Tag: chamber music

Turning over a Blue Leaf – Adam Page and Stroma

Posted on by Peter Mechen

STROMA with Adam Page  – BLUE PAGE

Adam Page (saxophones and looping)

David Bremner (trombone)

Mark Carter (conductor)

Stroma

Downstage, Wellington

Sunday 9th December, 2012

This concert put me in mind of a review I once read of a performance given by the great 19th Century pianist/composer Anton Rubinstein, while on tour in the United States, the writer turning to a kind of “vernacular” in order to be able to express the wildness of exhilaration that had seized him when confronted with such music-making –

“….the house trembled, the lights danced, the walls shuck, the sky split, the ground rocked – heavens and earth, creation, sweet potatoes, Moses, ninepences, glory, tenpenny nails, Sampson in a ‘simmon tree – Bang!!!……I knowed no more that evening!….”

The concert was billed as “New Zealand s largest chamber ensemble meets New Zealand’s greatest multi-instrumentalist”.  Even though he’s Australian-born saxophonist extraordinaire Adam Page can call himself a Kiwi (or anything else he likes), just as long as he keeps his voyage of spontaneous and interactive discovery as fresh, intriguing and even as dangerous as he did with the Stroma musicians at Downstage Theatre.

Though the concert’s apex-point was Adam Page’s Space, Time and a new pair of shoes,  a work featuring this multi-talented musician’s technique of looping his own and accompanying musicians’ live improvisations into a continually enriched texture of accumulated musical impulses,  the concert featured as well works by Jack Body, Michael Norris and Jacob ter Veldhuis, all taking their starting-point as the tradition of the Blues.

Jack Body’s work Tribute to the Blues began this exploration, a work in four sections. It began with “Big Joe’s Moan” lovely, lazily loping accordion sounds, joined by various other instruments,  playing homage to jazz legend Big Joe Turner by way of setting long and lyrical lines,  over the top of an almost pointillistic soundscape, flecks and single brushstrokes of sound and colour. The following “Penitentiary Blues”,  realized by the New Orleans-based group Tangle Eye, had a sombre and definite “Singing Detective” ambience about its textures, one trying, it seemed, to ”lighten up” and escape the claustrophobia of both form and context.

John Lee’s Pluck came to the rescue, marimba and piano creating a gorgeous “carpet” with string pizzicato joining a sympatico marimba and piano, and finger-clicking from the musicians keeping the faith, as it were, in the spirit of John Lee Hooker. Contrast, if needed was afforded by “Chain-gang Chants”, with heavy bass-dragging beat underpinning a roaring sax and trombone. The lamenting winds and strings  seemed to speak for the human spirit, the roaring brass underpinning the oppression.

Finally, Mary Lou’s Dream (homage to another jazz giant, Mary Lou Williams, pianist composer and educator) presented a kind of “blues fantasia”, with cool, walking-pace rhythms leading the ear into a kind of twilight zone of eerie wind chordings and tremolando strings, until the blues gestures begin to coalesce, building up to great roulades of expression, before expiring with a muttered cadence.

Michael Norris’s Heart across night followed on from a film clip of Theolonius Monk playing his classic Straight, No Chaser, the trio of musicians responding at first with primordial sound-impulses, a muted trombone (David Bremner), rumbling double-bass (Alexander Gunchenko) and quietly scintillating percussion (Lenny Sakofsky), all kept pulsing together by the beat of Mark Carter. The composer’s own poetry was printed as a kind of word-map “paraphrase” of Monk’s piece giving us clues as to his specific visions – thus the irruption of energies could be interpreted as “hot tears crashing”, to all of which the electric double bass seemed to choreograph a kind of “danse macabre” very much on the surface.

“No rest” cautioned the poem, so that even the twilight-zone evocations contained bursts of activity responses to disturbances and terrors within. I found a kind of  perverse joy in David Bremner’s muted trombone, a lovely sound, the instrument later reverting to its full-throated voice. with Stravinsky/Firebird-like glissandi sliding like a board-rider on a molten surface of percussion-driven activity – the climactic “that’s her” getting a volcanic, exciting response from all the players.

The final two items were dominated by Adam Page’s incredible playing, firstly Jacob ter Veldhuis’s Grab It! for tenor saxophone and audio tape, the latter containing samplings from a documentary film of death row prisoners’ aggressive verbalisings. The saxophonist played a series of high-powered synchronisations  mirroring the energy of the constantly-recycled words. The whole scenario was an amazing assault on one’s sensibilities, though the combination of images, music and words drew one into the matrix of anger and despair evinced by the presentation’s various elements – a haunting, life-shaking experience.

Lastly, we got Adam Page’s own Space, Time and a new pair of shoes, a work whose improvisatory spirit created a Baroque-like panoply of melodic and rhythmic explorations processed and shared by Page himself and the whole ensemble in tandem with a looping recorder machine. The technique enabled the musicians’ contributions to and variants of the bluesy opening material to be added to the sound-picture via the recorder-machine, whose agglomerations gradually built up to near-epic proportions. Page commented in his programme notes that he had never used so many musicians when previously presenting this work live, and was thus looking forward to the “unknown” aspect this circumstance would create.

The effect was exhilarating, transporting – a total knockout! – not quite shades of “I knowed no more that evening” but instead, a kind of flabbergasted audience babbling in response, something which, had it also been recorded and “looped”, Adam Page himself would have presumably delighted in augmenting with the excitement of his own visceral, heart-on-sleeve intensifications.  And that would have been yet another work, and it would have been even harder to tear oneself away – as it stood, from Stroma it was no less than a feast of musical discovery, with Adam Page as the inspirational “lead-from-the-front” guide.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rain, wind and moonlight – Stroma’s “Pierrot Lunaire” and more……

Posted on by Peter Mechen

STROMA presents PIERROT LUNAIRE

Madeleine Pierard (soprano)

Hamish McKeich (conductor)

Kirstin Eade (flute/piccolo) / Phil Green (clarinet/bass clarinet)

Blas Gonzalez (piano) / Megan Molina (violin)

Andrew Thomson (violin/viola) / Robert Ibell (‘cello)

HANNS EISLER – 14 Arten den Regen zu beschreiben (Fourteen Ways of depicting Rain)

AMNTON WEBERN – String Trio Op.20

ARNOLD SCHOENBERG – Pierrot Lunaire

Ilott Theatre, Wellington

Sunday, 25th November, 2012

Stroma brought up the 100th anniversary of Arnold Schoenberg’s landmark creation Pierrot Lunaire in unique style at Wellington’s Ilott Theatre, as part of a program featuring the music of both pupils and contemporaries of the composer.

