Tag: chamber music

Jack Body’s 80th birthday concert – music and creativity of enduring worth

Posted on by Peter Mechen

                                                                                                                                                                                      Jack Body (1944-2015)

“Jack!@80” at St.Andrew’s
(an 80th birthday concert of Jack Body’s music)

Concert organisers: Pepe Becker, Judith Exley, Robert Oliver,
Dan Poynton, Jennifer Shennan, Yono Soekarno

St.Andrew’s-on-The-Terrace Church, Wellington
Saturday, 12th October, 2024

A concert devoted to the work of a single composer by its very nature promises to be a singular occasion no matter where in the world such an event takes place. In the past we in Aotearoa, New Zealand have had a number of concerts to celebrate anniversaries of some of our composers, alive or dead, with Douglas Lilburn and David Farquhar being the first to come to my mind. And certainly many others have produced sufficient volumes of work that would fill out plenty of single-composer concert programmes – so there have probably been other instances of such single-composer events that I simply haven’t heard of.

Anniversaries do provide welcome excuses to “celebrate” a particular composer’s work – and such a chance presented itself this year with the eightieth birthday anniversary of Wellington composer Jack Body, who died in 2015. A group of the city’s prominent musicians and associates set about bringing together various performers who were associated with Jack Body as students, colleagues or simply contemporaries of his, all drawn to the manifold creative energies and significances emanating from his music – strands of influence that were brought together to wondrous and colourful effect last Saturday evening at St.Andrew’s-on-The-Terrace Church in Wellington.

Aptly described in the programme for the event as “a selection of Jack’s smaller-scale solo and ensemble works” the concert nevertheless clearly demonstrated something of the range of his interests and preoccupations as a composer. Especially prominent was evidence of his activities regarding the establishment of cultural links with Indonesia, China, Cambodia, and other places throughout Asia besides his awareness of western traditions of song, dance and literature. Though Jack’s seemingly boundless energies in organising larger-scale events featuring his music were only hinted at here – one thinks of his opera Alley (based on the life of Rewi Alley, and performed at the1998 International Festival of the Arts), the multi-event “Sonic Circuses” of the 1970s, the promotion of Asian music and musicians both here and in various Asia-Pacific Festivals and Conferences of which he was the artistic director, and on numerous other festival occasions often the “featured composer”, in addition to his work as “Composer-in-Residence” with the Auckland Philharmonia in 2012-13 – there was no doubt as to the range and scope of his creative imagination evidenced by the works we heard, even if in some cases the “snippets” from complete works left one wanting to have one’s cake and eat more than a mere tantalising slice or two!


The First Smile Gamelan Group – Jennifer Shennan and Gerard Crewson (right) assisted by Chris Francis and Rosalind Jiko

At the outset prospective concert attendees were charmed upon entering the church by the sounds of a gamelan group of four called The First Smile performing on their instruments at the rear of the church nave, playing pieces composed by two of the actual group members, Gerard Crewdson and Jennifer Shennan, assisted by two others, Chris Francis and Rosalind Jiko. Also, remarkably, as if apropos of the cornucopia of achievement on the part of the concert’s subject about to be presented, each person upon entering and contributing a koha was offered a free copy of “Jack – celebrating Jack Body – Composer” – a gorgeously lavish book which had been published by Steele Roberts in 2015, a collection of tributes and recollections penned by Jack’s many friends, colleagues and contemporaries from over the years, all beautifully appointed and illustrated.

Once inside and all gathered we were welcomed to the concert by Robert Oliver, former director of music at St.Mary of the Angels Church in Wellington, and well-known as an instrumentalist and conductor with a number of ensembles in the capital over the years. In thanking the audience for coming to pay tribute to Jack Body’s memory and legacy, he remarked on the need for the latter’s remarkable qualities and creative achievements to be remembered and given their due and “not to be interr’d with his bones”.

And so began a veritable feast of musical sounds for our pleasure, enjoyment and wonderment, beginning characteristically with the composer’s 2006 work Rainforest, originally for flute and harp, but here adapted for flute and piano. We heard four of the work’s six movements, played by Monica Verburg (flutes) and Dan Poynton (piano), each one preceded by a “field recording” of music performed by the Aka and Ba-Benzele Pygmies of the Central African Republic, and recorded by the French/Israeli ethnomusicologist Simha Arom. The first, Hunting Song, featured some brief vocalisings whose repetitive pattern was elaborated into ostinato from the piano and accompanying decorative flute phrasings. No.3 was the first of two Lullabies, a chant accompanied by percussion, and here developed into a folk-dance-ish pattern, with the flute exploring a “bluesy” counterpoint, the two working up to a jazzy, riff-like response. A second Lullaby sounded like a wordless vocalised meditation, to which the piano and flute responded with what seemed like ecstatic wonderment akin to “loving” exchanges, with the piano reaching downwards as if “earth-breathing” in between each melodic flowering – lovely. The final movement, Children’s Games, brought three singers to the platform with the instrumentalists, reproducing the tape’s brief but racy chanting, with the flutist joining in with the singers’ energetic vocalisings in places while the piano played off-beat syncopations , all to exhilarating effect, and finishing with a flourish as the singers scampered off the stage at the piece’s end!

One of Body’s most-travelled works is the “Five Melodies for Piano”, a work written for and premiered by Margaret Nielsen in Europe (she also recorded the work for Kiwi-Pacific Records). Dan Poynton told us of his introduction to the work while a student of Jack’s, and being given each of the pieces separately to “try” out! Tonight’s version had the added interest of incorporating a solo electric guitar transcription, here played by Gunter Herbig (in what I presumed was his own reworking) of two of the pieces. The piano led off with the well-known opening 3-note repetitive figures, the composer’s “melody within a melody” idea borne out by the performer using the left hand to “mute” some of the played notes, varying the mutes and their intervals and incorporated “extra” notes as the piece proceeds. Gunter Herbig’s guitar took the second and third melodies, the second melody delivered in a breath-holding sequence of beautifully-suspended notes occasionally punctuated by near-toneless “strummings” as the melodic line climbed into its own near-stratospheric space to be swallowed by the silences.

Even more intense was the third piece’s plaintive three-note call with its achingly sharpened second note, the sounds entering their own kind of “nirvana”, the composer inspired by the sound-world of the ancient Chinese zither, Gu Qin, and here transporting our sensibilities most affectingly. Dan Poynton’s piano returned for the fourth melody, beginning with a similarly “lost” figure, the mood then “cleft in twain” by a Saint-Saens-like cock-crow from “Danse Macabre”! The interaction continued, with the cock-crow distended over the keyboard’s whole range! – pulled every which way, hammered, screwed, stretched and flattened, before being allowed to quietly recompose itself and slink away, its “squawk” whimperingly pulled out to a “ninth” in a pathetic gesture of submission! A more seemly envoi came with the final melody (piano again), a gentle ostinato, with notes that established their own patterns before pushing exploratory feelers gradually into different realms, transforming themselves almost effortlessly into impulses which expressed at one and the same time wide-eared amazement and calm acceptance – here, something of a Zen Buddhist attitude when contrasted with the tortured journey of the previous melody.

Exploring a vein of nostalgia can, of course, put one’s sensibilities in touch with unexpected surges of feeling, something which Body felt compelled to explore when recalling his parents’ and grandparents’ fondness for “old songs” – hence his fascinating, almost Brittenesque settings of four such songs, three of which were performed here in different parts of the concert. First up was the ever-popular “Daisy Bell”, performed with suitably sonorous sentiment and gusto by baritone Roger Wilson with pianist Michele Binnie’s sure-fingered accompaniment (we were adjured as an audience to “join in” with the chorus, with what I thought was a creditable response!) – then variously during the concert’s second half we heard another baritone, Chris Berenson (again with Michele Binnie’s piano) in the lesser-known and thus more audience-shy “Sweet Genevieve”, followed later by the hymn-like “All Through The Night” with Pepe Becker’s heavenly soprano and Michele Binnie’s gorgeous piano chordings leading the way through the verses and leaving us to chorus the song’s one-liner refrain!

Back to the first half now for another vocal work, one I’d previously seen performed in full – Body’s 1982 work ”Love Sonnets of Michelangelo”, of which a single one, No.5 “Non posso altra figura immaginarmi” was presented. Originally written for the dancer, Michael Parmenter, and two female voices, this concert version featured Pepe Becker’s soprano with a viola played by Nicholas Hancox taking the lower-voiced part of the duet, an interaction which I found extraordinarily moving,  the artist/poet’s words being given “voice” within yet another kind of medium, a different abstraction…..both singer and player brought out the poem’s “ecstasy of despair”, as it were, underlined by the occasional foot-stampings of both musicians and the obsessive quality of the actual notes…..

There followed an electroacoustic work “Musik Dari Jalan” (Music from the Street), a soundscape which drew for its composition from field recordings made in Indonesia by the ethnomusicologist Allan Thomas of the sounds of Jakarta street hawkers. Interestingly, this work won prizes at a major electroacoustic music festival in Bourges France both in the 1970s and 1990s. Further similar interest was garnered by the item which closed the concert’s first half – here, a quartet of string players (Edward Clarkson, Eros Li (violins), Nicholas Hancox (viola) and Jamie Beardslee (‘cello) performed two separate pieces from a 2008 work called “Yunnan”, a collection of transcriptions and arrangements of Chinese minority nationalities in the South-West China province of Yunnan. The first , Bouyi 1, actually NOT from Yunnan (as Body admitted in a performance note) was a kind of “fantasia” for string quartet, the players interacting with the taped singing voices of two Bouyi women, and drawing forth sounds of a particularly haunting quality, with some episodes reminiscent of modal-like passages in English string music by Elgar and Vaughan Williams.

A second piece entitled Bai Sanxian was more dance-like and didn’t appear to feature taped sounds, but simply “live”, dance-like music-making which put one in mind of some kind of exotic-sounding lute, in this case a “sanxian”, its singularities ably suggested by the players.

So much was there to talk about during the interval that it seemed no time at all before we were being refocused upon the platform and the second half’s intriguing beginning – a kind of “Tour of a Neighbourhood” item which emanated from pianist Stephen De Pledge’s commissioning a set of “Landscape Preludes” from New Zealand composers – Body’s characteristically singular contribution to the idea was this 2007 portrait in words and music of his own neighbourhood “The Street Where I live”.  Dan Poynton here “teamed up” with the voice of the composer (as pianist Henry Wong Doe had done on the piece’s first recording) to realise the “counterpoint” of  speech and its “musical analogue”. Here I thought the voice in places insufficiently projected, with the piano notes occasionally blurring the spoken message; and the abrupt start first time up seemed to leave pianist Dan Poynton in his starting-blocks! – but a re-run righted the balance, and all thereafter was well!

