Tag: chamber music

New Zealand Trio (Chamber Music New Zealand)

Sarah Watkins – piano, Justine Cormack – violin, Ashley Brown – cello

Mozart: Piano Trio in B flat, K 502; Judy Bailey: So Many Rivers: Stuart Greenbaum: The Year without a Summer; Pärt: Mozart-Adagio; Schumann: Piano Trio in D minor, Op 63

Wellington Town Hall

Saturday 24 April 7.30pm

The second concert in Chamber Music New Zealand’s 2010 subscription series offered another concert from the New Zealand Trio (their trade name: NZTrio) which was one of the groups that played in the chamber music weekend during the International Festival last month.

Though this evening we were offered complete works, a similar balance between standard repertoire and new music was aimed for. One of the two established pieces was by Schumann, no doubt to mark his 200th birthday this year. It is conventional to give more praise to his chamber music involving piano than his string quartets, not a view I subscribe to; this D minor trio is certainly a fine work. It achieves a balance between piano and strings and the writing for strings sounds idiomatic and comfortable, though I confess I have not consulted string players specifically on the point.

It opened (Mit Energie und Leidenschaft – appassionato) with a relaxed tempo, slow, allowing nicely-judged rubato and sometimes a quixotic variety of mood; there were attractive piano moments, and the cello took the spotlight for a few bars. Through the lively second and the soulful, adagio third movements, the players expressed themselves with a convincing naturalness; it was the last movement’s more striking melody that endeared itself and set it alight. It was the last item in the concert; nevertheless, I had a feeling that it ended with a shade less energy than they had brought to the opening Mozart trio.

Mozart’s K 502 had indeed begun with a tremendous flourish, mainly driven by pianist Sarah Watkins, and the striking first theme tended to dominate. In fact the piano, from where I sat, on the right side of the balcony, close to the players, left the violin and cello somewhat obscured, in terms both of volume and of musical interest (and I’d have liked less choreographed head and shoulders effects from the pianist). Much of the time the cello acted as little more than a basso continuo instrument. In the second movement there was greater equality as both violin and cello were given more interesting material; the violin displaying a wonderful refinement and the cello too emerged clearly and vividly.

The rest of the programme comprised small pieces: two premieres – on this tour, if not on the night – and an odd piece by Arvo Pärt that toyed amusingly with the Adagio of Mozart’s piano sonata, K 280.

Both the pieces by Judy Bailey and Stuart Greenbaum, both resident in Australia, were quasi visual in inspiration, with some kind of ecological/political subtext. Though I am not convinced that music (unless accompanied by words) lends itself to polemical, or even visual or narrative material, it can succeed if your name is Berlioz or Strauss: success depends on the creative strength of the musical impulse and sheer genius.

So Many Rivers made pleasant noises, jazz or blues coloured, but left me with the impression of meandering improvisations rather than of music that emerged from any powerful musical inspiration.

The second piece, The Year without a Summer, by Stuart Greenbaum attempted a portrayal of the huge volcanic eruption in 1815 of Mount Tambora in Indonesia which dimmed the skies in the following year around the world (did it colour the outcome of the Congress of Vienna?). Though it too sounded often like the work of a gifted improviser, its meditative character suggested some musical inspiration.

Without attempting to relate its phases to the event and its effects, the music was better constructed than the Bailey piece, stood on its own feet without the need of its narrative, and revealed a composer of considerable sophistication even if, in the end, it did not seem to be a work of great depth.

On balance, I left with the feeling that there was not quite enough music of real consequence in this programme, though the players are among the most talented in the country and they play to audiences that generally seek weighty classics, as well as being prepared for substantial new music.

String Quartet in G minor, Op 74, No 3 ‘Rider’ (Haydn); Song of the Ch’in (Zhou Long); Piano Quintet in A minor, Op 84 (Elgar) 

New Zealand String Quartet and Diedre Irons (piano)

Memorial Hall, Waikanae

Sunday 11 April 2010

Waikanae’s chamber music concerts take place in a large hall which is equipped for indoor sports and so it has a high roof and is much longer and wider than needed for music other than on the scale of a symphony orchestra.

The size is mitigated somewhat by the players being in a recessed stage at one end; that helps focus the sound. The result nevertheless, is a sound that, while not unduly small, seems light and lacking in bass resonance.

This was the first in their splendid, nine-concert 2010 series.

The impact of the playing of Haydn’s ‘Rider’ quartet was discreet and perhaps unintentionally fastidious. The music’s minor key offers a somewhat sober gloss on the potentially boisterous character in the riding rhythms of first and last movements, and this acoustic refinement added further gentility.