Naturally, the concert’s focus centered firmly on Pierrot Lunaire, with the advance publicity’s imagery suggesting a theatrical presentation, one featuring the extremely gifted singer Madeleine Pierard. This performance took up the second half of the program, with Hanns Eisler’s Vierzehn Arten den Regen zu beschreiben (Fourteen Ways of depicting Rain) sharing the first half with Anton Webern’s String Trio.

The Hanns Eisler work was played here in accordance with the composer’s original intention, in tandem with a film. Dedicated to Schoenberg on the occasion of his 70th birthday and scored for the same instrumentation as the master’s Pierrot Lunaire, the music was a manifestation of Eisler’s fascination with and study of music’s relationship to the medium of film. The composer “set to music” an existing silent film, Regen (Rain) made in 1929 in Amsterdam by filmmaker Joris Ivens.  Its montage-like construction featured scenes whose placement suggested a kind of understated interplay between natural elements, mostly rain, and people going about their business in a city.

Completing the first half was Anton Webern’s String Trio Op.20, to the uninitiated, a work presenting the wonder of new sensations, especially the lyrical explorations and variants of the same throughout the first movement, then with the second movement introducing what felt like a more “physical” kind of engagement, stimulated by greater contrasts of timbre and rhythm. Interesting that the performance was “conducted” by Hamish McKeich, something that, for me, added a kind of dimension to the sounds, almost like a life-pulse beneath the contrasting plethora of surface incident.

As for “Pierrot”, it has always been regarded as “new”, even a hundred years after its creation. After the premiere in Berlin in October 1912, with the composer conducting and Albertine Zehme as the vocalist, the musicians took the work around Germany and Austria. A critic after a performance in Augsburg the following month suggested that, in order for people to “understand, enjoy, or at least feel” the work, they would need to grow “ears of the future” – a statement with particular relevance for concert-hall audiences.

It’s a truism that in almost any creative sphere things which seemed like daring, almost anarchic cutting-edge first-up presentations can in many cases become absorbed by the main-stream of forward movement, and their edges rounded-off for more general consumption. Where “shock value” was and is an integral part of a work’s message, this can place extra stress on contemporary performers to try and replicate that essential sense of outrage and anarchy, public or private.

Of course, in a world all-too-accustomed to daily presentations of atrocity and carnage as television news entertainment and much worse (so I’m told) awaiting mere mouse-click activation via the Internet, it’s perhaps the performance-context that then becomes all-important for art-music.

I believe that’s why the “refined order” of the concert-hall and its age-old associations continues to allow music of all eras their specific kinds of impact and impressions. And, with reference to this present concert, even though our ears may have gotten “used” to the relative astringencies of the sounds produced by members of the “Second Viennese School” (Schoenberg, Berg, Webern, et al…), in performance situations certain impulses activated by intensities unique to that performance will always have an impact.

Also, one doesn’t underestimate the increased familiarity and better-developed understanding of any work that comes with repeated exposure, a kind of “roundabout” that makes up for the loss of the shock value’s “swing”. This concert afforded us plenty of food for reflection along these lines, the items able to engage us in all kinds of ways and at different levels of receptivity, from surfaces to inner recesses.

Regarding the opening work by Hanns Eisler, I loved the combination of film and music on this occasion (being normally a last-ditch opponent of add-on visual accoutrement to music presentation). Of course, this was different to that, the film being the composer’s original inspiration for his music. On the face of it, fourteen musical vignettes stitched together would, one might think, produce a disjointed hotchpotch of impressions in sound, with no guarantee that the whole would be greater, etc….. But for a variety of reasons we as listeners seemed to be taken out of ourselves and ‘put in touch” with a kind of synthesis of sounds and images throughout, in places cleverly dovetailed, and in others interestingly contrasted in terms of feelings produced.

I could detect no strain, no discomfort or lack of co-ordination regarding the musicians’ performance (expertly duetted, cross-media-style, with the on-screen happenings through Hamish McKeich’s direction). It all seemed as one, the music-making reaching back from its immediate “face” to make the connections, as any piece of music might similarly fuse with aspects of a listener’s previous experience.

In the wake of Eisler’s work Webern’s Op.20 String Trio promised a potentially less immediate and engaging experience for the listener, an expectation that for me was confounded by the austere beauty of the sounds made by the trio of violinist Megan Molina, violist Andrew Thomson and ‘cellist Robert Ibell. Originally intended by the composer as a three-movement work, the surviving two movements seemed complementary, a kind of “air and dance” pairing. A commentator whose analysis I read called the work “jagged and severe”, qualifying the judgement with “yet strangely beautiful and lyrical”. The latter statement came out more readily with these musicians’ playing.

Here were finely-wrought exhalations of breath at the beginning, a gentle flow of movement, angular in places, and flecked with little irruptions and pizzicati impulses. Its companion movement seemed more impulsive, volatile in line and figuration as well as in dynamics, each player in this performance seeming both singer (in places more like “sprechgesang”) and listener, such was the playing’s interactive spirit throughout.

The interval done, Madeleine Pierard took the platform, dressed and made-up as Pierrot and accompanied by Hamish McKeich and the ensemble. She was stationed to one side, well-lit, while the musicians and conductor were in the centre. Immediately behind the group was a backdrop of a screen on which titles, translations and images were played, giving the audience plenty of help regarding the texts of the poems. First impressions were of an immediacy and clarity of utterance from both singer (beautiful diction) and players (beautifully-focused, transparent lines and atmospheric tones). The voice encompassed a frequently startling dynamic range, wonderfully mirrored by similarly explosive accents and contrasts from the players.

I confess I was transfixed by the clarity and focus of it all throughout the first couple of numbers. It actually took me until midway through Part One’s grouping of seven songs to regain my critical senses sufficiently to realize just why it was that Madeleine Pierard’s performance sounded so much more lyrical, wistful and engagingly human than any other singer I’d heard on record (I had never heard the work in concert before). She was actually SINGING a great deal of the text and sustaining many of the pitches of her notes to a greater extent that any other exponents of the role I’d encountered. There was, of course, variation in what I’d previously experienced, to the extent that, without a score it was impossible to plot precisely where Schoenberg had intended his “singer” to sing and where to break into speech, or at least “bend” the note pitches. But this performance was, to my ears, “sung” like no other I’d heard.