Body’s constantly inventive creative urge brought out many unorthodox touches to his compositions, one of which was the use of “invented language”, vocalising sounds “with no semantic meaning”. His 1989 work “Five Lullabies” was first performed by the Tudor Consort, conducted by its founder, Simon Ravens, and this evening featured three singers, Pepe Becker, Jane McKinley and Andrea Cochrane, from that first performance, here joined by Samuel Berkahn for the second of the two selected lullabies.

                                                                                                                                                        Singers Jane McKinlay, Pepe Becker, and Andrea Cochrane, with Robert Oliver

The first, No. 3, uses what the composer called the “wonderful vocal polyphonies” of China’s minority cultures, with the so-called “dissonant” interval of a second often held to resonate instead as “consonant” , Pepe Becker and Jane McKinley steadfastedly “holding their lines” with these almost Schoenbergian “more distant” consonances! It was No.5 which worked its magic almost unreservedly for me, however – such hauntingly long and sinuous lines, with Samuel Berkahn’s and Andrea Cochrane’s tones seeming by turns to meld into and drift alongside Pepe Becker’s unswerving lines, the voices’ creating amazing resonances, partly lullabic, and partly lament-like, with the intensities maintained until the cortege of sounds seemed to pass enigmatically into the night.

Yet another glimpse of Body’s seemingly unquenchable search for expression through means that disregard convention was given by pianist Dan Poynton with two excerpts from a work written for and dedicated to him, called “14 Stations”. It’s a title which straightaway suggests to anyone familiar with Christian beliefs a kind of representation of Jesus Christ’s torturous journey towards his crucifixion and death, though Body has proposed the term might as well apply to any journey involving “stations”, such as one by rail. Also, the composer had as well suggested the title might refer to the many different travails undergone by pianists who have to practice at a keyboard for hours each day to “perfect” their art. Certainly each excerpt from this work which Poynton presented here illustrated a specific area of physical effort which, as Body remarked in his programme note subject the body “to stress and discomfort which can extend to physical pain”.

I’d seen one of Dan Poynton’s concert performances of this work not long after the premiere, so was able to relate each of the excerpts’ titles to that memory – each one concentrated on its title’s subject, the first one, “Shoulders” (No.10), moving from an intensely thoughtful aspect to vigorous jabbing motions and a kind of “kneadling” counter-movement, the pianist sighing with the effort at its conclusion. By contrast, “Stiffness” (No.14) presented a hyperactive figure stretching in different directions, percussively beating the instrument’s different surfaces, with moanings and gruntings, then feeling all about both the instrument and his own person to see if there was still life in (a) the instrument and (b) the pianist! We were left hungry for more…..though after such hyperactivity the following 1979 work “Aeolian Harp” resembled a journey from chaos to order, with Nicholas Hancox’s instrument conjuring up harmonic sounds of such unworldliness we felt somewhat disoriented, even “haunted” in ourselves by the readily-imagined passing of air-borne spirits and the resonating earth-echoings left in their wake – stunning!

Such resultant ambiences seemed to spontaneously generate an unprogrammed but entirely apposite item from Dan Poynton on one of the electric keyboards to hand, in bringing to life a precious relic of a bygone age – Jack Body’s own theme music from the television series of what seemed like so many lifetimes hence, “Close to Home”, with the years for a few brief moments peeling off so many listeners’ shoulders (mine among them) like spring blossom from a tree. However redolent for many of us, the composer’s shade was having none of such things as a “farewell”, instead making his “exit” with a somewhat anarchic cocking of a snoot in the face of convention – this was his setting of Auckland writer Russell Haley’s quirky verses which made up “Turtle Time”, a matching of composer and poet whose interaction in itself imbued the piece with singular character.

                                                                                                                                        “Turtle Time” with speaker Jonathan O’Drowsky, and conductor Robert Oliver.

Poet Ian Wedde vividly characterised Russell Haley’s work in a written tribute after his death in 2016 as “subversive deadpan comic surrealism, where even the most factual and banal components of it, such as the names of people and places, are stretched thinly over layers of alternative reality and identity.” The script of “Turtle Time” revels in such subversions and their separate realities, though this evening’s performance needed, I thought, clearer and perhaps more “Brechtian” poise from its engagingly energetic, if rather too over-excitable speaker/actor Jonathan O’Drowsky, from whose utterances, however zestfully zany, I would have liked a bit more spaciousness and clarity in places  (I must add, to be fair, that the St. Andrew’s acoustic has never seemed to me especially kind to ventures featuring the spoken voice sans microphone!). Still, conductor Robert Oliver unfalteringly marshalled his instrumental forces throughout both the trajectories of freely-non-metrical impulse and the spontaneous clusterings of colour and stasis here served up by his expert players, Monica Verburg (harp), Jonathan Berkahn (harpsichord), David Treefrog Sanders (organ) and Dan Poynton (piano).

The concert’s last strains were those of “Auld Lang Syne” in a version very probably wrought by Body himself, and rendered by Dan Poynton on one of the keyboards as a very much “in keeping” gesture. At the end it very much seemed we had spent a most successful evening in the company of a remarkable creative spirit – Jack Body’s is undoubtedly one of those whose legacy will not be forgotten.

                                                                                   Some of the performers at the conclusion of “Jack@80” at St. Andrew’s-on-The-Terrace Church,  Saturday 12th October, 2024

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Ghost Trio completes a great 2024 for Wellington Chamber Music Concert Series

Posted on by Peter Mechen

Wellington Chamber Music presents:
THE GHOST TRIO  –  SCHUMANN, HOLMES, SAARIAHO. RAVEL

ROBERT SCHUMANN – Piano Trio No. 1 Op.63
LEONIE HOLMES – Dance of the Wintersmith (2017)
KAIJA SAARIAHO – Calices (2009)
MAURICE RAVEL – Piano Trio in A Minor (1914)

The Ghost Trio – Monique Lapins (violin). Andrew Joyce (‘cello), Gabriela Glapska (piano)

(Andrew Joyce replaces ‘cellist Ken Ichinose for this concert)

St.Andrew’s-on-The-Terrace, Wellington

Sunday, 25th August, 2024

“New Zealand has so many great musicians that we have decided to have eight concerts” proclaimed the Wellington Chamber Music’s 2024 series website at the year’s beginning. Having been fortunate enough to attend (and review) six of these concerts, I’m finding myself at the conclusion of this, the final one in the series, overcome with gratitude at being able to enjoy so much great music in the company of these – yes, truly! – great musicians! And glancing at the society’s prospectus for 2025 has already whetted my appetite for more….

But, to the business at hand, this final concert! – and to The Ghost Trio’s remarkable metamorphosis via a replacement ‘cellist, Andrew Joyce, stepping into the role for the temporarily unavailable Ken Ichinose, and bringing his own remarkable qualities to bear upon the concert’s two major works by Schumann and Ravel without any discernable hiccups! The composer-lineup remained the same as before, except that violinist Monique Lapins and pianist Gabriela Glapska adroitly substituted two not insubstantial violin-and-piano works by Leonie Holmes and Kaija Saariaho respectively for the original “all-piano-trio” lineup.

First up was Robert Schumann’s adorable D Minor Piano Trio Op. 63, a work which shows how much the composer’s recent absorption of JS Bach’s works (particularly the “Well-Tempered Clavier”) had influenced his thinking, evident in a new kind of expression marked by contrapuntal entwinings and polyphonic voicings well beyond the scope of his other chamber music up to then. The players here responded with sombre, forward-thrusting gestures at the outset with vibrant lines and strong but always flexible trajectories, continually catching our ears with the music’s on-going subtleties of dynamics and intensities. Monique Lapins had demonstrated for us on her instrument Schumann’s innovative use at one point in the movement’s development section of ghostly sul ponticello bowing accompanied by the piano in its highest registers – when it came in the performance it sounded extraordinary! – it brought to my mind the composer’s well-known penchant for the expression “different realms”, which he himself obviously cherished.

After a couple of “Ready, steady” chords, the players “galloped in” the dotted-rhythm scherzo, the oft-repeated ascending theme cheekily combining whole- and half-note intervals, with the contrastingly graceful Trio a series of ascending and descending figures, almost like the scherzo itself in a more languid, even sleepwalking mode. A different world awaited us with the Langsam mit inniger Empfindung slow movement, the opening violin solo solemn and focused with near-vibratoless tones – the ‘cello encouraging more warmth from the notes, and seeming for a while to “lighten” the violin’s emotional load. The gravitas then returned, so exquisitely “voiced” here by both players, and with the piano giving discreet and sure-footed support, the instruments gradually reducing their tones to near-silence, and leaving us with only our beating hearts for company for a semi-second of silence…… Schumann then decided to give us as a finale one of his warmest and great-hearted of melodies by way of leading us back into domains of light and joyousness, a mood not unlike that of his Piano Concerto’s finale, albeit here in 4/4 trajectory rather than the Concerto’s 3/4!

Teamwork between the players pinged, clicked and hummed as the theme flowed, skipped, sang and declaimed its way through sequences conveying by turns energy, contentment, mischief and exaltation, each with its particular deftness of touch or vigorous exuberance – I admired things like the will-o’-the-wisp exchanges between Monique Lapins’ violin and Andrew Joyce’s ‘cello, as well as the latter’s beautiful intonation in a high-lying rendition of the movement’s second theme, and (perhaps most especially) pianist Gabriela Glapska’s brilliant dexterity and unflagging strength in holding together and maintaining the flow of the finale’s seemingly boundless energies.

Monique Lapins, who’d introduced the concert’s first item, then added something of a performer’s perspective for us to the programme note written by the composer regarding the concert’s next item. This was a work, Dance of the Wintersmith, by Auckland composer Leonie Holmes, inspired by a Terry Pratchett book for children called ‘Wintersmith”, a fantasy-tale of a young witch whose dabbling in “dark arts” causes worldwide climate disruption that puts humankind in jeopardy.We were alerted to the composer’s requirement that the violinist additionally “vocalises” some of the music, and were told not to be alarmed at the inclusion of such sounds at some point!

The work began with an almost Gypsy-like solo gesture, one with eerily-spaced intervals and chromatic descents, and alternating near-frenetic bowings with mysteriously disembodied harmonics – all beautifully realised by the player! The piano’s entry echoed the atmospheric character of the sound-picture, though the players soon “struck out” with some impactful gesturings – strong pizzicato, followed by scherzando interchanges between the instruments, with the scenario marked in places by a vivid sense of grotesquerie, the “dance” angular and fantastic, its projection almost visceral! – a silence created a moment of mystery which the piano embellished at first, the violinist then quietly humming a melody, and accompanying the vocalising on the violin – the effect was of a kind of lament, a “lost song” looking for some kind of answer or redemption – all very moving, as everything drifted into silence.

