllic.  Listening to this was like being in another world.  The modulation into a minor key affected the mood, but it was still blissful music.  It was so good to hear it in a smaller venue than is often the case.

The third movement was a sprightly minuet.  A staccato section was quite amusing in its lightness and playfulness; the trio was almost doleful by comparison.  The return to the minuet was marked by great precision.  The final movement, allegro vivace, had a similar jolly character to the first movement, bravura passages and all.  Its motifs were uncomplicated, but their treatment gave plenty of scope for intriguing variations.

We moved now to an unusual work, introduced by Helene Pohl in some detail.  The musicians demonstrated Gillian Whitehead’s skilful incorporation of the sounds of a number of taonga puoro, played on their stringed instruments.  It was amazing how much like the originals, made variously of wood, gourd, stone and shell, the sounds could be, using a variety of techniques.  They showed photos, some considerable enlargements, of the original instruments. This work was written for the Quartet to play at a conference in China honouring the composer Jack Body, last December.  It was a brilliant piece of work, superbly rendered.  The interweaving of the various instruments was achieved in a thoroughly musical way, each of the stringed instruments having its moments of prominence, but all as part of a cohesive and striking whole.

Two short pieces by Dvořák followed.  These were two of the 12 pieces entitled Cypresses, inspired by poems by Gustav Pfleger Moravsky, that Dvořák arranged for string quartet from the larger number of songs he had written much earlier.  The quartet pieces were published in 1887, and the two we heard were entitled ‘When thy sweet glances on me fall’ and ‘Nature lies peaceful in slumber and dreaming’.  Monique Lapins read out the poems, which were, like their fellows, about unrequited love.

The first certainly expressed a sort of exquisite pain, while the second, in contrast, had a more positive tone, contemplating the joys of nature, though still being about unrequited love. That love of melody and of rhythmic felicity typical of Dvořák was much in evidence in this attractive music.

The New Zealand String Quartet has recorded all of Mendelssohn’s string quartets, including some shorter pieces written for four string players.  The quartet no.3 was introduced by Rolf Gjelsten, whose lively remarks stressed the excellence of the counterpoint to be found throughout the work, making it very interesting for each part to play.  Its setting in the happy, cheerful key of D major helped to make this one of NZSQ’s favourite works to play.

The exuberant first movement (molto allegro vivace) had contrasting quiet passages – but these were almost obliterated by the sound of heavy rain outside.  Nevertheless, the movement was full of zest and enthusiasm, as was the playing.  A repeated passage that was almost spooky followed, yet it also had delicious harmonies and intricate counterpoint.  Indeed, no moment lacked interest.

The second movement (menuetto: un poco allegretto) began in a pastoral, languid mood, yet it also had intensity, and strong melodies.  The third movement (andante espressivo ma con moto) was lilting, but with drive.  The principal melody on the other strings was accompanied by pizzicato from the cello.  This was a delightful movement.  The finale (presto con brio) was spirited and dance-like.  Mendelssohn knew how to capture the audience’s attention from the first notes or chords.  The fugato in this movement, with which the composer was apparently very pleased (according to the programme note) was indeed thoroughly satisfying, as was the entire programme.

The Quartet play again, a different programme, on Friday 5 August at 7:30pm, at the Hunter Council Chamber, Victoria University of Wellington.

Music Futures diverting showcase for rising young musicians

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Music Futures: The Sound of Wellington Youth Music 2016

Blue Notes (Tawa College Chamber Choir, conductor: Isaac Stone, accompanist: Martin Burdan)
Mendelssohn and Daughters; Zephyr Wills (violin), Vanessa O’Neill (piano) and Emily Paterson (cello)
Guest artists: Malavika Gopal and Anna van der Zee (violins), Thomas Guldborg (percussion)
Lavinnia Rae (cello) and Hugh McMillan (piano)

St Andrew’s on The Terrace

Sunday 31 July, 3 pm

Music Futures is an independent enterprise set up by a group of people who felt there was a need for something more to help talented young musicians through financial awards, performance, opportunities, workshops and masterclasses, mentoring, and lending and hiring instruments. This was their first public performance this year. Members of the NZSO are among the tutors and mentors.

This concert set out in part to illustrate the range of musical genres: a chamber choir, a cut-down concerto, a chamber group and an arrangement of an Indian raga from some of the grown-up participants.

The Tawa College’s small choir, Blue Notes, demonstrated a quality that would, for any average listener, demand top place in any choral competition, such as the Big Sing in Dunedin, where they have been nominated as finalists later this month. Three small pieces, one by their suburban mentor Craig Utting (Monument), slow, clear harmonies and, like all their items a display of admirably sensitive dynamics. Their other offerings were from almost the extremes of western music, from the ‘Agnus Dei’ from Palestrina’s Missa Brevis to Stephen Sondheim’s The Miracle Song. They also contributed at the end of the concert with a careful studied a cappella choral piece by Brahms: ‘Dem dunkeln Schloss der heil’gen Erde’ and Karimatanu Kuicha by Ko Matsushita, that involved tricky intonation and rhythms: all from memory.

The first movement of Mendelssohn’s piano trio in D minor, Op 49 was played by three players from Kapiti and Wellington Girls’ colleges, two girls and a boy, named as if they were Mendel’s son and daughter. Though it’s such a gorgeous work and I know it so well, I can’t remember when last heard it. They played it with a certain languorousness, not altogether inappropriate; but an excellent way to prolong the delicious experience of that rapturous second theme.