The effect was to “humanize” many of the poems’ utterances, and play down the more grotesque, often deranged-sounding modes adopted by the singer. Whether this was how Madeleine Pierard “saw” the work, along with her conductor, Hamish McKeich, or whether it was due partly or wholly to a lack of experience in performing it, resulting in more conventionally accepted modes of utterance being used, I’m not sure. Schoenberg himself was undoubtedly influenced when writing the work by the vocal capabilities of the first person to “create” the role of Pierrot, the actress Albertine Zehme (who, incidentally, chose the poems for the work). I came across a fragment of the correspondence between composer and singer-actress which was revealing:

The singing voice, that supernatural, chastely-controlled instrument, ideally beautiful precisely in its ascetic lack of freedom, is not suited to strong eruptions of feeling…..Life cannot be exhausted by the beautiful sound alone. The deepest final happiness, the deepest final sorrow dies away unheard, as a silent scream within our breast, which threatens to fly apart, or to erupt like a stream of lava from our lips…..We need both the tones of song as well as those of speech. My unceasing striving in search of the ultimate expressive capabilities for the “artistic experience in tone” has taught me this fact.

There was no doubting Madeleine Pierard’s considerable skills in bring this work to life, and her ability to make the words of the poetry pulsate – only in one or two instances did I feel that she hadn’t freed the music completely from the page, partly due to her playing-down the grotesque, spectral element which the sprechgesang mode would have helped emphasise – in Der kranke Mond which concludes the first part, she didn’t quite match the ambience of her flutist Kirsty Eade’s wonderful solo, her voice a shade earthbound, without the suspended gleam of the moonlight’s focus. But what a contrast, then, with her almost primordial, pitch-dark rendering of the following Nacht! – her deep-throated tones redolent of the abyss, as it were. She also captured the out-and-out horror of the Rote Messe, with its “gruesome Eucharist”, though I thought the sound of the words of Die Kreuze, the final song of Part Two, needed more of a certain spectral, “blood-bled” quality, something that more focused sprechgesang would have possibly given. But certainly there was vocal energy and finesse from this artist to burn.

The singer’s costuming and make-up was first-class, as was the organization of the backdrop screen and the timing of the text translations. I did wonder whether her lighting-pool was too unrelieved – some shadow on the face at certain angles would have given some contrast and allowed her a bit of freedom – as it was, every glance and every flicker of expression was laid bare, throughout. Make-up and costume suggested a theatrical statement was being made, and I felt it could have been followed through more strongly and consistently. Again,I don’t know whether Madeleine Pierard’s presentation was “directed” as such by anybody, but she could have been encouraged to incorporate what glances she did give her conductor (understandable in a score such as this!) into a kind of pattern of derangement or moonstruckness – something theatrical, or at least cabaret-like. And I would have liked her lighting to have had SOME shadow, a dark line allowing some facial contouring which she could have used for some respite along with more covert purposes.

Enough! Hang these comments, which matter far less than the fact that Pierrot was here a “tour de force”, a work whose stature was overwhelmingly conveyed by singer, conductor and players. Each of the instrumentalists did splendid things, conductor Hamish McKeich was the music’s flexible but unbreakable anchor-chain, and Madeleine Pierard’s voice gave us its beating heart. Performers and everybody associated with the Stroma team deserve our gratitude for giving us the chance to share so graphically and tellingly in a great work’s hundredth anniversary.

 

Superb English Trio performs in context of Pettman/ROSL Arts

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

The Leonore Piano Trio (Benjamin Nabarro – violin, Gemma Rosefield – cello, Tim Horton – piano)
Piano trios: Haydn’s in C, Hob XV:27; Ravel’s in A minor; Dvořák’s in F minor, Op 65
(Royal Over-Seas League, in support of Sistema Aotearoa)

Legislative Council Chamber, Parliament

Friday 23 November, 7pm

The members of this fine English trio were here as part of the panel judging entires for the Pettman/Royal Over-seas League scholarship.

They have made time to perform in several centres around New Zealand and this was the first of three concerts in the Wellington Region – the others are at Waikanae and Greytown. Several of them have been devoted to musical charities. This one at Parliament, hosted by the Minister for the Arts, Christopher Finlayson, was dedicated to Sistema Aotearoa, the Venezuela-originated scheme that gets children from disadvantaged areas into performing classical orchestral music. It has made a remarkable beginning in South Auckland and is being taken up elsewhere.

The trio gave a full and substantial programme, in performances that set them at once among the finest chamber music ensembles to have visited New Zealand for some time. The Haydn trio in C, Hob. XV:27, is among his last chamber pieces, written in 1797. It is a very fine work and these players treated it as, and made us believe that it was, a masterpiece. Its opening chords were electrifying, and it continued in a way that could well have suggested that its composer was Beethoven, such was its emotional range and intellectual stature. Perhaps there were some present who felt the playing was out of character with Haydn’s real creative nature, though I heard no such remarks; it did indeed invest the music with qualities that are to be found more in the music of decades later.

The impact of the playing was enhanced by the brilliant yet warm acoustic of the Legislative Council Chamber. It was the second concert there in the space of a week: on the previous Friday, the National Youth Choir had sung in the chamber (sadly, nowhere else in the region) to widespread admiration.

Ravel’s piano trio followed. In the Haydn, it was the piano and violin that made the greatest impact; my position probably diminished the sound of the cello. But here, after all instruments had become equal during the Romantic period, the cello was prominent for the beginning. But the cello’s individuality was only one of many characteristics that made the performance remarkable, Though the players never took inauthentic liberties, there was an engaging hint of hesitancy as they began, soon overtaken, dramatically, by a total assurance, vivid in the delineation of the quick changing moods: one moment intense, the next rhapsodic.

Ravel calls for sounds that are unfamiliar in music before his time; the scherzo-like second movement, inspired by the Pantoum poetic form of the Malay people (which we’d heard a day or so before in Debussy’s Five Baudelaire song settings) was both exotic and complementary to the character of the first movement, and those qualities were produced vividly by the players.

In the third movement, with its ancient title Passacaille (Passacaglia), the players took us far away in time, but strangely near in classical sobriety to the previous movement. To have heard this great work, so powerfully and masterly performed, by a trio of such distinction was revelatory.