Monique Lapins (who on this showing would, I feel, get a PR presenter’s job in any sphere of activity with no difficulty) then told us briefly about the composer, Kaija Saariaho, of the next item and the music we were about to hear – again a work for violin and piano, its title Calices (2009) means ‘calyxes’ in French, and refers to the protective layer surrounding a flower in bud; one could imagine the violin as representing a spring flower bursting into life. Calices is actually derived from Saariaho’s own violin concerto Graal théâtre (1994).

I found this extraordinary quote from the composer regarding the concerto which could well have a bearing on the shape, form and syntax of Calices:

‘I had a kind of vertigo, a fear of high places, when I started this concerto. I played the violin as a child and I loved many violin concertos passionately – and I was afraid to step into this domain.’

The programme note enlarges on this with a further comment by Saariaho herself relating to  this particular time, one involving “frustrated illusions, longing and love”. The article went on to emphasise that Calices is noteworthy for its intimate familiarity with violin technique, wrought from those experiences of the composer. Monique Lapins’ and Gabriela Glapska’s remarkable performance reinforced the character of the writer’s description “ the piece ebbs and flows through different moods, from calm and contemplative to violent, with a good deal of tempo fluctuation, and with recurring notes acting as reference points within each section, like a magnet to which the music returns….”

The work was in three sections, opening with a gesture that suggested folk-like, almost oriental influences, which at first belied the violinist’s description of the work as “icy”, but soon established its severities, demanding both percussive exchanges between the instruments and contrastingly isolated single notes from both – we experienced incredibly unworldly-sounding harmonics from the violin in places, and  the pianist occasionally reaching into her instrument’s body to hauntingly activate the strings.

Part Two began with a “falling” set of sequences from the piano as the violin delivered cadenza-like flourishes, the piano creating what one description called “cloud-formations ”as the violin mused throughout repetitive meditations – my notes at this point read  “we are in a fantastic world of improvised fantasy”.  The third part of the work began in agitato fashion, tersely dynamic gestures exchanged but then coming together in a part conciliatory, part “distanced” mood, leaving this listener with feelings more enigmatic than resolved – in that sense similar to the ending of the Fourth Symphony of another Finn, Jean Sibelius.

With the concert’s final item ‘cellist Andrew Joyce provided for us a “from-the-heart” introduction to the work, Ravel’s 1914 Piano Trio, echoing the programme note’s associating the work’s genesis with the outbreak of war in Europe, and Ravel’s desire to be involved despite his poor health and his mother’s anxieties regarding her son’s decision. I particularly enjoyed his remark regarding the composer’s attested “sobbing over (my) sharps and flats” (in a letter to a friend at the time), commenting that Ravel should have spared a thought for the generations of musicians left “sobbing over those same sharps and flats” when preparing performances of the work! Perhaps the nearest Ravel got to this kind of admission was with the piano writing, which he confessed was ‘too difficult for its composer to play!”

As with Ravel’s great contemporary, Debussy, in his String Quartet, this A Minor Piano Trio demonstrates mastery of classical form but with many individual touches – Gabriela Glapska’s beautiful piano-only opening of the work suggested the composer’s attraction towards the music of the Basque region, the melody at once dreamy and restless, able to express at once great longing and anxiety. The violin and ‘cello octave-doubled string-writing carried this mood onwards until its growing angst irrupted as the instrumental exchanges intensified. What relief, then, as these energies quickly dissipated to allow the achingly beautiful second subject to appear on the violin, then on the cello and be echoed by the piano – we so relished such a gorgeous dialogue for the strings here, together with such limpid piano notes! And what passions we were then plunged into by the return of the opening theme revisiting its volatile tendencies, the sounds here flung even more energetically across the soundscape by the players, and quelled only by the second theme’s “laying on of hands” return. We were relieved by the violin and ‘cello’s wanting to make peace and, finally, prevailing over the piano’s brooding aspect! Peace, when it finally came, was like balm for the senses.

I’d obviously got carried away with this first Ravel movement in The Ghost Trio’s hands, but their “characterisation” of the music’s chameleon-like moods was so absorbing and well-rounded, it seemed to squeeze words out of me like toothpaste! The second movement is a scherzo headed Pantoum: Assez vif , and takes its title from a Pantoum, a Malay-sourced poetic form popular with French poets such as Baudelaire, one which repeats and overlaps words and lines in much the same way as Ravel alternates the movement’s first two themes – though I’ve always thought the highlight of this movement is the Trio, during which Ravel cleverly combines fragments of the strings’ scherzo themes (in 3/4) with the slower, more lyrical Trio theme (4/2) on the piano, and all without the music’s heartbeat seeming to falter, the players skilfully maintaining the different time-signatures’ happy co-existence!

The third movement Passacaille: Très large is of course a Passacaglia based on the piano’s opening eight-bar bass line – when played on a string instrument the melody straightaway sounded “folky”, and its return on the piano in a higher register had the same heartfelt effect. Moment then followed breathcatching moment, such as the duetting between violin and ‘cello, the succeeding ‘cello solo, and the rapt concentration of the piano’s final utterances.

Then, not unlike the effect Schumann had achieved earlier in the concert during his G Minor Piano Trio with his strings’ sul ponticello playing and high-registered piano figurations, Ravel’s violinist and cellist respectively played arpeggio harmonics and double-stopped high-fingerboard trills at the finale’s beginning, a melody whose exotic decorative aspect gave it something of an oriental fairytale  character, but then whose irregular time signatures of 5/4 and 7/4 in places added a vertiginous quality to the music’s vigorous and ever-burgeoning sonorities, the players giving their all and achieving an exuberance and euphoria right up to the piece’s no-holds-barred ending.

Nothing much further needs to be said, but “Roll on, 2025” – Wellington Chamber Music can justly feel pride and satisfaction with this year’s efforts on behalf of a grateful public!

 

 

Aroha Quartet goes even one better with Oleksandr Gunchenko’s double-bass

Posted on by Peter Mechen

The Aroha Quartet, with Oleksandr Gunchenko


GEORGE ONSLOW – String Quintet No.15 in C Minor Op.38 “The Bullet”
LOUISE WEBSTER – Swim the Sliding Continents (2012)
ANTONIN DVOŘÁK – String Quintet No. 2 in G Op.77

Aroha Quartet –  Haihong Liu (leader), Konstanze Artmann (violin), Zhongxian Jin (viola)
Robert Ibell (‘cello)
– with Oleksandr Gunchenko (double-bass)

St.Andrew’s-on-The-Terrace, Wellington
Friday, 12th July, 2024

I had heard the name George Onslow mentioned in various reviews of recordings over the years, but had never “taken the plunge”, being culpably averse to taking up the music of any “new” composer unseen or unheard – I must admit to a sneaking propensity for the “bowled over by something new” experience  in such matters, which is exactly what happened on Friday evening at St.Andrew’s in Wellington, with a first hearing of one of Onslow’s String Quintets, sensationally presented by the Aroha String Quartet with double-bassist Olelsandr Gunchenko.

This was the composer’s Fifteenth String Quintet, and one bearing the title “De la balle” (The Bullet), whose inspiration was drawn from Onslow’s experience of being accidentally shot in the face while watching a hunt in a forest. While not exactly programmatic as to the actual event, the different movements delineated an almost Berlioz-like reimagining of what was obviously a life-threatening personal experience, the second movement (Minuetto: dolore – suffering) and a Trio (febbre e deliro  – fever and delirium), the third Andante sostenuto – convalescenza), and the triumphal finale (Allegro – guarigione) healing. I was left stunned by the impact of it all, and, not unexpectedly, resolved to explore some more of this fascinating figure’s output to make up for what I might well have been missing for all these years!

It was actually a guilty pleasure (not always the case!) to re-read my notes afterwards, written at the same white heat as the performers were generating, simply by way of trying to “keep up” with what was happening! – I enjoyed the C-minor opening of the work’s suitably dark, cavernous sound, with the voice of the double bass adding to the textures, and contrasting markedly with both the brilliant violin figurations, and the beautiful second subject solo from the ‘cello. The music made much of these contrasts throughout, with upper strings suggestively elfin disturbances, and the lower strings bringing darker intensities to the argument. Then came that astonishing Menuetto with its opening whirlwind figurations and spectral tones, creating a almost Gothic mini-scenario with eerie chromatic resonances and sudden outbursts, and the Trio’s “Febbre e delirio” deliciously feverish in effect!

The Andante sostenuto brought some relief (the programme note termed it “hymn-like”) suggesting a release from “the nightmare”, which the work’s final movement confirmed in no uncertain terms with its vibrant, over-the-top “Convalescenza” (a lovely word!), evoking a polar-opposite exuberance to the travails of what had gone before, and to which I couldn’t help at one point but laugh out loud, to the surprise of my neighbours! Afterwards I had to apologise to at least one of them, my excuse being that I thought the music sounded as if it had been composed on “speed” or something similar!

Not for the first time this year have I found myself jumping on the internet at home after a concert, and (in this case) almost as feverishly looking for a recording of the Quintet, at which point I was surprised again by how many recordings WERE actually available of George Onslow’s music, and not merely his Quintets.  As I sent off my order to make good my discovery, I felt something along the lines of what Allen Curnow once wrote in a different context– “Simply by sailing in a new direction you could enlarge the world…..”

Ahem! – were there other works played at this concert? – oh, yes! – my apologies! Different worlds again, to be sure, and as an assemblage rich and strange, though of course united in instrumentation.
An interval after the Onslow did allow the more fanciful souls present (such as myself) to regain their composure before the second half brought us a work by New Zealand composer Louise Webster, one written originally for a school chamber orchestra from Auckland’s Westlake District Schools, “Swim the sliding continents’.

The work’s title was suggested by some lines from a poem by Australian Judith Wright, words which expressed movement through both air and water, “swimming , floating and drifting above lands/ gulfs/chasms…..” as the programme notes put it. At once sparely and concentratedly written, the work began with the direction “drifting” for a violin solo and double bass and cello pizzicato, the violin accelerating, impassioned, and joined by an ostinato from the second violin, to various responses from the others rising from the depths. When movement was stilled, there were haunting passages of different voices, the first violin rarefied, the second repetitive and mesmeric, the viola and cello echoing certain phrases and the double bass a deep-voiced bedrock foundation – a brief two-violin-voiced coda, and the piece ended, suggesting for me rather more than it actually spoke.

Having explored what could be considered two diametrically opposed ends of the emotional spectrum in music, George Onslow’s almost Gothic horror-adventure complete with its Disney-on-steroids ending and Louise Webster’s cool abstractions of tectonic relocation, the Aroha Quartet with its distinguished guest Oleksandr Gunchenko opted for some middle ground with the concert’s final item, Antonin Dvorak’s single String Quintet that uses a double-bass, his Op.77 in G. This work, originally composed in 1875 with five movements, was published as Op. 18, but then revised by the composer with an “intermezzo” movement removed (and later republished).  Dvorak’s publisher then gave the Quintet the later Opus No. of 77, a ploy Simrock was fond of using to persuade people that certain works of the composer’s were more “mature” than was the case.

