Tag: chamber music

3 2 Tango and Friends – pleasures of the dance

Posted on by Peter Mechen

Music by Astor Piazzolla and Peter Ludwig

LUDWIG : Tango Triste / Casar der Hund / E / Tango Nuevo / A.G.Mius

PIAZZOLLA : Oblivion / La muerte del angel / Seasons of Buenos Aires / Sprng and Winter / Le Grande Tango   Libertango

Catherine McKay (piano)

Slava Fainitski (violin)

Brenton Veitch (‘cello)

Matt Collie (percussion)

Rebekah Greig (accordion)

St.Andrew’s-on-the-Terrace March Series of Concerts

Wednesday 17th March, 12.15pm

For this concert, the group 3 2 Tango became four, and then five, firstly with percussionist Matt Collie joining the group, and a little later, accordion player Rebekah Greig. And, as if the pleasures of those tango rhythms and tones alone weren’t sufficient, we in the audience were able to luxuriate in the tango dancing of a couple who were introduced as “Sharon and Stephen”. What was more, we were invited by concert organiser Richard Greager to join in with the dancing if the spirit moved us so; but I suspect the presence of two fairly confident and polished dancers made it difficult for anybody else to feel they had something as good to put on display – and so only one other person, a woman, dancing solo, took up the invitation to the floor to join in, almost at the very end. For myself, I can report that my enjoyment of both music and dancing was sufficiently palpable for me to feel as though I’d been treated to a real-live tango experience, without ever leaving my seat!

Although the concert was described in the blurb as one “focusing on the legendary Tango composer Astor Piazzolla”, much of the first half featured the music of Peter Ludwig, a modern exponent of the tango both as composer and performer, the pianist in a duo called Tango Mortale, with ‘cellist Anja Lechner. The five tangos of his which 3 2 Tango presented during this concert were interesting and varied pieces, the composer preserving the traditional “fixed rhythm” of the dance while avoiding what a European reviewer called “the gloomy, depressive and low-spirited tangos which come from Argentina” – doubtless a sideswipe at the great Piazzolla and his imitators, here! For myself, I thought Ludwig’s music on the present showing itself lacked nothing in sultry expressiveness, though perhaps not as consistently dark-browed as Piazzolla’s, having more of an “emotion recollected in tranquility” feel to it. But, untrained though my ear might be in such things, I detected no marked “lurch into the mire of humanity” when, during the concert, Piazzolla’s music became the focus of our attention.

The concert began with Peter Ludwig’s Tango Triste – piano and violin evoking cool ambient spaces at the very start, into which Brenton Veitch’s ‘cello poured the most sonorous of tones, a lovely beginning.  Slava Fainitski’s violin and Catherine McKay’s piano dug into the rhythms, adding snap and volatility, with some percussive help from Matt Collie – the mood swung readily throughout from full-blooded and heartfelt physical address to sombre and sultry withdrawal, with lovely string slides adding to the ambivalence of the atmosphere. The dancers joined in with the next tango, Casar der Hund, their movements quite “tight” and controlled, very “together” and with little open space explored in the way that I imagined tango dancers did (of course, I’m conscious of showing my limited knowledge of things, here!)……

The next tango, enigmatically called E, ran a volatile course, with frequent changes of metre and lots of rubato – a lovely ‘cello solo once again, some “gypsy-sounding” violin-work, and then skyrocketting glissandi from the piano all built towards a spectacular flourish at the end. Again, with Tango Nuevo, feelings both ran deeply and coruscated the surface of things throughout, the agitated rhythms digging fiercely in, suggesting darker passions and emotions suited to a nightscape, whose uneasy calm was evoked by violin tremolandi, ‘cello pizzicati and piano murmurings, before irrupting once again and concluding with a spectacular downward slide – great stuff! And A.G.Mius (another enigmatic title) brought out a headlong helter-skelter dash from the trio, strings bouncing the bows rhythmically as the piano called the tune, the players generating terrific momentum throughout, the music suggesting more than a touch of Magyar gypsy to me in places, and none the worse for that.