My memory of the quartet’s earlier performances of this piece, which I recall as one of their early favourites, is of a much more robust approach, and of a piece that they interpreted with more abandon and gusto. At the end of the first movement I felt as if a promised adventure had been somewhat uneventful.

Similarly, the Largo assai seemed to skirt round any temptation to utter profound thoughts, though by its end I had become more impressed by the wonderful refinement of the playing, here absolutely in place.

The last movement revealed the players’ ready response to Haydn’s delight in little teasings and surprises, all delivered with the most disingenuous straight face.

Zhou Long is an important Chinese composer, based in the United States, now aged 56; his Song of the Ch’in is a most effective amalgam of Chinese music as played on the ancient seven-stringed instrument, heard through the filter of western contemporary conventions. The result, a remarkably subtle piece, could hardly have found more sympathetic players, at ease with the variety of pizzicato, trembling bow strokes and delicate glissandi, decorated with idiomatic ornaments. In several sections, in contrasting tempi and moods, and an interestingly cyclical shape, it reached a discreet climax before subsiding into its earlier meditative state.

The first half ended with the unadvertised addition of a droll duo by Beethoven called Duet With Two Obbligato Eyeglasses for viola and cello (WoO 32).  An example of the kind of satirical piece, popular at the time, that mocked clumsy composers who used stock phrases and clichés but were incapable of finding ways to develop or integrate their musical ideas in coherent forms. At least the players here, Gillian Ansell and Rolf Gjelsten, gave it a performance that exhibited all its mocking strengths and weaknesses convincingly.

The second half was devoted to Elgar’s Piano Quintet. Diedre Irons and the quartet approached it with an affection and sympathy that gave it a softness and charm that perhaps robbed it of a certain strength. Nevertheless, the first movement, with a couple of quite enchanting melodies, has a charm that is all its own and the players, in evident accord, made no attempt to dress them in anything other than the sweetest tones.

Though the programme note recorded a common view that the slow movement is its highlight, this performance didn’t convince me. There is melody, meandering and elegiac, but its ideal expression demands a very special balance between sentimentality and Brahmsian pensiveness, which I have heard captured; perhaps chamber musicians do not have a great deal of scope for the cultivation of that peculiar kind of English idiom.

I did not miss a scherzo movement, which is a convention that I often find surplus to the needs of a sonata composition.  For the Brahmsian (again) energy that drives the varied last movement serves a scherzo function excellently and it rekindled my attention to the rather unique loveliness of this quintet, and the regret that Elgar was not among the English composers of around the 1920s who cultivated chamber music more seriously.

Beethoven’s cello sonatas, Op 101; Elégie by Fauré; Cello Sonata by Rachmaninov.

Michael Houstoun (piano) and Ashley Brown (cello)

Memorial Hall, Paekakariki

Sunday 28 March  

The second in the 2010 series of Mulled Wine Concerts in one of Wellington’s unique concert spaces, found the sun pouring in the west-facing windows, the sea across the road and Kapiti Island beyond. There was hardly a spare seat.

That two of New Zealand’s finest musicians should be prepared to play in this modest community hall, is evidence of the reputation of the series and the commitment of a devoted audience.

There were no concessions to musical standards. Beethoven’s last two cello sonatas are not very familiar, but reward acquaintance. Though I know them quite well, I am always surprised by passages that I had not remembered, which had failed to take root, perhaps because of the apparently awkward shapes and somewhat dry character of some of the music, especially No 1, in C. They are not quite as immediately memorable or attractive as most of Beethoven’s music; but in the hands of two such committed and gifted musicians, even the most difficult music becomes engrossing. Op 101 was written in 1817, at the start of his last decade that saw the composition of the Choral Symphony, the Missa Solemnis, the last great piano sonatas and string quartets.

The first of the two is a fairly gritty, severe piece, consisting mainly of short phrases that don’t seem to evolve very much; in the Adagio introduction to the second movement the cello adopts a grainy, almost gruff tone while the piano countered with a lighter, decorative quality; the final Allegro vivace emerged as a movement of stark contrasts, with little overt lyricism.

In the second sonata, in D major, the cello relished its charming melodic theme in the optimistic first movement, and in a more sympathetic, lyrical middle movement the cello again enjoyed a real tune that Brown explored in his rich middle register, not concealing its mood of anxiety which the two musicians dispelled in a rhapsodic performance.

The second half consisted of the Rachmaninov sonata, and Fauré’s Élégie, which is a lot more than just the salon piece that its title might suggest. It is a small masterpiece, the clearest evidence, the disturbed rather un-Fauréish middle section that came out as an arresting and profound expression of loss.