While this work has never been one of my favourites of the composer’s (for me the second and fourth movements lack the melodic and rhythmic attractiveness of the rest) the quintet of players here obviously felt no such impediments as they by turns attacked, caressed, sang and danced to the music with a will. The first movement in particular leapt gleefully off the pages to our ears, the players’ strong and flexible pulses bringing out both the music’s  leaping, thrusting character, and the rustic charm of the more lyrical passages – particularly wonderful was the final reprise of the principal theme and its acceleration into the excitement of the coda!

The players did their best with the somewhat repetitive scherzo, the best part of which was the winsome Trio sections whose swaying motions charmed the ear more than usually – but the performance really “glowed” with the slow movement’s gorgeous singing cello melody, and rapturous first violin responses which reprised beautifully with triplet decorations later in the movement – for me the performance’s highlight! But however much energy the players put into the rhythms of  the finale, I remained puzzled by the composer’s reluctance to turn to anything more than variations of downward scales for lyrical effect to go with the generated excitement of the movement’s trajectories.

I’m reminded of a story I once read about Handel who reputedly once looked at a manuscript by a contemporary of his, one Maurice Greene, before opening the window and dropping it outside with the remark that “it needs air!” – by which, of course, he meant melody. Dvorak’s music normally doesn’t “need air” of any kind, in my usual experience, hence my relative disappointment here, and especially in tandem with all that rhythmic energy. Of course one doesn’t have to like EVERYTHING any composer does, and judgements of this kind can be subjective and ornery, and there was, as I’ve said, absolutely nothing lukewarm about the players’ response throughout. The rest of the evening’s music produced untrammelled delight– and in the case of Onslow’s music it was the sort of musical discovery one would, as a friend of mine was fond of saying, die for! So, my thanks are due to the Aroha Quartet and Oleksandr Gunchenko for their wondrously committed efforts, and especially in bringing to life music whose sounds I felt “enlarged my world” that evening.

 

 

 

The NZSQ and Quintessence – a day in the life of a string quartet

Posted on by Peter Mechen

Quintessence: an NZSQ Celebration                                                                           Monique  Lapins                                                                                                                                                      

                                                                             Peter  Clark

Concert introduced by Jeremy Johnson, Chairman of the New Zealand String Quartet Trust

BRAHMS – String Quartet No 3 in B-flat Major Op.67
Helene Pohl (leader), Monique Lapins (violin), Gillian Ansell (viola), Rolf Gjelsten (‘cello)

Farewell speech made by Monique Lapins, Second Violin of the New Zealand String Quartet

MOZART – String Quintet No.1 in B-flat major K.174
Helene Pohl (leader), Peter Clark (violin), Gillian Ansell (viola), Monique Lapins (viola), Rolf Gjelsten (‘cello)

Hunter Council Chamber, Victoria University of Wellington
Kelburn Parade, Wellington

Friday 7th June, 2024

It had to come – this was Monique Lapins’ final concert with the New Zealand String Quartet, marking her decision to move on after eight years spent as the group’s second violinist. With characteristic aplomb and due ceremony and not a little emotion, the process of change was here accorded appropriately bitter-sweet valedictory form by all of us who had gathered in the Hunter Council Chamber that evening. We were welcomed by Jeremy Johnson, Chairman of the New Zealand String Quartet Trust, who then paid the warmest of tributes to Monique regarding the significance and success of her tenure with the quartet before wishing her well, to which expression we all gave heartfelt accord.

Monique’s choice of repertoire as her “swan song” with the group was Brahms’s Third String Quartet, a kind of acme of expression for the ensemble, here given extra memorability by the circumstances.
Quartet leader Helene Pohl introduced the work for us, making due reference to the composer’s awareness of Beethoven and his legacy, and its “intimidating” factor for him. As Monique was to specifically mention the Beethoven cycle she had taken part in over the last eight years as a “career highlight” one understood the choice of Brahms as a kind of act of shared homage uniting composer and performer!

It did seem from the outset a kind of “master-class” of quartet-writing, with the composer obviously delighting in the contrasts between the opening “galloping” motiv sounded first in pairs, and then by the whole ensemble, the trajectories then being wreathed with almost insinuating diaphanous textures, and suggesting a Brahms with rather more impressionistic inclination than on previous occasions, as if stepping boldly into unknown territories. I loved the players’ voicings here, with Helene Pohl’s remarkable, almost “ghostly” tones darting around the others’ sombre impulses leading up to the almost artless dance-tune over which the cross-rhythms firstly send the players scurrying back to the beginning, and then dare those brave and bold enough to “sound out” the unknown territories before calling their bluff with some trenchant figurations. Masterly!

The second movement had Brahms in an almost “Salut d’amour” mood at its beginning, with ravishing playing of the opening theme from Helene Pohl, before a minor key-change heralded rather more forceful outbursts, tempered by thoughtful contributions from viola and ‘cello. Again, the quartet’s different voicings beautifully opened up for us these moments of impulse encircled by wonderment, and towards a disarming “Amen” at the movement’s close.

Surely the dark-toned Scherzo is one of the composer’s most compelling! – the players here drew us into its almost phantasmagorical world, right from Gillian Ansell’s hypnotic playing of the strangely lurching, almost anguished opening waltz-theme, embellished by the first violin, the music’s poise restored momentarily by a smilingly vigorous dance like major-key figure, and some hauntingly-played modulations into more wistful realms – enchanting, but precarious, with the viola all too ready to take up the agitato opening once again! We waited for the outcome of the exchanges between Gillian’s viola and Helene’s violin, with the viola prevailing and summonsing us onwards to the Trio. As well it might have, because in the beautifully circumspect Trio the viola at first “called the tune”,  even if the violins did between them manage to grab some limelight – but what splendid focus the music gave to the instrument throughout this characterful movement right up to the end!

No better homage to Beethoven could have been devised here by Brahms than through the finale’s theme-and variations, a simple theme’s triplet rhythms cantering in and setting off a variety of characterful responses. How wonderful, though, after we’d welcomed these newcomers, was the sudden reappearance of the work’s opening, and for us to be able to warm to this “old friend” in the music, duly introduced to other characters from different parts of the work! After “who was who” had been sorted out, a brief coda proclaimed honour satisfied, and ended the work with a no-nonsense Brahmsian flourish!

After we’d expressed our heartfelt appreciation regarding the performance, it was, sadly, Monique Lapins’ turn to speak to us all regarding her “having come to the end” of her time with the New Zealand String Quartet, an experience which over the past eight years, she said, had been “the greatest honour” to share the performing stage with such wonderful colleagues, speaking of their “boundless energy, enthusiasm, rich musicality and unwavering commitment to music”. She also paid a warm tribute to the Quartet’s management team (regrettably Quartet Manager Aislinn Ryan couldn’t attend the concert because she had COVID) as well as to all the people who had made up the group’s “wonderful network of supporters” all of whom had helped make the experience for her such a rewarding one. She expressed a warm welcome to her successor, Peter Clark, wishing him well in his new adventure with the group of “making music together”. And with that, she invited the quartet members back onto the performing platform with their new second violinist, so that they could together perform one of Mozart’s most adorable works – the first of the composer’s String Quintets, K.174 in B-flat Major….

We’d previously heard a single movement of this work from the same group at the Quartet’s St Mary of the Angels concert last month (see review at https://middle-c.org/2024/05/18231/), but this time we were treated to the whole of the Quintet. It’s always been a favourite of mine, partly through an ongoing exchange of reactions with an old friend over the work’s opening, vis-à-vis the debatable issue of rhythm predominating over melodic line, or vice-versa (I’ve always plumped for the physical excitement of that driving rhythm, whereas he would “bliss out” over the violin’s soaring melody!). Here, I thought the two were well-nigh equally weighted, as the ensemble chose not to unduly “dig into” the initial notes as did the players on the recording I learned the work from (the Amadeus Quartet with Cecil Aronowitz, whose sound I continue to “hear” in my head as a kind of “template” whenever listening to anybody else play!).

Gorgeous “touches” abounded in this work, such as the introspective moments where individual lines muse and “call out” responses from other instruments, here sounding particularly thoughtful and wistful in places, the lovely duetting between two violas which added a unique colour to the sound, and the sections where the composer’s modulations have that naturally improvisatory flow that his contemporaries envied. The players further enchanted our sensibilities with the slow movement’s beautiful unison opening and the following “Serenata Notturna”-like exchanges, as they also did with the evocative “fairground” aspect of the Menuetto’s carnival-like opening, and the Trio’s beguiling echo effects.

But it was the finale that truly delighted us, especially with the scampering passagework, both canonic and in “unison thirds” from all the players, with some sequences resembling high-speed criss-crossings of trains on rail networks with nary a mishap! We particularly enjoyed the almost naughty incursion of triplets at one point, Mozart simply demonstrating that it could be done and without a misstep! Throughout, the players demonstrated in spadefuls that characteristic aspect of the ensemble, an all-encompassing enjoyment of the act of music-making together, one which Monique Lapins had emphasised in her tribute to her colleagues as perhaps the defining quality that had made her time with the quartet such a positive and memorable experience.

Having at the end of a previous review bade my farewells and good wishes already to Monique, I hesitate to awkwardly repeat myself – except to say that in regard to the evening, I thought her playing, her spoken tributes and her gracious relinquishing of her second violin role to her successor in concert all played a part in contributing to a response from all of us intended to express our warmest appreciation, heartfelt thanks and very best wishes towards her for her journey to come.

 

 

 

 

 

Breathtaking NZSM wind and brass at St.Andrew’s

Posted on by Maya Field

St. Andrews Lunchtime Concert Series
NZSM Wind and Brass Solo Recital

Flute: Keeson Perkins Treacher
Oboe: Amy Clough
Piano: Ziqian Xu
Tuba: Sam Zhu

Eugene Bozza – Image
Jacques Ibert – Deux Interludes I. Andante Espressivo, II. Allegro Vivo
W.A. Mozart – Oboe Concerto in C Major (K. 314) II. Adagio ma non troppo
Madeline Dring – Trio for Flute, Oboe, and Piano. I. Allegro con brio, II. Andante Semplice, III. Allegro Giocoso
Roland Szentpali – Variations on a Children’s Hungarian Song

St Andrew’s on the Terrace, Wellington

Wednesday, 29th May, 2024

It’s not often I get to share my lunchtime concert routine with others, but this week I was joined by my friend (and flatmate). Thankfully, she’s a flutist, and was very generous in helping me with my terminology. As someone with a background in strings, it was very useful to have her point out parts that I may have missed otherwise.