The violinist of the trio remarked that Dvořák’s Trio, Op 65 was perhaps his best (though acknowledging the the Dumky was probably the favourite). But it just misses greatness, in the Brahmsian sense. Given that it comes close to Brahms in character, the fact that one of the most gifted melodists of all time failed to clothe it in music like his own piano quintet or the last three string quartets (Opp. 96, 105 and 106), points to the error of trying to win approval through turning aside from his own genius. Technically, formally, it complies with all the criteria that Brahms would have endorsed.

Nevertheless, it was played magnificently, even making me review the above feeling that I’ve always had about the trio.

So it was a superb concert in a superb environment, given in support of an admirable cause, which I am heartened to learn is being supported by the Minister and his Ministry. But I still await a major turn-around by the Ministry of Education to reinstate arts, including the teaching of classical music as compulsory subjects through to at least Year 11 in schools.

 

Duo mosaica – violin and guitar – in first-class recital to end St Mark’s series

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Francis-Paul Demillac: Petite Suite Medievale
Piazzolla: Café 30, from Histoire du Tango
Ravel: Pièce en forme de habanera
Monti: Csárdás
Cheryl Grice: Mi Alma
Martin Jaenecke: Shade and Light; The Many Shades of Me

Duo Mosaica: Cheryl Grice, guitar, Martin Jaenecke, violin and saxophone

St. Mark’s Church, Lower Hutt

Wednesday, 31 October 2012, 12.15pm

This was the last for this year of the Hutt City lunchtime concert series.  Since early June, numerous worthwhile concerts have taken place, and the organisers are to be commended for their efforts in putting the series together.

Both the performers in the duo migrated to New Zealand – one from England; one from Germany – to teach in Nelson.  They now contribute to the musical life of Wellington, with frequent returns to Nelson for Jaenecke, who has also toured for Chamber Music New Zealand.

The varied programme was introduced by the performers – using a microphone, I’m glad to say.  The fashion for spoken introductions is fine with me as long as what is said is cogent, well-thought-out, brief and audible – as today.  Too often it is none, or only some of these things, in which case it is a waste of time, and annoying to the audience.  The dynamics and tempo of speech needs to be increased (in the first feature) and decreased (in the second) depending on the size and acoustics of the venue.  It is amazing the number of people who do not realise that in an auditorium they need to speak more slowly and loudly than in a mere room; instead, they speak as if to a small group of friends in their living room.

Speaking of dynamics; the red and black combo of the performers’ outfits added to the brightness of the event.

The duo began with an absolutely gorgeous work by Francis-Paul Demillac, a composer I had not heard of before.  The acoustic seemed to allow both instruments to speak clearly – coupled, of course, with the musicians’ impeccable techniques.

The suite opened with a calm and peaceful ‘Sicilienne’, followed by a short, lively and bouncy ‘Sonnerie’.  Next was ‘Après une page de Ronsard’ (A une jeune morte), which was much more contemplative, as suited the subject.  The final movement was entitled ‘Ronde’; a sprightly dance, with the guitar using a variety of techniques.

Piazzolla is famous for his tangoes; this one was most appealing music, more thoughtful than I imagined it would be, but full of diversity too.  These two performers are so accustomed to playing together (Martin said it was ten years) that what they produce is a unified whole, with great tone from both of them.

Ravel’s ‘Habanera’ is well-known.  Originally it was written for voice and guitar, as a vocalise – a wordless melody with accompaniment.  The players performed a transcription from Ravel’s own version for cello and piano.  The piece seemed to have less flair than usual – perhaps it was a little slow.

Cheryl Grice had to retune her guitar several times to ccommodate the requirements of the composers; I noticed that she had a cunning device (presumably electronic) attached to the top of her guitar’s fingerboard, above the tuning pegs, that she consults.  I imagine it tells her when she has precisely tuned to the required pitch.

Vittorio Monti’s famous piece has been played by all manner of instruments, but was originally written for violin.  This item was played with plenty of life – and it was obvious from the facial expressions of both performers that Martin varied things a little as the mood took him, to liven the piece up.

Then we came to the duo’s own compositions.  Cheryl said that hers was the first she had ever written, and she wrote it in 5 days.  ‘Mi Alma’ means ‘My Soul’ (why do pieces by English speakers so often get titled in another language?), and used harmonics extensively.  A gentle opening was wistful, even regretful at times, but led to more forceful passages.  It was played superbly, and ended with gentle harmonics again.

Martin’s two pieces were for guitar and saxophone; he played the soprano saxophone with aplomb.  As he said, this was a demanding combination in terms of dynamics.   After an introduction on guitar, there was a haunting, rising melody for the saxophone; after discords, the music was brought to a beautiful resolution, before darting off onto sunny slopes for the ‘Light’ part of the piece.  Altogether very attractive music.

The second piece portrayed shades of the composer’s character – introverted, extraverted, angry etc.  Parts were improvised, as he humorously explained in his introduction.  Both instruments had solo passages, the saxophone revealing its variety of tones and ability to be brazen but also subtle, though not quite as subtle as the guitar.  The piece became exciting and vigorous, then sank into a reverie, with a delicious ending.

These are two first-class musicians who play so well in combination.

 

Clarinet trio repeats its Lower Hutt programme at St Andrew’s

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Bruch: Two movements from Eight Pieces, Op 83; Mozart: Trio for clarinet, viola and piano, K 498; Schumann: Märchenerzählungen, Op 132

Tim Workman – clarinet, Victoria Jaenecke – viola, David Vine – piano

St Andrew’s on The Terrace

Wednesday 31 October, 12.15pm

A review, by Rosemary Collier, of this ensemble with this programme, at St Mark’s Church, Lower Hutt, on 3 October, has just been belatedly posted on the website, the result of an oversight. It will be found at that date.

I did not hear the Lower Hutt concert, but greatly enjoyed this repeat concert, now in a different acoustic and using a different piano.  None of the shortcomings mentioned in the earlier review seemed evident here at St Andrew’s.

NZ Trio at Wellington City Gallery – beautiful assemblages

Posted on by Peter Mechen

NZ Trio presents ART3

JOAQUIN TURINA – Piano Trio No.2 in B Minor Op.76

ALEX TAYLOR – burlesques méchaniques (2012) KARLO MARGETIC – Lightbox (2012)

ANTONIN DVORAK – Piano Trio No.4 in A Minor “Dumky”

NZ Trio

(Justine Cormack – violin / Ashley Brown – ‘cello

Sarah Watkins – piano)

City Gallery, Wellington

Civic Square

Wednesday 31st October 2012

An inspired choice of venue! – Wellington’s City Gallery is a place that has flexible space enough to play host to chamber music and instrumental performances whose ambiences then take on added dimensions due to their surroundings.