Piazzolla’s music made its first appearance on the programme with Oblivion, the group being joined by accordion-player Rebekah Greig. Despite a short pause for some player re-alignment as a result of music being mislaid,  not a beat was missed after the restart, the music redolent with suspense and tension, and the accordion adding both colour and “edge” to the sound – the dancers moved haltingly and asymmetrically to this one, their steps seeming almost improvisatory, as did the music. La muerte del angel was much the same in effect, the piece building tensions by intensifying rhythms and crescendi. Almost thankfully, Seasons of Buenos Aires I found rather more discursive and easeful, though still atmospheric and descriptive; as was Spring and Winter, whose deep, sonorous and languid opening rhythms metamorphosed into something resembling Red Indians on the warpath before returning to a more piquant note to finish. Perhaps the most well-known of Piazzolla’s pieces, Le Grand Tango, written for and premiered by Mstislav Rostropovich in the 1980s, delighted us with its full-on explorations of instrumental colour and gesture, the players revelling in the composer’s demands, and flexing their imaginations in the music’s different directions. After this, the final Libertango seemed comparatively straightforward, definitely one to dance to, though including our single free-spirited audience member, it remained a dancing menage a trios, the rest of us content with paying tribute to all of the performers at the end for a wonderful and spirited lunchtime’s music-making.

St Andrew’s: a Tuesday of New Zealand music

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

St Andrew’s on The Terrace concert series

Tuesday 16 March 2010, concerts at midday and early evening

Lunchtime: New Zealand Music for Woodwind. Music by Anthony Ritchie, Pieta Hextall, Jack Spiers, Gillian Whitehead, Ben Hoadley and David Farquhar

This proved to be a wholly New Zealand day. At lunchtime, a group of mainly contemporary pieces for solo winds or groups and in the 6.30 slot, three string quartets by New Zealand’s first real composer, Alfred Hill.

The lunchtime concert comprised mostly solo pieces for flute, clarinet and bassoon, with only two for several players. Luca Manghi was the busiest player with solo pieces by Anthony Ritchie and Ben Hoadley. Hoadley was also the bassoon player and he founded the group; he teaches at both the Auckland University and the New Zealand schools of music.

Ritchie’s piece, Tui, was typical of much of his music: descriptive, arising from the natural world. The music began to sound from somewhere behind us, probably in the choir gallery, simulating the bird, with staccato notes soon coalescing into broad melodic patterns. The tui gives a composer permission to use almost any sound that the instrument can produce, such is its versatility and imitative powers, allowing the bending of the pitch of the notes occasionally.

Ben Hoadley’s piece was called ‘…after a while only the green of the grass is left’, the last line of a poem that his grandmother wrote, about sparrows. Again the flute plays  bird role, starting with fluttering, then subsiding to into a diatonic melody, a peaceful sequence, livened briefly with fast arpeggios. Again, a virtuosic performance from this Italian who lives in Auckland and freelances between the New Zealand Symphony, Auckland Philharmonia and Christchurch Symphony orchestras. 

The second piece on the programme was 7.0, no clue to the meaning, apart from being a response to the Haïti earthquake – it certainly wasn’t the Richter reading. Composer Pieta Hextall is Wellington-based, playing in several groups including Improv Noise Band, and the RNZAF Band. She studies at the New Zealand School of Music and you might find her helpful in Parson’s Books and CDs.

7.0 is for flute, clarinet (Anna McGregor) and bassoon, starting very quietly with clarinet, then flute and then the bassoon in its highest register; all played in unison or at the octave, briefly; sombre and evolving to coherent harmonies with careful dissonances. The first section ended after intense screaming from the flute. The second section contained more panicky sounds and the last section returned to calm, broken by though lamenting bass notes.

Jack Spiers – late professor of music at Otago University – wrote a piece for solo bassoon in five short movements, as a birthday gift for a friend. Her name, Sheila, provides the material for the Prelude, said the programme note  (I didn’t work it out). It’s a positive, sanguine piece that entices the listener with a sense of discovery; Hoadley was an excellent advocate and bearer of gifts.

The piece for solo clarinet was by Gillian Whitehead: Mata-au, the Maori name for the Clutha River which her Alexandra house overlooks during her Henderson Arts Trust residence. It uses the sounds of Maori flutes such as the koauau and Anne McGregor succeeded brilliantly in simulating these beguiling sounds that were inspired by the movement of the river, its whirlpools and currents.