Prior to the concert, I was already impressed by every wind or brass player simply because of their breathing skills. I think I was short changed at some point with my lungs, because I could never achieve their level of breath technique .

The beginning of the concert had a last-minute change from Gabriel Faure’s ‘Fantasie for Flute and Piano’ to Eugene Bozza’s ‘Image.’ Last-minute implies rush, perhaps some panic, but there was none of that in St Andrew’s. Keeson Perkins-Treacher’s performance was a wonderful start to the concert, with lovely phrasing and incredibly smooth trills. My friend made sure that I noticed that the runs were especially smooth.

‘Image’ was followed by Jacques Ibert’s ‘Deux Interludes,’ for the flute, oboe, and piano. The first movement was gorgeous, with a mournful, beautiful melody. It had a great sense of movement. The second movement was fun, but still melancholic, so there was a wonderful tension and energy to it. To be honest, I enjoyed this piece so much that I forgot to take notes.

Amy Clough then took over, with the second movement from Mozart’s Oboe Concerto in C Major (K. 314). From the jump, Amy was brilliant. She has such a smooth, even tone, and a real poise. It all just flowed seamlessly, she essentially sings with the oboe. I could listen to her for hours. Sadly, the concert was only an hour.

Continuing with another piece for a trio, this time by Madeline Dring. The first movement started in full unison, which can be tricky to get right, but they did it perfectly. It’s a fun movement that surprises you, but still feels seamless, with some really nice call and response. The second movement started with Ziqian Xu on the piano, which was just gorgeous. Then the flute came in, and then the oboe. The layering of these parts was so beautiful, and showed great ensemble skills, even in a solo recital. The third movement had slight dissonance, which made the piece all the more exciting. Again, lovely call and response throughout, plus a really great moment where just the flute and oboe played, and then merged into the piano. A great job from all three musicians.

We then switched over to the tuba, which was very exciting. I feel like you rarely get tuba solos, so I was eager to see what it would be like. My first impressions of the tuba was the stereotypical “womp womp” of marching band tubas, but Sam Zhu proved this impression very wrong. He had such smooth and fast runs, which was very impressive. At one point, he sang while playing, which I didn’t even know you could do. I think my jaw may have dropped slightly when my friend explained what he was doing. Everyone in St Andrews were incredibly impressed with his performance, and rightly so.

I left St Andrews in total admiration. The immense skill of these musicians is just breathtaking. Pardon the slight pun, but I genuinely can’t find a better word, or at least, one that I haven’t already used throughout my review.

JS Bach’s Goldberg Variations for String Trio – a benefit concert for ‘cellist Jack Moyer

Posted on by Peter Mechen

JS BACH – Goldberg Variations BWV 988  (arranged for String Trio by Dmitri Sitkovetsky)

Monique Lapins (violin)
Alex McFarlane (viola)
Jack Moyer (‘cello)

St.Andrew’s-on-The-Terrace, Wellington

Sunday, 26th May, 2024

Firstly, a bit of history – in 1741 Bach had published a keyboard work with the painstaking title , Aria, with diverse variations for a harpsichord with two manuals. It was the concluding work in the composer’s Clavier-Ubung (Keyboard Practice), a publication Bach intended would show a complete range of possibilities for keyboard players, technical, virtuosic, and interpretative.

The work’s opening Aria came from a copy written out by the composer’s second wife, Anna Magdalena of music Bach had made before, one from which he then devised 30 new variations. The legend largely accompanying these pieces grew up out of an 1802 biography of Bach by one Johann Nikolaus Forkel, that the music was written for use by a Count Kaiserling to counter bouts of insomnia, played by the count’s personal harpsichordist, Johann Gottlieb Goldberg, a pupil of Bach’s son Wilhelm Friedmann. Scholars reckon the story to relate more to the history of the work rather than its origins, as the young Goldberg also took lessons with JS Bach and may have encountered the work as a student.

Estimates regarding the music’s circulation at the time reckon something like 100 printed copies (several of which survive today), but no documented performances were recorded apart from the occasional mention in late nineteenth century recital programmes for the piano. The first name associated with public performance of the work is of the harpsichordist Wanda Landowska, who began her own “Bach revival” in 1903, eventually recording the work on the harpsichord firstly in 1933 and again in 1946, albeit on her inauthentic custom-built instruments.

Though pianist Claudio Arrau had performed the complete keyboard works of Bach in 1935, and made a recording of the Goldbergs in 1942, the latter recording wasn’t released until the 1980s – by then the work had already “come of age” in gramophone terms thanks to the phenomenon that was the young Canadian pianist Glenn Gould, whose renowned 1955 LP recording traversed the globe, bringing the Variations into the mainstream of classical music listening.

Today there are all manner of performances and arrangements of the work, bringing the echt-baroque practice of transcription into our technological age, and taking the work through instruments such as the piano, harp and string ensembles to the world of accordions and marimbas, not to mention saxophone and guitar ensembles and various other jazz trios. One presumes the composer, whose music seemed consigned almost to oblivion for most of the century following his death, would have been gratified at his creation’s remarkable resurgence.

Violinist Dmitry Sitkovetsky’s 1985 transcription of the Variations for string trio in 1985 was the one which today’s ensemble of Monique Lapins (violin), Alex McFarlane (viola) and Jack Moyer (‘cello) brought resplendently to life at St.Andrew’s-on-The-Terrace in Wellington. The occasion was a “benefit concert” for the young ‘cellist in the group, Jack Moyer, due to take up a four-year Honours Bachelor of Music programme at London’s prestigious Guildhall School of Music and Drama, the near-full attendance happily rewarding both the organisers’ and performers’ efforts on behalf of the project.

I had retained a vivid memory of a previous occasion when the New Zealand String Quartet (then with Douglas Bielman as the second violinist, and amazingly, as far back as 2013) performed a quartet arrangement of the work, made by William Cowdery – one of several performances by the quartet at around that time. This later concert was, of course, a different kind of experience in almost every way, apart from my shared feeling here at the work’s end, as in 2013, that “we were able to coexist, for a short time, with a kind of transcendental awareness of things, by way of music whose being somehow seemed to accord with our own existence” – for interest’s sakes, a link to the original review is here provided – https://middle-c.org/2013/05/the-goldbergs-with-strings-attached/

Right from violinist Monique Lapins’ beautifully-nuanced delivery of the theme, with its spacious vistas inviting the most delicate of embellishments when repeated, we were drawn into the Bachian world of infinite possibility! All was stimulated further by the entirely characteristic change of mood with the instantly-engaging dance rhythm of the first variation, both Alex McFarlane’s viola and Jack Moyer’s ‘cello establishing at various times, whether leading or accompanying, a presence of character in their exuberantly-wrought figurations.

Whatever the nature of each variation as regards tone colour or trajectory, the players took to it instantly, giving as much pleasure in the transition from one mood to another as to their sustaining a piece’s character – so the sequence beginning with the chunkily-voiced, down-to-earth Variation 5, followed by the deftly elfin peregrinations of Variation 6, and the diverting contrasts between song-like melody and dance-like rhythm in Variation 7 made for a delightful string of progressions in itself, capped off by the elegant humour of the composer’s more-than-usually graceful “Gigue” in Variation 8, with every move and gesture, nuance and  decisive movement “sounded” here with conviction.

To neglect or pass lightly over any section of the Goldbergs would seem reprehensible, though I’m not able to resist recounting certain moments in the performance which drew me an indefinably extra “way” into the music. I loved, for instance, the “strut” of the players’ rhythms in the Fuguetta of Variation 10, begun irresistibly by Jack Moyer’s ‘cello, and reinforced in every sense of an occasion by each of the others. How appropriate, then that the following Variation, with its cascading ritual-like descending figures would put one in mind of the ringing of bells! And I warmed, in a different way, to the group’s playing of the beautiful Variation 13, with the viola’s and ‘cello’s tenderly-voiced melodic lines freeing the violin’s descant-like decorations with a bird-like overview. No wonder, then, that what Glenn Gould called the “neo-Scarlatti” energies of the following Variation 14 made such an invigorating contrast – and what virtuoso playing there was from all concerned!

I’m obviously not going to be able to “get to” all the performance highlights whose details I scribbled down in my notebook as quickly as I could, trying to keep up with so many rapid-fire fiddlings! I did, I admit, think the St.Andrews’ acoustic at times bright to a fault, in running the tones of the lighter instruments in particular together more than I would have wished for, so that one or two of the more busily-scored sequences in the concert seemed almost as confused-sounding as conversational to my ears – I rather preferred the string-sound we had enjoyed from the NZSQ in the acoustic of St. Mary of the Angels Church, a little more than a week ago! Fortunately most of the players’ efforts here “worked with” the venue’s sound, enabling them to make a grand and satisfying thing of the work’s halfway point Variation 16’s “French Overture”, phrasing the notes generously rather than over-emphatically as seems to be the “period practice” wont these days. And special mention must be made of the playing here of the famous “Black Pearl” Variation No. 25 (described as such by harpsichordist Wanda Landowska) – incredible music, with the kind of sombre beauty that induces awe, especially those sounds which suggest, as here, that one is in unchartered waters, confronted by the unknowable (simply writing about these moments we heard here still gives me goosebumps!)

As for the “Holy Trinity” of the last three Variations, I (a) loved the players’ almost surreal switching between full-throated and filigree sounds in Variation 27, including some heartfelt chromatic “sighs” in places; (b) was slightly disconcerted by the heavy-handedness of Variation 28, thinking that we might have enjoyed a lighter, more circumspect or humourful touch; and (c) thoroughly enjoyed the earthy “bonhomie” of the renowned Quodlibet Variation – after all of which the return of the Aria was like a benediction in itself – as if the composer was setting the words “And we shall be changed” in a deeply human kind of context, but with every note, bowed or plucked, resonating with us and conveying more than words could ever say……

What an occasion for Jack Moyer! – playing his part superbly alongside two extraordinarily talented fellow musicians at this stage of a musical career will surely rank as an unforgettable experience,  Whatever he goes on to achieve, the uniqueness of this day’s occasion will remain – good luck to him for it all!

An exuberant ‘Cello-and-Piano concert from Robert Ibell and Rachel Thomson

Posted on by Peter Mechen

Wellington Chamber Music presents:
Robert Ibell (‘cello) and Rachel Thomson (piano)

LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN – Sonata for Piano & Cello in D major, Op 102 No 2
LEOŠ JANÁČEK – Pohádka (Fairytale)
CLAUDE DEBUSSY – Sonata for Cello & Piano
ALEX TAYLOR – Four Little Pieces
ZOLTÁN KODÁLY – Sonata for Cello & Piano Op 4
ROBERT SCHUMANN – Fantasy Pieces Op 73

St.Andrew’s-on-The-Terrace, Wellington
Sunday, 12th May, 2024

I confess to being tempted to describe this as a well-nigh perfect programme at the concert’s conclusion, except that such fulsome statements are obviously subjective, and have a well-used ring about them when applied to any such compilations, let alone of the “reviewing” kind!