In this case, the performers were Justine Cormack, Sarah Watkins and Ashley Brown of the NZ Trio. On the program were works by Turina and Dvorak, but, significantly with two new compositions by New Zealand composers Alex Taylor and Karlo Margetic. These were not world, but Wellington premieres – Alex Taylor’s burlesque mécaniques was given its first public performance in Akaroa earlier in the month by the NZ Trio, and Karlo Margetic’s Lightbox in July in Auckland, by the same musicians.

Each of the new works seemed like “hot property” especially in the hands of the original performers, and in such close proximity to their world premieres. A different, but no less telling kind of proximity, gave the music’s edge and point greater and bolder relief – on the wall immediately behind the performance platform was artist John Reynolds’ painting Numbering Waves, part of the “Kermadec” exhibition currently on show at the Gallery.

This particular work (commented on as “inspirational” by Justine Cormack during her spoken introduction to the concert) made considerable play with our senses as we listened, a kind of creative enhancement of our experience of four very different pieces of music. And, of course it seemed to evolve as a world for us with each succeeding item, as well as with the changing light over time.

Beginning the concert was a piece I thought of as “high class teashop music” with an Iberian flavour, a Piano Trio by Joaquin Turina. A flowing sigh began the piece, something from the exotic distance but nevertheless engaging, followed by a flowing, Schumannesque melody, the playing taking us from light to light, shade to shade along the way. The second subject made me think of childhood holidays, nostalgic memories of innocent excitement conjured up by the sounds made by these splendid musicians. I was wanting more when the movement seemed to end somewhat abruptly!

Ghostly scampering began the second movement, here put across with plenty of élan, strings and piano nicely cross-rhythmed, then joining momentarily for a biting unison climax – again the salon-like feeling informed a languid interlude and a beautifully-flowing aftermath – gorgeous playing. The third movement’s opening found ‘cellist Ashley Brown steady on the high-wire, in a very violin-sounding register, the opening lento giving way to a variety of episodes throughout, characterful and quixotic, the musicians unlocking and opening every mood for our delight.

Alex Taylor’s piece, burlesques mécaniques was described by the composer as “a rather extroverted collection of grotesque miniatures, whose characters are not people or animals but dances”. Rather like a updated and extremely kinetic “Pictures at an Exhibition” in effect, the piece’s ten sections explored a kind of rhythmic dysfunctionality, whose expression, as the composer suggested, tended to confound rather than conform to the dance element. So the rhythms were often in conflict, and the piano played almost a devil’s advocate, often disruptive role in the proceedings.

The Prologue, which opened the piece, began as the whole intended to go on, the piano abrupt and volatile, the violin spectral, and the ‘cello relievedly holding onto a single note – interestingly, this state of things was reiterated in amplified form in the tenth and final section, which features a violent, confrontational opening, out of which the ‘cello emerged again holding an ambient note, while violin and piano fought a do-or-die battle for supremacy. No wonder that, at the end, pianist Sarah Watkins told us that the work was “wonderfully invigorating to play!”

As well as rhythmic desynchronization, the piece also explored a vast range of instrumental timbres – my notes were filled with descriptive exclamations regarding ear-catching timbres, “strangulated ‘cello tones”, “disjointed, pointillistic violin jabbings”, “piano a flash of colour across a page”, “melting, Dali-esque notes from strings”, and “growling cello voice”. The figurations, too, contributed to the pieces’ different characters, the violin’s and ‘cello’s cross-purposed rhythms in the fourth piece “A Spanner” (guess what rhythms!), and a “toccata trapped in a tunnel” aspect of the following “tumbledry” both extremely well-etched for effect.

And the last movement but one “Chain” even briefly took on humanoid characteristics, with the piano arpeggiating exploratory figures and the strings holding their notes, the effect like breathing or perhaps a heartbeat, certainly a pulse of some kind – for the composer an “alternative, interior world”, and for the uninitiated listener, a case perhaps of “where there’s life, there’s hope”?

So, here was engaging, and in places challenging music – I found it good that all of those individual ear-tickling moments were incorporated within clearly-defined sections giving the first-time listener both sequence and shape for the work as a whole, in fact making a virtue of the stop-go aspect of the piece. With Karlo Margetic’s work Lightbox, the challenges for the listener were different, as the music seemed longer-breathed and more deeply-layered, despite the irruptions and volatilities having a similar kind of timbral and colouristic flair to those of the previous piece.

Perhaps a clue to the music’s individual character was the composer’s statement in the program comparing a piano trio to a “transparent interplay of lines”, suggesting creative impulses and imaginings wrought in longish spans, and having outcomes that reflect these long-term evolutions. Lightbox had a number of these kinds of sequences, such as the gently rocking rhythms at the piece’s very beginning, with figurations turning in on themselves as if reconstituting on the spot, or so it seemed. Another was the piano’s ambient interlude-like sequence, perhaps two-thirds way-through, the sounds gently kaleidoscoping in a slow dance, an mood replicated later by the strings in Aeolian-harp-like mode, an almost ritualistic interaction of the three lines, the composer’s “strangely beautiful assemblage”.

But embedded in these beauties were tensions, the strings near the start finding ever-increasing “edge” in opposing counterpointed figures, before buzzing like angry bees when dive-bombing the piano’s slow, ceremonial dance. Warmth turned to spectral chill as the players resorted to col legno-like gestures, gradually tightening their figurations to breaking-point and dissolution in a sea of piano ambience. Someone made a remark at one point that a youthful audience member at the Auckland performance of this work had exclaimed that the music reminded him of transformers (toys which can change their appearance and character by swiveling and inverting different constituent parts) – and this “out of the mouths of babes” aspect of the remark certainly hit the spot in that particular aspect.

In both works the players of the NZ Trio made the notes sound like “their” music, with committed playing by turns trenchant and lyrical, sharply-focused and delicate. What a joy it must be for composers whose works enjoy such advocacy!