Finally, a most attractive find in the SOUNZ (Centre for New Zealand Music) archives: a wind quartet by David Farquhar, written as a student in London. His note, giving it to SOUNZ, referred to its character, modeled on Bartok’s Sixth Quartet, and commented on the dismissive remarks by his London teacher, Benjamin Frankel. It was clearly the victim of the anti-tonal, anti-audience Gestapo that emerged after WWII and blighted the careers of so many composers.

A series of six movements, a slow introduction to each of three fast movements, there was thematic interest, and plenty of resourceful manipulation of the material throughout. The players, the oboe, clarinet and bassoon previously heard plus second clarinet Tui Clark, gave it a splendid, convincing and affectionate performance, exploring all its virtues and finding no vices of any consequence.

The work was not an ‘exploration’ of some bizarre playing technique or an intellectual concept, or even of a landscape or animal or human being. The music, with no props or narratives, such as Mozart and Brahms were content with, was plenty interesting and enjoyable.

Tuesday evening: Three string quartets by Alfred Hill (Nos 8, 10 and 11) played by the Dominion String Quartet – Yuri Gezentsvey, Rosemary Harris, Donald Maurice, David Chickering

Donald Maurice opened the concert with a short account of Hill’s life and the project to record all 17 string quartets, some of which may have never even been played. All three were written after his retirement in 1934 as Professor of Composition at the Sydney Conservatorium. Only one of the three has been recorded – No 11, and it did emerge as the most interesting and imaginative.

It might be cynical to say that his talk was the most interesting part of the concert, and I wouldn’t do so. It was indeed interesting and by no means misjudged in reflecting Donald Maurice’s enthusiasm for bringing these works to performance in excellent recordings; I did find parts of the quartets less than engrossing.

In each case, the opening phrases of movements portended a work of more substance than in fact emerged as the music developed. Yet there was always the feel of a composer of great accomplishment at work, with a ready source of melody, even if not particularly striking. The Dominion Quartet gave them each well-planned and -considered performances, taking pains over dynamics and investing the music with a rhythmic ebb and flow, attempting to make the development of the ideas as interesting as possible, even when one felt that what was to happen next was ever so predictable.

There were bluesy sounds in No 8, that gave them, not so much a jazz air, but the feel of the palm court. The second movement, an Intermezzo, actually maintained its short life with the feel of a journey commencing, purposeful and filled with anticipation. The later movements were English romantic rather than impressionist in the Debussy sense.

No 10, again, began propitiously and there was a serious cello passage, but the spirit fell away with the appearance of the first phrase of Gershwin’s ‘I got rhythm’; it seemed to prejudice the chance of the recovery of any sort of first-movement solidity. The Scherzo third movement however was rhythmically effective, had a more distinctive character,.

It was No 11 that impressed me most. The harmony was more dense and less given to cliché; there were sequences that, while not particularly original, evolved interestingly. Bluesy strains reappeared but they did not sentimentalise the piece as they had done earlier, and were not so predictable in their handling.

The Allegretto last movement was light in spirit, inhabited by catchy groups of staccato semi-quavers and ideas that were developed more naturally, less predictably than in the other two quartets,

It was an interesting exposure to a significant composer, indeed significant in New Zealand music, both for the large body of music he left and for his serious interest in Maori music, though not in a way that might meet the demands of a later generation of musicologists or ethnologists, who tend to judge not by the standards of the relevant age, but by their own: a serious failing in most spheres of scholarship. 

Three CDs of Hill’s quartets have now appeared on Naxos and the rest of the 17, including those we heard, are in preparation.

Cornucopia in big ensembles at St Andrew’s

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Cornucopia:

Ed Allen (1,3), Heather Thompson (1,3) horns
Rachel Vernon (3) clarinet
Lyndon Taylor (1,2,3), Ursula Evans (1,2) violins
Brian Shillito (1,2,3), Belinda Prentice (3), violas
Sally Pollard (1,2,3), cello
Vicky Jones (3), double bass

1  Beethoven: Sextet in E flat, Op 81b
2  Schubert: Quartettsatz in C minor, D.703
3  Louis Spohr: Octet in E flat, Op 32

St Andrew’s on The Terrace

Monday 15 March 2010 12.15pm

Can you cope with all these horns? the name of the group seems to ask.  Yes, when they are played as expertly as Ed Allen and Heather Thompson play them.