Let me say instead that I found the programme extraordinarily satisfying as such – and this is not to mention the commitment and skill with which the two musicians involved brought to the occasion, though they would obviously have influenced such a judgement.

A reliable measure of the impact made upon audience sensibilities at any concert is the degree of animated conversation that follows the applause – and I found myself almost straightaway afterwards talking with each of my neighbours in turn seated on either side (neither of whom I knew at all, beforehand!), with all of us eager to convey how much we had enjoyed this and that and wanting the other’s response to the same. So, this concert certainly passed the “animated audience response” test with flying colours!

One of the pieces was completely new to me (Alex Taylor’s Four Little Pieces), and another two I’d had to familiarize myself with by finding recordings before going to the concert (Leoš Janáček’s Pohádka (Fairytale) and Zoltán Kodály’s Sonata for Cello & Piano Op 4) – all of which put me in a kind of half-and-half “knew/didn’t know” situation regarding the content, the kind of thing that can put one on one’s mettle as a listener good and proper! I was lucky that I didn’t find myself “overwhelmed” by too many new things – it gave my ears different things to do with the two halves of the programme!

First up was the Beethoven, the fifth and last of the composer’s ‘Cello Sonatas, works that revolutionised the repertoire for the instrument by completely reworking the relationship between cello and keyboard – previously a mere supporting instrument in any ensemble, here the ‘cello was clearly made an equal partner with the piano. Though the two early Op.5 Sonatas were still described as “with a violincello obbligato” the cello parts were through-composed, each having its own voice, something never before attempted. Beethoven was to give the new form its fully-fledged status in the two Op.102 Sonatas.

Rachel Thomson exuberantly sounded the opening piano figure, beginning the lovely give-and-take exchanges that characterised this movement, with its charming contrasts between lyrical expression and forthright con brio manner. Both players observed a judicious balance between the two instruments, with Robert Ibell’s tones readily encompassing the forthright and more lyrical aspects of the music’s lines. The players fully realised the opening solemnity of the central Adagio, the sounds “breathing” as if shared by a single instrument, the con molto sentiment d’affeto direction allowing plenty of expressive freedom, such as in the transitions which moved the music between different intensities – especially lovely! Which of course, made the concluding fugue Allegro even more fun, not so much a narrative as an encapsulation of changing moods, spontaneous and visceral in places, quixotic and playful in others – all so masterful, and all thrown off here with such elan and delight!

Next came a different century’s version of individuality from another master, Leoš Janáček, with his three-movement work for ‘cello and piano Pohádka (Fairytale), a work Janáček, a staunch Russophile, based on a story from a poem by Vasily Zhukovsky which was inspired by Russian folk-lore. Rachel Thomson both enlightened and amused us by reading a droll synopsis beforehand of the work’s original story, written as a programme note by the great cellist Steven Isserlis for one of his concerts.

In three movements, the music tells of the young Tsarevich Prince Ivan and his love for the daughter of Kashchei, the King of the Underworld, the tribulations of the lovers as their plans are seemingly thwarted by magic, and their eventual release from the spell and their eventual happy union. Janáček’s settings are more atmospheric and scene-based than actual narratives, the bardic-like exchanges between piano recitative and ‘cello pizzicato at the very beginning instantly creating a fairy-tale ambience, one in which the urgencies here gradually overwhelmed the music’s lyricism and took hold via driving ostinati as the fearsome underworld King Kashchei pursued the fleeing lovers.

The second movement’s exchanges similarly reflected the hopes and fears of the beleaguered pair, rather than presenting any of the story’s specifics – both Ibell’s cello pizzicato motif and Thomson’s more rhapsodic piano lines vividly “grew” tensions and agitations constantly at the mercy of the fates, eventually reaching a concluding point of suspended unease with a single, resigned piano figure. The finale straightaway had the musicians steadfastedly generating a dancing figure, hopeful, occasionally tinged with anxieties, but eventually subsiding in a kind of glow of contentment, leaving us with the feeling that true love here had actually “made it” over the lovers’ troubles.

Concluding a first half of unfailingly well-wrought musical utterance was Claude Debussy’s 1915 Sonata for ‘Cello and Piano. The composer was determined to celebrate all things French, and especially so at the time of the work’s composition (1915) with the idea to the fore that, in the composer’s words “not even 30 million “boches” can destroy French thought”. The opening Prologue’s introductory piano fanfare, answered by an ardent ‘cello theme, straightaway affirmed the musicians’ commitment to the music’s sound-world, here, with beautiful, wistful exchanges gradually building up archways in places to the composer’s own La Cathedral Engloutie-like sonorities, before the sounds plaintively retreated, leaving in the memory a lovely harmonic-like note from the ‘cello at the end.

If the composer’s earlier solo piano Prelude La serenade interrompue had portrayed something of a thwarted endeavour, this Serenade seemed to engender nothing less than a complete train wreck! Debussy himself strongly objected to one of his interpreters interpolating a commentary characterising the well-known commedia dell’arte character Pierrot in this work, even if the music seems to lend itself to such a programme – the wonderfully quirky and volatile exchanges between the instruments right from the outset pinged our sensibilities and clattered through our receptive chambers! – all so quirky and volatile, with sound-trajectories whose impulses didn’t last, whether pizzicato or arco, staccato or legato, a veritable orgy of indecision or caprice, with only the work’s finale coming to the rescue by breaking the impasse!

After such chronic demarcations of expression the finale here seemed at first to burst out of the music’s shell and flood St.Andrews’s sound vistas with uninhibited energies, the folkish dance melody whirling its notations up and down to great effect. There were still more reflective moments in which one might imagine the by then sick and disillusioned composer feeling he had given his all and venting such inclinations, places where Ibell’s and Thomson’s instruments seemed to, by turns, inwardly lament and even momentarily cry out – but having made such points the players returned the music in rondo-like fashion to the opening dance-like energies, before delivering, in no uncertain terms the work’s final gesture, to suitably appreciative effect among their audience!

Alex Taylor’s highly diverting collection of miniature pieces which began the second half seemed almost over before it had started, as we had very little idea how to differentiate the pieces’ separate characters, especially with each having a German title which one might have worked out without translation given time, but had then been moved along more quickly than did one’s brain! (I “got” the first three titles, I think, but was beaten to the finish-line by the final “rasch”) – so that understanding came hand-in-hand only with the moment when both players leapt to their feet having played the whole set without any discernable breaks! Still, they provided great entertainment.

By contrast, Zoltán Kodály’s Op.4 Sonata which followed drew us into a spacious and meditative sound-world. Originally in three movements, the work was deprived of its original opening by the composer who felt dissatisfied with both his first and yet another, later attempt at an opening, so the sonata was left in its two-movement form. While the beautiful opening ‘cello solo does engender a “slow movement” kind of feeling, it makes a magical opening for a work whose character suggests both the composer’s folk-music researches and the influence of Debussy in its impressionistic colourings. Throughout Ibell and Thomson spun a truly atmospheric dialogue of interchange via the music’s leading/accompanying figures and distinctive instrumental timbres.

The second movement’s spirited folk-dance-like beginning delighted us with its contrasts and volatility, with Rachel Thomson’s fingers all over the keyboard in places, ideally matching Robert Ibell’s trenchant attack and command of dynamic variation – playing which seemed to encompass fully the music’s “no holds barred” expression, as full blooded in places as it was piquant and wistful at the piece’s end – for most of us, a real “discovery”!

More familiar fare was the programme’s last item, the warm-hearted Schumann Fantasy Pieces Op. 73, given here as if it was all second nature to these musicians – everything flowed under their hands with an inevitability the composer would have surely accepted with gratitude and approval. Originally written for clarinet with piano, these pieces eminently suited the darker tones of the ‘cello, and its arguably greater expressive range of colour (note: check to see how many clarinettists are on my Christmas card list!). I particularly loved the last piece’s “accelerated exuberance” with the composer urging the musicians to play faster and faster at the end! We loved it, and I took away from the concert most resoundingly a remark from a friend who delightedly greeted me on the way out with the words, “Golly! -wasn’t that Kodaly really something!” I couldn’t have agreed more…..

Sextet scintillations from Dohnányi and Penderecki, courtesy of the Morton Trio and Friends, at Wellington’s St Andrews-on-The-Terrace

Posted on by Peter Mechen

Wellington Chamber Music presents:
Morton Trio and Friends
Sextets by ERNST VON DOHNÁNYI and KRYZSTOF PENDERECKI

Morton Trio – Arna Morton (violin), Alex Morton (horn), Liam Wooding (piano)
with David McGregor (clarinet), Sharon Baylis (viola) and Jeremy Garside (‘cello)

St.Andrew’s-on-The-Terrace, Wellington

Sunday, 28th April 2024

The first thing I did when I got home from this concert was to get onto the computer and find recordings of each of these unfamiliar and incredible pieces of chamber music that I could purchase without delay, such was the compulsive fascination exerted by each of the works I’d heard that afternoon and brought to the fore by the brilliance and beauty of the performances by the Morton Trio and Friends. In fact I’d already been knocked sideways by the sheer elan of the ensemble’s playing of the Dohnányi piece by the interval, and it did take much longer for the Penderecki Sextet to similarly get under my skin – but the end result of the concert’s presentation was my wanting to have both of these works on hand to enjoy once again as soon as possible.

For me it was fascinating to experience how the two separate processes of coming to grips with each piece took me on quite a different listening course, though concluding in each case with no less of a compulsive quality regarding my wanting to hear the music again. Right from the beginning of the Dohnányi work I was struck by its almost wilful plenitude of spontaneously-wrought sonorities, setting up a more-or-less constant flow of compulsive, “whatever-next?” kinds of expectations that continued in joyful abundance right to the end.

But then, how different seemed my journey throughout much of the Penderecki work, confronted at the outset by a rather more tightly-woven company of motivic impulses and varied texturings over more expansive sound-vistas, a panoply of impressionable happenings whose intent seemed to evolve from out of a first movement’s closely-knit conflict, but whose eventual second-movement resolution “from within” slowly but surely captivated my sensibilities as the sounds strove with all their might towards a kind of dark transfiguration which alternated glimmerings of hope and shadows of tragedy .

I straightaway loved the “questing “ quality of the Dohnányi work, its darkly-hued restlessness at the outset seeming to investigate every possible pathway set up by the music’s trajectories and harmonic shifts. The flexibility of the music’s trajectories gave the work a kind of Cesar Franck-like volatility, and also with an occasional “diabolique” kind of flavour thrown in from a tritone-like interval. Throughout, the ensemble’s virtuoso use of a wide dynamic range took one’s “listener’s breath” away, especially throughout the stormy development section. Then. the second movement’s ghostly opening grew from within a rhapsodic passage interrupted by a ruggedly march-like “carving out” by the players characteristic of the volatility of the piece, as was the return to tranquility at the music’s end.