After the interval came Dvorak’s “Dumky” Trio, a work whose wonderfully layered intensities seemed perfectly in accord with what had gone before it in the concert, music with both vigour and lyricism, heartfelt utterance and gaiety, practically a whole world’s contrasting emotions knitted together in a whole. ‘Cellist Ashley Brown introduced the piece, his playing underlining as eloquently as his words the music’s near-tragic yearning at the opening, ‘cello and piano direct and full-throated in their outpourings, the former then singing as one with the violin before veering sharply into a complete contrast of character with a vigorous dance-rhythm, a precursor of the frequent mood-swings that permeate this attractive work.

I came away from this concert with renewed appreciation of the Trio’s compelling and wholehearted response to everything the group performs, and of the skills, energies and sensitivities the three players readily convey to their audiences – a wonderful occasion.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Varied programme to mark Taliban murder of a Jewish/American journalist

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

A programme of works for cello and double bass, by Jewish and Israeli composers, plus Bach, Rossini and the Klezmer Trio for cello, viola and bass by Ross Harris; in memory of Daniel Pearl, American Jewish journalist murdered by the Taliban

Inbal Megiddo (cello), Paul Altomari (double bass), Donald Maurice (viola)

Myers Hall, Wellington Jewish Community Centre, Webb St.

Sunday, 28 October, 3pm

The Internet gives the following explanation of the occasion for this concert.  “Daniel Pearl World Music Days was created in response to the 2002 kidnapping and murder of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl at the hands of extremists in Karachi, Pakistan. Danny’s family and friends came together to work towards a more humane world, forming the Daniel Pearl Foundation. The mission of the Foundation is to promote cross-cultural understanding through journalism, music, and innovative communications.

“Danny was a talented musician who joined musical groups in every community in which he lived, leaving behind a long trail of musician-friends spanning the entire world. Commemorating Danny’s October 10th birthday, World Music Days uses the universal language of music to encourage fellowship across cultures and build a platform for “Harmony for Humanity.”

First on this intriguing programme, after a brief speech introducing World Music Days,  was Kaddish (prayer of mourning) by Joachim Stutschewsky, a twentieth-century Israeli composer.  Naturally, it was a rather sad piece (for solo cello) – intense, strong, and even abrasive at times.  A repeated motif in a minor key was somewhat modal in character; it subsided into a regretful mood.

Next was a piece based on a song for peace, also for unaccompanied cello.  Unfortunately, Inbal Meggido’s spoken introductions were too quiet and too fast to be readily heard and understood.  Lament by Hannah Levy was written for Meggido by the contemporary Israeli composer.  Its very strong opening was like cries of pain, and was very eloquently played.  The music utilised a very wide span of the cello’s enormous range, from deep bass to high treble.  A wide compass of techniques was employed too, from biting the bow stridently into the strings to lightly skipping over them.  The work described deep sorrow rather than ‘mere’ melancholy.  At times it expressed wailing, but came to a brief calm towards the end.

We now moved to something familiar: Bach’s Suite no.1 in G major for solo cello.  The suites are the cellist’s Bible – or should we say Old Testament in this case?  The Prelude made a promising beginning, although I found the slurring between bass notes to the higher notes in the chords are little too much.  The tempos may have had something to do with it; the movement was taken somewhat faster than one often hears it.

A very lithe and supple Allemande followed, exhibiting lovely tone.  Some notes were touched very lightly; the effect was most pleasing.  The Courante was brisk and lively, but every note was present.  The slow dance that originated in Spanish America, the Sarabande, was thoughtful, rich and deep, demonstrating the cello’s sonorous capabilities to the full, while the following Minuets were animated,                                             yet played with plenty of feeling and beautiful phrasing.

The Gigue that ended the Suite included considerable contrasts in the fast dance.  These dancers were energetic and got around all over the place.

After the interval, Donald Maurice joined his viola to the cello in Beethoven’s curiously named ‘Eyeglass’ duo.  It was thus named, Maurice told us in an excellent introduction, for the bespectacled musician friends of Beethoven to whom the piece was dedicated.  In imitation, both players donned ‘eyeglasses’.

The duo consisted of an allegro followed by minuet and trio.  The work featured delightful interweavings, evocative of a conversation between the two dedicatees.  There was body in the playing and variety of tone.  Beethoven introduced some fun into his writing – pizzicato passages followed by glissandi.  The allegro was a difficult movement, resulting in some slight inaccuracies of intonation.

The minuet had echoes of the theme of the allegro, but then modulated in novel ways.  The conversations became more serious and complex, and were completed with an unexpected ending.

Yet another unfamiliar work: Rossini’s Duo for cello and double bass (titled simply ‘Duetto’ in Grove), in which Meggido was joined by her husband Paul Altomari, principal double bass player in the Vector Wellington Orchestra, who gave a good introduction to the work, which remained published until 1968.  One so seldom hears a double bass as soloist or duoist, that it was interesting to hear that the sound was not only deeper but also less direct than that of the cello.

The work featured some operatic-style themes, but overall it was not great music, though quite a work-out for the performers, especially for the bass player.  In the second movement, the bass played pizzicato while the cello had a strong melody; the third movement, loud at first, appeared to be a set of extraverted variations upon a dance-like theme.  A bright presto ended this jolly item.

Continuing the operatic theme, the players next gave us Georg Goltermann’s Souvenirs de Bellini.  Goltermann lived from 1824 to 1898.  The double bass played a rather dull accompaniment while the cello delivered operatic melodies – Meggido had a lot of playing to do before the double bass reversed things, playing its own melody, with the cello playing the accompanying passages.  Then the roles were reversed again: the cello played virtuosic passages, seemingly several parts at once.

The final piece was Klezmer Trio for viola, cello and double bass, by Wellington composer Ross Harris, who was present at the concert.  Wikipedia has this to say about Klezmer: “The genre has its origins in Eastern Europe. In the United States the genre morphed considerably as Yiddish-speaking Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe, who arrived between 1880 and 1924… met and assimilated American jazz.”

The instrumentation we heard is not listed in the Wikipedia article – but like all folk-based music, klezmer can evolve, especially when in the hands of composers who take it up and write around its melodies, styles and traditions.

The work opened with pizzicato from the two lower instruments and a melody on viola.  There was much off-beat rhythm; at one stage Altomari alternately hit the strings and played pizzicato on them.  A winsome melody from the cello intervened, then it was back to the viola, with the rhythm sustained by the double bass.  A change of key ensued; the interaction between cello and viola had a very Middle Eastern sound to me.