The Beethoven sextet proved to be enchanting music, and being an early work, was rather unlike what we think of when we hear the composer’s name.  The playing was very expert, as one would expect from NZSO musicians.  There was warm tone from the strings; Lyndon Taylor, who led the group, impressed particularly as a very accomplished violinist.

Four of the string players gave a lively yet sensitive performance of Schubert’s lovely one-movement string quartet.  This was a gorgeous sound, with every nuance in place.

Spohr’s Octet is a work full of character, with delightful solos as well as superb tuttis.  The first movement featured a charming clarinet solo, notably vibrant violin and viola tone, and the support of Vicky Jones’s five-stringed bass.

The third movement consists of variations based on Handel-known Harmonious Blacksmith theme.  After a very smooth, slow introduction of the the theme, the variations follow, with very different treatment from that accorded by Handel in his E major harpsichord suite.

The horns never overwhelmed the other instruments, but indeed sounded to their best advantage in the acoustic of the church.

The allegretto finale of this work was a jolly affair, showing off each of the instruments.

The concert was a very satisfying experience; one hopes to hear more of this ensemble.

St Andrew’s series features splendid Aroha Quartet

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

String Quartets by Haydn (in F, Op 77 No 2); Shostakovich (No 7 in F sharp, Op 108); Szymanowksi (No 2, Op 56); and Moon, Tides and Shoreline (Gillian Whitehead)

Aroha Quartet: Haihong Liu and Beiyi Xue (violins), Zhongxian Jin (viola), Robert Ibell (cello)

St Andrew’s on The Terrace 

Saturday 13 March 2010

Wellington is particularly well endowed with excellent string quartets; this one, consisting of permanent or occasional NZSO players and now in its sixth year, has achieved a polish and energy that deserves to be given full attention by Wellington’s musical community. Why so few there?

The last concert I heard from them, last September, also included quartets by Haydn (a different one) and Szymanowski (the same one). I was pleased to hear the latter again and another hearing increases my admiration for this enigmatic composer whose music I have pursued for many years, though I must say its somber character and the absence of memorable themes tend to prevent its taking root in my head.

It may not gain its strength through melodic richness, just as Bartok’s music, for example, does not, but in the avoidance of conventional sonorities Szymanowski goes even further than Bartok without actually rejecting tonality outright. He too uses, rather obliquely, folk tunes, this time from southern Poland – the Tatra Mountain region. In addition, there is a hypnotic feel that might be ascribed to the composer’s deep interest in Middle Eastern philosophy and spiritualism.

All this mystical, evanescent quality was brilliantly caught by the Aroha Quartet: the shimmering, muted sounds in the opening Moderato, that undulate with strange intensity. All the energy and passion is in the second movement, Vivace – scherzando, where a sort of tune emerges on the viola, alternating with pizzicato passages and bursts of high energy. The players were deeply impressive in their command of all the techniques demanded, and in their grasp of the musical and extra-musical elements that invest it.

The other fairly difficult piece was Gillian Whitehead’s Moon, Tides and Shoreline, dating from 1989.

There were interesting similarities in the sound worlds evoked by Szymanowski and Whitehead, with their combining strong spiritual as well as landscape elements.

Though the idiom Whitehead employs is not serial or particularly atonal, it is complex, not rich in recognizable melody, and not readily grasped or, I have to say, enjoyed at once. One hesitates to use a word like ‘jagged’ as it’s too often used as a gentle synonym for ugly or wildly dissonant. Such was far from the composer’s intention or, indeed, could credibly have been inspired by the Paekakariki shore, sky and seascape. Yet strangely, no visual images were conjured in my mind, though there was a variety of sounds that suggested the sea, ranging from violence to calm, and it was such a shimmering phase that drew the piece to a close; a performance that undoubtedly delved deeply into its spiritual world and had full command of the considerable technical demands.