The next theme-and-variations movement was begun by a clarinet melody, phrased here with an engaging mix of sentiment and insouciance, and followed by a piano solo that had set its mind on goading the rest of the ensemble into action, resulting in a series of delightfully divergent inspirations – running, circus-like exchanges, skitterish triplet-led sequences and occasional returnings to the gentle soulfulness of the clarinet theme. The playing here flowed like oil in an almost Mozartean way, with horn and clarinet striking an attractively elegiac note (was there a brief horn “slip upwards” from the otherwise impeccable Alex Morton at one point?) towards the end with the piano’s steadfast support.

But then, how excitingly the music then “gathered” itself, sounding the tritone as a kind of “something’s happening” signal, and then, without a break, plunging into a “ragtime” dance-rhythm, here so especially “grunty” and joyous in the exuberance and abandonment with which the players dug into the accents! And what a wonderful moment it was when the heart-on-sleeve waltz-rhythm suddenly appeared, sparring with the ragtime rhythm and working up to an almost Rachmaninovian climax, before the coda carried all before it, waltz-tune, diabolus reference and all, teetering towards a gorgeously wrong-harmonied grandstand finish, and then cheekily correcting itself – outrageous and exhilarating!

It was naturally expected that Penderecki’s would be a different world, with the tersely-tattooed piano figure at the very beginning “setting the scene” for the pointillistic, spaced-out exchanges with which the work began, activating the other instruments by turns as the sounds unfolded – a flurry of toccata-like interchange marched along, fell away briefly and almost sorrowfully, but then renewed with even more vigour – such full-blooded playing, I thought, from all concerned! The sounds slowed to a trudge, and took on an almost Mahlerian funereal aspect, mixing grief and anger. I was amazed at the clarity with which the musicians delivered detail, here, despite the insistence of the contrapuntal detailings and the pace at which the ensemble maintained its agitated interactions. Horn and clarinet then paved the way in sonorous fashion for a grotesque kind of march-cum cakewalk which built up to a frenzied bout of gesturings from all concerned before abruptly collapsing!

The viola began the second movement tersely, drawing further elaborations from the piano, before the other strings echoed the viola’s theme, the piano continuing to explore the spaces. A clarinet call evinced a sombre, almost ghostly response from the strings, augmented by a restrained, self-communing horn (I did see a You-Tube performance of this in which the horn player left the stage at the second movement’s beginning to play in the “wings” for a period, but this event wasn’t replicated here). Again, I thought the players’ various detailings of the lines seemed never to miss a trick – the music seemed in “ebb-and-flow” mode, by turns desolate and then forthright and determined, and always “knowing” where it was going, however rudderless the trajectories sometimes seemed.

The volatilities of the work couldn’t be kept down, as even the most mournful of sequences would suddenly energise and flare up, as in a hair-raising triplet sequence featuring the instruments flying up and down the scale in desperate frissons of energy of their own making, trying either to “connect” or “escape” the manifestations and implications of this journey. As I listened I began to feel just what it was the music was heading towards amid its trajectoral and dynamic contrasts. It was a feeling that was summed up best by one commentator, himself a horn player, whose thoughts on the work I shared: – “Underlying the chatter of these contrasting episodes is a minor-key dirge that ultimately subsumes everything else in the work – the message being that you can have all the fun that you want, but the end bears only bitterness and loss.”

Something of this realisation came to me as the work entered a sequence towards the end consisting of long-held chords, a melody from the ‘cello, and a repeated two-note “lament-like” motif which again brought Mahler’s music to mind – the players here held this mood as if it were second nature to them, “inhabiting” the notes and expressing their underlying tragedy, the unearthly string harmonics which concluded the work leaving each of us with little else in mind but to ponder our own destinies.

At the concert’s scheduled end, violinist Arna Morton thanked us for our attendance and observed that the afternoon’s music had probably been akin for a lot of people to a “heavy meal”! – nutritious and satisfying in that sense, but needing something of a sweet for complete homegoing satisfaction! She proposed that the group would thus perform an encore, a piece by the French composer Lili Boulanger originally written for a mixed choir, but arranged by Arna herself for the ensemble today to perform. The piece was originally titled ”Sus bois”, a name translated as “forest floor” or “undergrowth”, a gentle, and beautifully harmonised piece which reminded me in places of Ravel. Its sylvan beauty was certainly an antidote for the sensibilities after the travails of the Penderecki Sextet! In all, a concert long to be remembered!

Circle Of Friends throws open the doors at St.Andrew’s

Posted on by Peter Mechen

Wellington Chamber Music presents:
CIRCLE OF FRIENDS
– an afternoon with Natalia Lomeiko (violin), Sarah Watkins (piano) and Yuri Zhislin (violin/viola)

CLARA SCHUMANN – Three Romances Op.22 (1853)
ROBERT SCHUMANN Phantasie in C Major Op.131 (1853)
KAROL SZYMANOWSKI – La Fontaine d’Arethuse (from Myths Op.30 – 1915)
Nocturne and Tarantella Op.28 (1915)
JOHANNES BRAHMS – Viola Sonata No. 2 in E-flat Op.120 No. 2 (1895)
DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH – 5 pieces for violin, viola and piano (1955)

St Andrew’s-on-The-Terrace, Wellington

Sunday, 14th April 2024

The elves had been busy overnight at St.Andrew’s-on-The-Terrace, changing all the seating back to “normal” after the previous day’s Janáček / Dvořák choral concert, for which everything had been reversed in deference to the singers and instrumentalists who had filled to bursting the organ/choir-loft at the rear of the church’s nave – in the light of the normality now firmly re-established it might have seemed to those who had also attended the previous day’s concert like a “did we dream you or did you dream us?” situation.

Whether those same elves had remained hiding in the church’s nooks and crannies to get a taste of the beauties and excitements of today’s programme wasn’t obvious to the eye, but in retrospect the many delights and gratifications afforded by the playing of the three musicians throughout would have caused ripples of pleasure activating the sensibilities of all but the most inert life forms on hand this afternoon.

The programme’s “circle of friends” title encompassed not only the performers (the “wife-and-husband’ team of violinist Natalia Lomeiko and violist Yuri Zhislin in partnership with pianist Sarah Watkins) but three of the composers whose music was about to be performed, and whose ties have since become legendary – Clara and Robert Schumann, and their mutual friend and protégé, Johannes Brahms. However, the range and scope of the performers extended even further in the case of several other items, and most entertainingly with a near-riotous encore piece , about which you will have to read the rest of the review in order to learn more!

First up was Clara Schumann’s Three Romances for violin and piano Op.22, written in 1853 , a year of both triumph and troubles for Clara, touring successfully with violinist Joseph Joachim (to whom these piece are dedicated), but with her husband Robert’s deteriorating mental condition causing serious concerns. The pieces here seem like strands of hope stretching forth for a kind of deliverance, the first gentle and richly-toned, Lomeiko and Watkins moving gracefully as one through a beautifully-wrought sensibility; after which they brought out in the second piece a rather more sober and melancholy feeling, happier and even quixotic in places in the middle section’s major key, but inevitably drawn back to the opening’s darker mood. The third’s long-breathed melodies had a rippling accompaniment, Lomeiko’s violin ardent in song and Watkins’s piano mirroring every impulse – the latter’s able fingers as impish throughout her staccato passages as they were liquid and flowing at the piece’s beginning.

Dating from the same year was Clara’s husband Robert’s astonishing Phantasie in C Major Op.131, a work that had dropped out of the repertoire until reintroduced in a version for violin and piano conceived by Fritz Kreisler in 1937 (I can’t find any reference to the work having been performed by anybody earlier in this form, the Dusseldorf premiere having been played by Joseph Joachim with the composer conducting the orchestra). It’s an incredible piece of violin writing by somebody thought of as being in a state of mental duress and decline at that time, a one-movement work filled with contrasts of expression which here “marry” its composer’s often wildly-opposing creative personas in remarkably cogent ways. Most of the virtuosic fireworks came from the violinist, though pianist Sarah Watkins readily backed up Natalia Lomeiko’s more florid violin gesturings with appropriately orchestral tones and figurations at climactic points, the duo elsewhere “playing into” one another’s hands with some equally heartfelt melodic phrasings that in places made one hold one’s breath.

Other repertoire that’s been gradually re-establishing its place in musical history in recent times is the music of Karol Szymanowski (1882-1937), now regarded as one of the greatest of Polish composers. Included in his output are a number of chamber works for violin and piano, two of which Lomeiko and Watkins played – firstly we heard one of a group of three poems called Mythes, inspired by Greek mythology, with the title “La Fontaine d’Arethuse”. This concerns the story of the nymph Arethusa, fleeing from the attentions of the river-god Alpheus (those Greek deities were something of a randy lot, I must say – perhaps a case of “if it was good enough for Zeus, then….”) and being turned into the waters of a fountain to avoid capture.

We heard the piano notes shimmer and scintillate at the beginning, as the violin called forth the nymph Arethusa with its silvery, enchanting line – the music began to agitate with the appearance of the river-god, Alpheus, but the latter’s desire to ensnare the nymph was thwarted by the eerie stillness of the violin harmonics concealing her presence. The river-god renewed his desperate agitations (amazing pyrotechnic playing from both musicians!) and Arerthusa was snatched away and concealed by her protector, Artemis. Hearing Alpheus’s lament, the other gods allowed the fountain waters to mingle with those of the river (violin and piano mingled their sounds), and honour was satisfied.

Where the “myth” was primarily impressionistic and suggestive in effect, the following piece Nocturne and Tarantella Op.28, though dating from a similar period, inhabited a different sound-world, the introductory Nocturne evoking a more Iberian ambience, with sultry evocations of stillness set against episodes of vigorous Spanish dance-rhythms. By stark contrast, the following “Tarantella” was a riot of impulse, movement, and raw vigour which left us all breathless with amazement and stupefaction at both performers’ energy levels throughout!

Having taken all of these intensities in our listening stride, an interval gave us the chance to come up for some air before turning our attentions to the music of Brahms, via the playing of violist Yuri Zhislin with Sarah Watkins, in a work I’ve always loved in its original form, the second of two sonatas originally written for the renowned clarinettist Richard Mühlfeld, whose playing had inspired the composer to produce an unexpected “Indian Summer” of additional chamber music! Brahms (somewhat, it seems, against his better judgement) had subsequently produced viola versions of these two same sonatas.