Some of the melodies were quite rhapsodic, their portamento technique assisting in the resulting sound being quite different from those of Western classical music.  The music returned to a very rhythmic, dancing sequence, then all the instruments knitted together for an exciting syncopated ending.

This was indeed an interesting and varied programme, mainly of unexplored music.

 

American string quartet plus German pianist deliver eclectic programme of great accomplishment

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

ENSO String Quartet (Maureen Nelson and John Marcos – violins, Stephanie Fang – viola, Richard Belcher – cello) with Michael Endres (piano)

Boccherini: String quartet in G minor, Op 32 No 5; Ginastera: Quartet No 1, Op 20; Gillian Whitehead: No stars, not even clouds; Dvořák: Piano Quintet in A, Op 81

Wellington Town Hall

Thursday 25 October, 7.30pm

Though there was no written mention of it in the programme, the photo on the cover and that inside revealed a change of violist. On the cover the figure was, one assumed, of Melissa Reardon, named in the season brochure, while inside it was one who had to be identified as Stephanie Fong, named in the programme. A change had clearly happened between the time of the initial contract and the quartet’s arrival in New Zealand. While the cellist comes from Christchurch and may be assumed to be one of the reasons for their coming to New Zealand, the rest of the quartet are Americans whom the season brochure called an ‘exciting young ensemble’.

One doesn’t hear a lot of Boccherini’s music; is it because there’s still a tendency to think that audiences will not tolerate anything but the Quintet, often played in the arrangement for guitar, which features the Ritirata di Madrid, or the E major quartet with the famous Minuet? Yet musicologists assure us that the other hundreds of quartets, quintets and sonatas as well as scores of concertos and symphonies, are being unfairly concealed from us.

At last the famine was broken here with a very attractive string quartet, leaving only around a hundred others to be discovered. A quartet in G minor from Opus 32, written around 1780, it proved very much worth the journey, opening with a gentle insouciance, seeming to promise twenty minutes of charm and musical inventiveness.

As was normal with quartets of the period, the first violin boldly took the top line of the tunes, though it was not hard to hear rather interesting things happening in the other parts. In particular, the cello part was given attention (Boccherini was a distinguished cellist), and both second violin and viola took the melody or echoes of it from time to time.

If one expected to hear a replica of the famous, enchanting minuet, not this one; it was marked ‘con moto’ and it was that. Dotted rhythms, vigour: hardly the music that would have engendered the sneering soubriquet ‘Haydn’s Wife’, which was coined to describe the character of Boccherini’s music. The Trio section, in contrast, enjoyed a swaying, melodiousness, not the least sentimental; each instrument could be heard making quite striking contributions. The viola’s role (how quickly she has acquired the spirit of the ensemble!) particularly caught my ear in the Finale, though it was the first violin that relished the sparkling cadenza, perhaps not a usual feature in chamber music, but where are the rules defining what you can put in your own composition?

The quartet asserted its identity which might be elusive if you were presented with the task of identifying it blindfold, but it was clearly distinct from the recognisable finger-prints of Haydn or Mozart, and in which the players demonstrated total assurance.

Big contrast with the following piece: Ginastera, none of whose quartets I’d heard. My first problem in the first movement was defining the rhythm. One of the exercises one engages in with recent (any?) music that is cast in complicated rhythms is to identify patterns, but here I repeatedly lost count; a look at the score might help…. Ginastera might have made use of the folk music of his country but he has subjected it to heavy disguise and, like Bartók, has tended to strip it of anything that might be heard as sentimental or heart-warming; it was no less absorbing however.

The second movement, though fast, was quite subdued, embellished with a lot of edgy techniques, pizzicato and spiccato; the third movement opened with drone-like sounds from viola and cello followed by the first violin playing high, widely-spaced notes somewhat ghostly in character. It ended with an uneasy pianissimo passage from all four players. The last movement suggested the Balkans as much as the Pampas, lively peasant dances in hard-to-define rhythm, pizzicato that might have mimicked the guitar, all demanding playing of considerable virtuosity, which the players met with room to spare.

The players had agreed to tackle a newly commissioned New Zealand piece written for them by Gillian Whitehead. The composer’s note describes its elegiac origin, its name coming from a short story by Juanita Katchel who died during its composition. It opened in a spirit of self-confidence, the first violin singing over a murmuring accompaniment by the others; a series of new ideas flowed till the viola took charge in a quietly assertive manner, laying down a beautiful landscape (or mind-scape), that became agitated, almost frenzied before a sudden change of mood. I had the feeling that roles were attached to the various instruments and that the programme note might have been made more specific; but such specifics might have been a loss for the listener who was otherwise free to speculate, to dream.

However, the players seemed to have penetrated its spirit very successfully, finding a vein of music throughout its course that created a satisfying musical structure.

Michael Endres joined the quartet for the Dvořák piano quintet, a masterpiece and one of the all-time favourites of the chamber music repertory.

I was moved by the rapport that seemed to exist between pianist and quartet, at this, their first public performance together. The piano and then the cello opened in the most gorgeous pianissimo introduction creating a warm romantic spirit; and as the Allegro itself took off the viola played the big main theme and the movement continued, revealing translucent strings that matched the delicacy of the piano.  The Dumka, second movement, filled me, as usual, with delight at Dvořák’s melodic fecundity, elegiac in tone, which was illuminated by the ease and fluency of the playing; it also caught the surprising energy of the middle section.

Throughout, the performance was fast and accurate, limpid and varied in colour and rhythm, the sudden changes of tempo and mood handled as if the players were improvising them as they went along.

When faced with beautiful music being played with a certain conviction, with great spirit, I tend to be oblivious to minor flaws. I do not mean to suggest that there were things here that I failed to hear but which deserved to be reprimanded; only to record that both the music and the playing were so heartfelt and of one mind, that I was simply in no mood to look out for shortcomings.

That applied to the entire concert in which these players succeeded altogether in penetrating to the heart of all four works in the programme.

Schubert’s B flat trio given beautiful performance at St Andrew’s at lunchtime

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Koru Trio (Anne Loesser – violin, Sally Pollard – cello, Rachel Thomson – piano)

Schubert: Piano Trio in B flat, D 898

St Andrew’s on The Terrace

Wednesday 24 October, 12.15pm

This lunchtime concert had been advertised as consisting of movements from both Schubert’s B flat Trio and Shostakovich’s second piano trio, Op 67. In the event, the players decided to do a proper job with the Schubert and leave the Shostakovich till another time (well, I hope so). The playing of individual movements might be OK if the audience is of young people or others who have not heard a work before, to offer a taster; but one is left in an empty space when the sounds one expects to hear in a following movement just don’t come.