The first work in the programme was Haydn’s last completed string quartet, Op 77 No 2. It’s not a much played piece, though that can’t be on account of any lack of melody. Its melody is not as beguiling as in his most popular works, but there is considerable rhythmic strength, vigorous dotted rhythms in the first movement and, in the second movement, a motif that recalls the famous theme in the Rider Quartet. There is a sudden, surprising modulation to the trio section and it ends in typical Haydn fashion, on the mediant. The players seemed to rejoice in the humour.

The second half of the concert began with a ‘different’ Shostakovich quartet: No 7. It’s fairly short, though in four movements, and of course not as dramatic or memorable as No 8, but any group is to be applauded for allowing us to hear something else. This one, written in 1960, was dedicated to the memory of his wife Nina who had died in 1954. It was here that I specially noticed individual players: the beautiful expressiveness of the second violin in the Lento and the strange, hollow tone of the viola as it lead the way into the frenzy of the third, Allegro, movement; and the cello which entered with its own version of the first theme of the first movement. They were unified by their common energy and discipline, and a singular understanding of Shostakovich’s music.  

It is about time we heard the entire cycle of Shostakovich quartets. What about a mini-festival? I heard them all at the Verbier Festival a couple of years ago, in a series of late night concerts, 11pm, in a tiny church where there were struggles for entry.  

 

 

Lunch with Nikau Trio at St Andrew’s

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Trio Sonata in C minor (Quantz); Petit Concert (Edwin Carr), Assobio a Jato (Villa Lobos); ‘London’ trio No 1 in C (Haydn); Trio (Graham Powning)

The Nikau Trio: Karen Batten (flute), Madeline Sakofsky (oboe), Margaret Goldberg (cello)

St Andrew’s on The Terrace 

Friday 10 March 2010

A series such as this of essentially small-scale music (i.e. chamber music) can afford to deviate from the more narrow field of chamber music – mainly the string quartet and the piano trio, with woodwind add-ons – that the main promoters of chamber music feel obliged to pursue.

So far there’s been concerts by:

            a quartet playing Klezmer (Yiddish) music,

            a jazz piano trio,

            a piano quartet,

            a piano solo,

            a jazz guitar quartet,

            an octet of strings and winds,

            the SMP Ensemble playing 20th century music from New Zealand and elsewhere involving piano and other keyboards, string quartet and double bass, flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, trumpet, horn, percussion, plus a small vocal ensemble.

 

Still to come, through the weekend and the coming week:

            an early music of soprano Pepe Becker and ensemble (Friday evening),

            another string quartet

            a solo violin – Martin Riseley playing all 24 Paganini Caprices,

            another octet mixing stings and winds,

            a woodwind quartet,

            a string trio playing tangos,

            a clarinet quintet playing both the Mozart and Brahms quintets,

            Greg Squires’s early music group, Scaramuccia,

            two singers in a Mahler song cycle with piano,

            and a tenor singing a mixture of Vivaldi arias and art songs.

Friday’s concert may have been an unexpected delight for, while this lightish instrumental combination might have suggested small charming pieces, there was more to it than that.

It certainly opened with a predictably slight piece by the brilliant flutist, J J Quantz, who worked in the court of Frederick the Great, but it was played without the touch of daring or insouciance that can transform such music. Quantz wrote hundreds of flute sonatas, solo flute sonatas, trio sonatas and flute and other concertos: his music is agreeable. The opening Andante moderato lacked much spark, the following Allegro was more lively, with clean playing; the Larghetto, meditative but sober and the final Vivace was the expected quick piece: all played with excellent ensemble and attention to detail.

Edwin Carr’s Petit Concert (Concert, in French, means simply ‘concerto’, not necessarily featuring a solo instrument), was French in tone and demonstrated an affinity for the devices and patterns that French composers through the early 20th century cultivated. I enjoyed it; there was pleasing three-part harmony, an echoing of 18th century style by the solo cello in the second movement; each instrument carried its own distinct tune in the little Menuet, in skilled counterpoint, and finally a ‘Tarantelle’, with a gigue rather than a tarantella rhythm.

The Villa Lobos piece, Assobio a Jato, meaning ‘The Jet Whistle’ – for the composer likened the sound obtained to the scream of a jet aeroplane – for flute and cello, consisted of three very different movements, not too obviously Brazilian, the last including the whistle which Karen Battle carried off skilfully. On a website there’s a comment by the American composer, Persichetti, that the piece falls in the category of an artisan rather than an artist’s work. That may be, but it’s short and inoffensive.