Three NZSO players then recreated an arrangement by violinist Malavika Gopal of a raga by Ravi Shankar, entitled La Danse, for two violins and tabla. That offered an attractive contrast to the rest of the concert.

Then we had a foretaste of the concerto that NZSM student Lavinnia Rae was to play the coming Wednesday at the combined concert between the NZSM orchestra and the Wellington Youth Orchestra: Shostakovich’s first cello concerto (first two movements), the orchestra’s part played by Hugh McMillan. Played without the score, this was a remarkably mature and accomplished performance that revealed a real dramatic awareness, as well as brilliant handling of false harmonics in the second movement.

I regretted the likelihood of missing that concert.

There will be two further concerts from Music Futures: on 18 September and 13 November. They too are bound to be highly rewarding experiences for the audience.

 

 

CMNZ scores with brilliant clarinet and piano trio at the End of Time

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Chamber Music New Zealand

Julian Bliss (clarinet) and the NZ Trio (Justine Cormack, Ashley Brown, Sarah Watkins)

Brahms: Trio for clarinet, cello and piano, Op 114
Ross Harris: There May be Light
Messiaen: Quartet for the End of Time

Michael Fowler Centre

Thursday 28 July, 7:30 pm 

A programme of what, twenty years ago, might have been seen as a bit forbidding, drew a very good house at this concert, and at the end they responded very enthusiastically.

It may have been partly the fact that here was a conventional chamber group with the added interest of an extra player. It might also have been because audiences have come to accept that there is nothing to fear in Messiaen, even though he was in many ways, and still is, a radical composer who followed a unique path, all his own. In addition, Ross Harris’s music has gained more exposure in recent years; while it still sounds very ‘contemporary’, audience familiarity with much of his recent music, cast in traditional forms such as his six symphonies, has probably won him entry to the small group of new Zealand composers whose names are quite familiar, who are now considered mainstream, no longer too forbidding or incomprehensible.

Even though so far, I can recall only one of his symphonies, the second, being played by the NZSO – just a couple of months ago; there was a piano piece played by Emma Sayers last month and last year a piano quartet; and Requiem for the Fallen was played in 2014 – the year we were overwhelmed with WW1 stuff.

So it was perhaps a small surprise that Ross Harris’s piece, more than Messiaen, was now the most challenging listen, something of a retreat from the big public compositions of recent years, back to the sort of uncompromising composer of his earlier years.

The central piece was Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time. Harris’s There may be light was commissioned by Chamber Music New Zealand with the suggestion that it might be related to the Messiaen piece. In many ways, sonically rather than doctrinally, it inhabited a similar world, using the same four instruments, but while Messiaen’s writing generally remains within the normal technical scope of the clarinet, Harris had made use of its eccentric possibilities such as multiphonics – creating more than one note at a time, exploiting the instrument’s harmonic resources.

English clarinetist Julian Bliss, who was born in 1989, has already built a notable reputation in the world of music festivals and prestigious venues. He was on stage for all three pieces. He talked about multiphonics before the performance, but it was hardly central to the music; instead, to have introduced the audience to the actual musical ideas might have been more useful in creating a receptive hearing. As a result, there was little chance to absorb themes or motifs or to follow an argument that might have woven the music’s fabric.

Its main impact was unease, mystification, restlessness, produced by scrambling sounds, elusive slivers of melody that quickly evaporated. Clarinet and strings tended to carry most of the fragmentary musical ideas with a sense of purpose, while the piano’s gestures were reflective and struck me as somewhat incidental. Nevertheless, one was undeniably caught up with the piece, with its interesting, unaccustomed, even evocative sounds; and though I abhor saying this, as it’s like a confession of incompetence, another hearing could be illuminating.

The Messiaen performance was quite superb; the first time I heard it, perhaps 40 years ago, I found its widely disparate elements and Messiaen’s unique voice (or voices) bewildering, yet today it sounds as normal a part of the chamber music repertoire as the Brahms Clarinet Quintet. Every one of the eight movements was vividly sculpted, and yet created, as a whole, a mosaic that spoke of the situation of the work’s composition and first performance, as well as feeling still relevant to the human condition today, perhaps even more.

The spotlight moves from place to place, from one kind of religious imagery to another, from all four to pairs of instruments or just one, like the extraordinary third movement, Abîme des oiseaux, where the clarinet alone took us on an astonishing and awful (as in ‘full of awe’) journey through disparate spiritual landscapes. (I heard Murray Khouri play it in total darkness in a memorable performance in Whanganui some years ago). The conspicuously spiritual fifth movement, Louage à l’éterinté de Jésus, is an opportunity for an arresting duet between cello and piano (the one movement without the clarinet); steady, ritualized piano chords underpinning one of the (surely) profoundest musical creations for the cello. The two were in perfect accord.

The association of the brilliant NZTrio and one of the today’s most gifted young clarinetists produced an unforgettable performance.

It’s probably just as well that the charming Brahms trio was placed at the beginning. I was slow in coming to love it but it has taken its place, perhaps somewhere below the quintet and the two clarinet sonatas, but it still delights. If some early parts are less than commanding in terms of musical inspiration, the whole was lovingly and rapturously played, and the last movement, quite short, was a wonderful meeting of minds and hearts.

 

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.