All are players in the NZSO, forming another group that illustrates one of the sometimes overlooked benefits to Wellington of the orchestra’s domicile in the city.

Just by the way, there were two other contributions to the city’s rich music scene this week: bolstering orchestral groups that have certain weaknesses, usually in the brass or woodwind departments. One was the weekend concert by the Wellington Youth Orchestra, playing Brahms’s Fourth Symphony and Berlioz’s Nuits d’été (quite splendid performances they were!); and on Tuesday this week, to help the orchestra of the Lawyers in their ‘Counsel in Concert’.

Schubert’s two piano trios are, for most people, the loveliest and greatest of pieces in that repertoire, perhaps equalled by Beethoven’s Archduke Trio, and any performance is approached with a certain awe and excitement. The three players’ credentials were encouraging, and their performances proved their command of not just the notes but of Schubert’s overflowing imagination that these two trios give such vivid evidence of.

What made their performance so satisfying was their sensitivity to the varying dynamics and rhythms that sustain the repetitions of the themes with interest; we never heard a plain repetition but fresh light on the idea each time it reappeared.  It was not simply a matter of playing loud or soft, but of finding a darker or lighter emotion, at places where we are persuaded that Schubert had wanted the music to reflect pain or joy. Schubert’s music is almost the antithesis of the virtuoso showpiece, yet the cello solo near the end of the first movement, though not the least self-serving, was quite beautifully played.

The contrasts of light and shade were again the secret to the moving performance of the Andante. It was the Trio, middle section, of the Scherzo that I found most striking in that movement, where the players found a remarkable stillness through the repeated pairs of quavers.

The Finale was revelatory, as if it was being played for the first time, with some kind of hesitancy towards the end of the exposition, engendering surprise at the direction of modulations which turned them into little mysteries, the violin’s extended handing of a tune, suspended in time, and in the Coda, the spirit of a moto perpetuo.

What a delight it is for the tens of thousands of Wellingtonians (particularly the legions of cultivated public servants nearby who can seek to recover their spirits and sanity during their lunchtimes) who have the opportunity to hear such marvellous music as this, week after week, for nothing more than a small donation; and taken advantage of so worshipfully by such a happy few.

 

 

Five violinists and a cellist at student recital at St Andrew’s

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

String Students of the New Zealand School of Music

Brahms: Sonata no.1 for violin and piano in G major, Op.78
Mozart: Violin Concerto no.5, K.219; 3rd movement
Bach: Sonata no.1 in G minor, BWV 1001: Fuga; Sonata no.2 in A minor, BWV 1003; Andante
Bloch: ‘Prayer’ from Jewish Life,  Suite no.1
Mendelssohn: Violin Concerto in E minor, Op.64, 3rd movement

Annabel Drummond, Lydia Harris, Julian Baker, Hester Bell Jordan, Kate Oswin (violins), Alexandra Partridge (cello), Rafaelle Garlick-Grice, Matthew Oswin (piano)

St Andrew’s on The Terrace

Wednesday, 17 October 2012, 12.15pm

The lunch-time concert was more than usually dramatic, with an earthquake occurring while Julian Baker was playing his Bach, but he carried right on, and showed no sign of discomposure.

First on the programme, though, was Annabel Drummond, a first-year student, playing the Brahms movement.  This is a long movement, marked vivace ma non troppo.  There were a few slight intonation glitches, but the expressive playing and superb tone Annabel gained from her instrument made these of no significance.  The sparkling piano part complemented the mellow, lyrical violin part, and had the limelight itself at times.

The gently melancholy character of the sonata, particularly the funeral march section (which belied the tempo marking) was conveyed beautifully, while the more rapid sections were fine too, despite a very brief lapse into harsh tone from the violin.  A splendid technique contributed to a wonderful performance in which Brahms’s work was played with feeling.

Lydia Harris gave us the third movement of Mozart’s concerto nicknamed ‘Turkish’.  Her violin had a strong sound, and she played with clarity, but not the sweetness of tone of the previous player, some stridency, even abrasiveness at times, on the upper strings, and not enough delicacy.  The intonation was occasionally awry.  There was too much pedal used in the piano part for Mozart.  The whole movement was, to my mind, played a trifle too fast, though it was not without character.

Next up was J.S. Bach, in the capable hands of Julian Baker, who played the unaccompanied fugue from memory.  His spoken introduction was good, and very clear.  The difficult music was executed very competently on the whole, despite a number of lapses in the double-stopping.  For a first-year student, this was very fine Bach playing; he had the audience totally absorbed (well, some of us lost concentration briefly, but not the performer) with idiomatic Bach, and a rich tone.

A cello followed, by way of variety.  Ernest Bloch’s piece was a shorter work than others on the programme, but of considerable interest.  Playing from memory, Alexandra Partridge proved to be a confident cellist, and one able to produce a lovely sonorous tone from her instrument.  There was plenty of subtlety and a range of dynamics in her performance; the excellent empathy between cellist and pianist was noticeable.

Hester Bell Jordan, playing the Bach Andante, seemed rather tentative.  Maybe it was nerves, but her tone was not consistent.  While there was care with the baroque style of phrasing away the second of each pair of notes, the performance came over as rather hesitant, with insufficient flow.  Certainly, the amount of double-stopping made this a difficult piece to bring off.

The last performer was Kate Oswin, whose brother Matthew accompanied her in the piano reduction of the orchestral score of the third movement of Mendelssohn’s violin concerto, probably the most frequently performed of any violin concerto.  It was a challenging role for both players, the violinist playing from memory, not made easier by being played a little faster than the marking might suggest.  The violin part was well under Kate’s fingers.  However, she does not have a big sound, and the piano sometimes had too much volume in comparison.

I felt the performance was a little too glib.  All the notes were there, but there was a lack of expression or dynamic alteration – indeed, the tempo made it more difficult to convey feeling and nuance.  It felt a little like a race of technical brilliance, rather than music.  There is no doubt that this 3rd-year student was more advanced technically than the first year students – but musically?  It needed to be more winsome.

A couple of people remarked to me how lucky we are to have these lunch-hour concerts (free, with opportunity for koha), in which we hear superb music from accomplished musicians.  I strongly echo that.