Finally they played one of the few great, and much loved, cello sonatas of the 20th century: Rachmaninov’s, written just after his Second Piano Concerto; various episodes, particularly in the piano part, indeed recall details of the concerto.  For that reason, it is easy to hear it at times as a piano sonata with cello obbligato, but the cello is given some highly characteristic passages, for example, in the second movement with its rather unorthodox, low lying theme that swung from the ominous to the cheeky. Here, while the cello had a leading role, the piano’s decorative accompanying figures proved almost the more interesting to listen to.

The third movement was enriched by the cello’s deeply expressive melody and the piano’s later full-blooded work-out. Both players brought a muscular quality to their performance that drew attention to its structure, largely avoiding the temptation for romanticizing or sentimentality; what there was of that, was pretty disciplined. 

The concert maintained this congenial series’ impressive level of musical quality and commitment.

Paul Mitchell (cello) and Richard Mapp (piano)

Schumann: Fantasiestücke, Op.73
Ernest Bloch: From Jewish Life
Samuel Barber: Sonata for cello and piano, Op.6

St. Andrew’s on The Terrace

Thursday, 18 March, 12.15pm

I must admit to being rather tired of the Schumann work; it is played so often, particularly on violin or clarinet.  Because of this, it no longer feels like a fantasy.  However, the playing of these performers redeemed the work somewhat.  A lovely warm, yet ringing tone from the cellist, plus perfect balance and ensemble characterised their performance.

Because I was unable to be at the recital either for its opening or its closing, I interpolate here a paragraph from Peter Mechen:
In the Schumann I didn’t quite get the “perfect balance” impression from where I was sitting (closer to the piano, perhaps – and the Bloch and Barber pieces were far better – see below) – I recently heard a performance of the Schumann in its viola-and-piano transcription, which had the effect of “lifting” the music out of its somewhat sombre-coloured world – the piece is problematical for the ‘cello and piano combination, because there’s a tendency (as here) for the ‘cellist’s tones to be covered in the figurations, especially if the player (also, as here) in the interests of poetry plays with some reticence. The players captured nicely the “wind-blown” tones of the second piece, with plenty of detailed phrasing and dynamic shading – occasionally I thought the cellist’s intonation a shade uncomfortable at the upper-end of his register, something which was evident at moments throughout the finale as well. So, modified rapture from me for the first item – I was struck by the difference in Paul Mitchell’s whole approach to the Bloch work – suddenly the ‘cello was “singing out” like I didn’t find in the Schumann at the beginning of the programme.

Ernest Bloch’s work had both emotional content and eloquence, as the excellent programme notes said.  The music produced gorgeous sonorities from the players.  The Hebrew cadences and inflections gave a character that was most affecting; quite different from the drawing-room aesthetic of the Schumann pieces.

At times the music was reminiscent of Middle Eastern music; although Jewish, Bloch lived entirely in Europe and the United States.  In the final of the work’s three movements, ‘Jewish Song’, the cellist obtained an almost moaning sound from his instrument.

Equally interesting was the Barber sonata, written in 1932.  Barber eschewed the tonal system of Schoenberg and his disciples.  However, though written in a traditional tonal language, the sonata is in no way an imitation of earlier composers, any more than Richard Strauss’s music is.  For a work written by a 22-year-old, this was a mature and assured piece of writing indeed.

The sonata was full of delights, inventiveness and contrasts.

Here Peter Mechen continues:
I really enjoyed the Samuel Barber work – I loved the way the music grew from out of the depths at the beginning, and blossomed into great surgings of tone from both instruments – very involving and expressive! The first movement traverses a lot of ground, it seems, full-blooded episodes following moments of touching introspection, bringing forth playing from both musicians that was focused and assured, the movement gradually yielding its ghost up to a murmuring silence. The players brought off the adagio/presto-adagio middle movement with great elan, full-breathed lines at the beginning, quixotic and energetic in the middle section, then some wonderful “digging into” the opening mood’s return at the end. Richard Mapp brought off the appassionato piano-only opening of the last movement with great energy, the cellist replying in kind; an exchange whose involvement carried us through a somewhat fragmented, volatile structure, and engaged our interest strongly, tapping into the work’s youthful whole-heartedness, and making it work. Generously, Paul Mitchell and Richard Mapp gave us a transcription of a Barber song as an encore, “Sure on this Shining Night”, its meditative loveliness bringing the concert to a satisfying close.

Rosemary Collier’s final words:
Mapp was an exemplary partner to the cellist: always ‘on the ball’ and subtly balancing the dynamics and interpretation of Paul Mitchell.

It was great to hear a solo cello.  How seldom we hear this sort of music live!   In a past era, the old Broadcasting Corporation’s Concert Section used to promote recitals by visiting soloists who were here to perform with the symphony orchestra.  One might hope for more such sonatas to be included in programmes presented by quartets, trios etc. touring for Chamber Music New Zealand, or performing for the Wellington Chamber Music Society.