Whatever the composer’s misgivings – “sehr ungeschickt und unerfreulich” (clumsy and ungratifying) was his comment to Joseph Joachim re the transcriptions – he would surely have revised his opinion had he heard Yuri Zhislin’s performance with Sarah Watkins, here – it really made me love the music all over again (I had, of course, heard recordings of the viola versions, but still preferred the original clarinet ones until now) – the eloquent ease with which Zhislin negotiated the lines was matched by his tonal range which for me “inhabited” the music’s character at every point of the discourse. Also, Sara Watkins’ playing similarly illuminated the music from within – the central interlude in the work’s middle movement Scherzo here wove a spell whose realms I’d never previously been taken into so deeply. Then, the “Theme and Variations” finale was a similar joy which the “hit-and-run” excitement of the final variation’s coda rounded off in exhilarating fashion!

I’d thought that, after these heady excitements, the concert’s final printed item, Shostakovich’s Five Pieces (a kind of “assemblage” work brought together by Lev Atovmyan from the composer’s various film and ballet scores) would prove to be somewhat “small beer” – but Lomeiko and Zhislin (the latter now playing a violin) found, with Watkins’ help, a lot more “character” in the pieces than did the somewhat bland rendition I’d previously auditioned on a “You Tube” clip. Where the trio REALLY set the usually staid and respectably-wrought venue alight was with the encore, a piece by Igor Frolov, a violinist in his own right (he was a pupil of David Oistrakh) who enjoyed a distinguished career in the Soviet Union as a teacher, artistic director and musical arranger, well-known for his composition of pieces written using what have been described by certain viewpoints as “forbidden” musical styles, such as jazz (there are various opinions regarding the much-vaunted “Soviet disapproval” of western-style forms of entertainment during the 194os and 50s). Whatever the case Frolov’s 1979 “Divertimento” with its outrageous juxtaposing of pastiche baroque-styled sequences alternated with jazzed-up and “swung” passages of tongue-in-cheek variants and vagaries of style, was all “turned” in what seemed like the manner born, with spadefuls of elan from the players! We loved them for it and made no bones about our appreciation of the whole afternoon’s feast of music-making!

The New Zealand String Quartet at Waikanae – Emperors, dictators and husbands in music

Posted on by Peter Mechen

Waikanae Music Society presents:
The New Zealand String Quartet with Diedre Irons (piano)

JOSEF HAYDN – String Quartet in C Major Op. 76 No.3 “Emperor”
DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH – String Quartet No. 5 in B-flat Major Op. 92
AMY BEACH – Piano Quintet in F-sharp Minor Op.67 (1907)

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

Waikanae Memorial Hall,

Sunday 8th October

Straightaway one felt something out of the ordinary as soon as the NZ String Quartet players took the Waikanae Memorial Hall stage and put their bows upon the strings to begin their concert – there was resonance in the voices, spring in the rhythm, and fluency arm-in-arm with an ease of variety and contrast – and to think I had thought beforehand, to my shame, “Oh, not another “Emperor! – with almost seventy other Haydns to choose from!” , when as it turned out, this was one which the playing made me really want to hear!

All of the above was part of the build-up to the great moment in the first movement that cellist Rolf Gjelsten had gotten his fellow-players to demonstrate for us in his introduction to the work – that plunge into the full-blooded rusticity of the dance, with strings suddenly becoming pipes and drones and stamping feet – outlandish, even gawky at first hearing, but so organic in the playing’s wider context that it placed the composer entirely at home in the scenario – It’s in this almost incomparable fusion of aristocratic and peasant-like that Haydn’s genius shines as brightly as anywhere else in his oeuvre!

Magic of a different kind was wrought by the Quartet’s hushed intensities with the slow movement’s beginning, lifting the much-vaunted melody far above cliché and commonplace utterance, and proceeding to ennoble it further with different voices for each repetition, the players in the final variation “centring” their tones as to produce a kind of extra-terrestrial expressive world reminiscent of Tchaikovsky and Borodin almost a century later.

The players danced the Menuetto through the music’s wry asymmetries, allowing a droll pesante touch with the slurred-note cascading passage that answered the opening set of phrases. How beautifully we were eased into the minor key Trio, with its briefly nonchalant shift to the major and back again to the minor, a “did we dream you or did you dream us?” moment! Far more volatile was the finale, with its three opening whiplash chords and scurrying minor-key presto figures making a helter-skelter impression, the players demonstrating spectacular fingerwork, in places excitingly tossing impulses from instrument to instrument, and bringing honour and acclaim to the music’s arrival at its eventual major-key conclusion!

On paper it seemed like something of a quantum leap from Haydn to Shostakovich, but the players seemed at the outset of the latter composer’s Fifth String Quartet of 1952 to straightaway forge links between the clarity and focus of the sounds created by each of these two masters of the genre. Shostakovich’s work and its predecessor, the Fourth String Quartet each had their genesis from a time in Russia (immediately post-Second World War) when, along with fellow-composers Prokofiev and Myaskovsky, he had been castigated by the authorities for not creatively responding as whole-heartedly as was expected to marking the thirtieth anniversary of the 1917 Revolution. Shostakovich was unnerved by these attacks to the point where he held back publication of several of his major works of that time until after Stalin’s death in 1953.

The Quartet’s music grows out of a five-note motif which the composer developed in imitation of JS Bach, who featured his own name in his music via the notes representing B-A-C-H, Shostakovich using the notes C-D-Eflat-B-Csharp derived from his own D-S-C-H motif. He also quotes from another source in this work, a Clarinet Trio written by a student of his, Galina Ustvolskaya, whose friendship Shostakovich valued and whose work he admired. At the outset his Quartet intersperses the five notes of the motif with obsessively-driving rhythmic figures before quoting Ustvolskaya’s contrasting waltz-like theme, and then exploring various permutations of the latter interacting with his own five-note motif, all the while intensifying the trajectories and accretions of the music’s forward movement.

The NZSQ players, to whom these kinds of musical intensities always seem meat and drink, held all of this together superbly, setting the beleaguered lyricism against the savageries with unfailing focus as we ran the emotional gauntlet towards the movement’s sudden de-escalation and eerie transition, via purposeful pizzicato passages and a spectral solo violin line, and found ourselves taken to mysterious places wrought by the second movement’s wraith-like fugal musings. These growing intensities with their “time standing still” aspect were steadily and patiently transporting us to “different realms” when the lines were strangely augmented by “wailing” sounds, at which point  the quartet stopped playing to listen to the intrusion with evident bemusement! (The locals, however, were not perturbed – these were the Waikanae volunteer fire brigade’s summonsing calls, a delicious irony being that a wartime photograph of the composer as an actual volunteer fireman does apparently exist somewhere  – giving rise to the thought that this interjection was meant as some kind of token of kinship!)

With the air of a group steadfastedly maintaining its own shared vision, the players picked up their journeyings through the music’s ambient wastes and continued their peregrinations – a “return to life” set of impulses became a kind of  “way through” and took us far from the initial conviviality of the finale’s opening jogtrot rhythms and into places where the five-note motif’s appearance and insistent repetitions reawakened tensions aplenty, the players running the music’s energies ragged, and spectacularly bolstering some of the more assertive figures with forthright pizzicati echoes of “belonging”, which, when done with led to some of the epilogue’s most heartfelt utterances – how piquant were those final pages, with the cello’s and solo violin’s laments comforted by the middle voices’ sustained life-lines.

Footnote: I decided, simply out of interest at first, take the opportunity to find out more concerning the background to the composer’s relationship with the aforementioned Galina Ustvolskaya, whose music Shostakovich quotes several times in the first movement of this quartet. I was greatly surprised to find a fierce controversy had arisen after Shostakovich’s death from various published interviews and dismissive statements made by the younger composer about her supposed “mentor”, giving rise to some of Ustvolskaya’s supporters adding to what amounted to a “denigration” of Shostakovich, both as a man and as a composer. All I can say in response is that, whatever reasons people might have had to cast aspersions upon the idea of a composer’s greatness, in this instance their comments and viewpoints ran counter in no uncertain terms to my own previous experience of Shostakovich’s music and, not least to what I’d just come from here regarding the NZSQ’s staunch, unswerving  journeyings through an “inferno” of angst-ridden outpourings from a truly creative soul.

So to the concert’s second half, the subject of which was the incredible American-born Amy Beach (1867-1944), a quintessential nineteenth-century woman composer who eventually overcame societal obstacles and made a career for herself as a performer and composer. One wonders what she might have achieved had her circumstances allowed her talents to flourish at a much younger age! – though it’s arguable, however, whether Beach’s situation led to musical deprivation or fulfilment on her part, as her husband’s insistence that she restrict her performance activities did lead to an intensification of her composing abilities, which itself has left an important legacy.

Dating from 1907, Beach’s Piano Quintet owed a lot to Brahms’s Piano Quintet, which she herself had performed with the Kneisel Quartet in 1900. Hearing its dramatic opening straight away reminded me as much of the sound-world of Cesar Franck as that of Brahms – the romanticism of the work’s dark, mysterious beginning has a kind of charged quality expressed in chromatic terms that’s similar to Franck’s, further expressed by the rippling piano part, though the excitingly assertive piano octaves that followed, full and rich under Diedre Irons’ fingers immediately brought Brahms back to mind, as did the swaying second subject presented by turns by the strings and on the piano (the tolling bell a feature of the keyboard writing). I thought the players relished the stormily dramatic string unison that began the development section, matched by the piano’s equally commanding reply (amazing piano playing!), all of which morphed into a reprise of the lovely second subject with bell-like piano sonorities, and a quiet, brooding end to the movement.

Firstly the strings, then the piano ravished our senses with the slow movement’s opening melody, the strings musing for a while afterwards, then the violins repeating the melody, Monique Lapins whole-heartedly with the theme and Helene Pohl tenderly descanting overhead – a series of intense interchanges culminates with a virtuosic outburst from the piano, and a deep, rich rendering of the melody from the cello, Rolf Gjelsten giving the lines full play and stimulating the other voices to full-throatedly take the melody to the heights of expression.

The finale’s vivace opening waltzed in to great effect, with an impish agitato character stalking the dancers every which way and all very chromatic, Gillian Ansell’s gorgeous viola solo providing much-appreciated if temporary respite! The agitato impulses returned, the strings exhausting their lyrical capacities over the next little while, and nervously taking refuge in tremolandi, then playing hide and seek with an agitated fugal passage kept most excitingly kept on the rails right through to the last flourish!! The players then gingerly picked their way through the myriads of spent intensities, the piano leading the way and the strings rhapsodising – then the music surges again, the players giving the composer’s unquenchable romantic spirit here full rein. And the work’s coda is spectacular, by turns, headlong and unrepentantly rhapsodic – and finishes with a flourish! – cor, blimey! I’m still feeling exhausted by it all as I write this! The NZSQ musicians (and the indefatigable  Diedre Irons) certainly gave Amy Beach her dues, and we loved them and her for it!