Next, the Haydn Trio, written during the second of his prolonged visits to London in 1794/95, was rather more substantial than the Quantz of around a half century earlier. The two wind instruments had most of the fun while the cello part was little more than a basso continuo. But the players invested it all with considerable charm.

The most delightful piece in the programme was a Trio by Australian flutist Graham Prowning, revealed as a composer of real accomplishment, and musical imagination. Each movement had distinct individuality, handled tunes that seemed to spring from a real musical inspiration rather than effortful and forgettable. Most infections was the waltz which, while making flippant allusions to the great waltz composers, went its own way in rhythm and melody, evolving surreptitiously into the March finale.

It served to bring the concert to a particularly happy end, for the few dozen who were there.

 

Octets from Amici Ensemble at St Andrew’s

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Amici Ensemble: Donald Armstrong, Andrew Thomson, Lyndsay Mountfort, Robert Ibell, Hiroshi Ikematsu, Gregory Hill, Philip Green, Robert Weeks.

Jean Françaix: Octet “A Huit” (1972)
Anthony Ritchie: Octet, Opus 129 “Octopus”
Schubert: Octet in F major, D.803

St. Andrew’s on The Terrace, Thursday, 11 March, 6.30pm

To hear ensembles of more than four players is unusual, and when an octet plays a delightful programme such as this, it justifies an audience larger than that which attended.  In the peaceful and acoustically excellent setting of St. Andrew’s on The Terrace, it is a great pity that more people have not so far availed themselves of the opportunity of hearing such wonderful music. 
However, one person told me that the brocuhre describing the concerts came out so much later than the Arts Festival programme that she was already fully committed to as many concerts as she could manage.

It is also a shame that the early evening concerts were not all timed to fit in with events starting at 8pm in the Festival that patrons might be attending.

The first item, verbally introduced, as were the others, by Donald Armstrong, was a wonderful piece of writing, with strong parts for woodwind.  These NZSO players are nearly all principals of their sections.  It showed in their assurance, impeccable playing and ensemble.

After the quirky opening Moderato, the Octet’s Scherzo was lively; it was followed by an effective Andante, featuring a muted opening section for strings only.  The Mouvement de Valse began in most un-waltz-like fashion.  The comic waltz that followed sounded as though it was written for an elephant and a humming-bird.  Light-hearted, witty and rhythmic, it was played with panache and skill.  Were we being treated to a palm court orchestra in Galeries Lafayette, or Samaritaine?

The first movement, ‘Octopus’, of Anthony Ritchie’s quartet was certainly descriptive of the creature, its tentacles incessantly moving through the water.  In the second movement, ‘Sacrifice’, it seemed that we could hear the little octopuses (octopii?) crying, while in the ‘Survival of the Small’ the final violin motif perhaps signified the plantive survivor of the little octopuses.

This was imaginative writing, at times complex.  The playing included some of the best tones I’ve ever heard from a bassoon.

The woodwinds carried on their prowess in the Schubert octet.   In the first movement, sunny, bouncy and cheerful woodwind solos interrupted the strong string passages.

The andante second movement featured a beautiful clarinet solo, which gave way to the first violin’s mellow lower strings sometimes the upper strings were somewhat strident), and a return to the clarinet.

At that point I had to leave but Lindis Taylor, who was there, offered the following comments on the rest of the performance.

The ensemble’s vitality created an energetic Scherzo which contrasted strikingly with the slower pace of the Trio’s middle section. An octet that blends strings and winds provides such variety and clarity of sounds giving every player a share of the limelight and throughout the Scherzo, the clarinet of Philip Green was distinctive, giving special edge to the spirited, tripping rhythm.

The fourth movement, Andante, was taken quite quickly, but after a moment it seemed a perfectly natural pace. It’s a variations movement based on a tune from one of his operas, Die Freunde von Salamanca, in which several instruments take their turn in the lead. Greg Hill’s horn, an important contributor throughout, led in the third variation, mostly warm and polished though with occasional proof that ‘perfection’ and ‘horn’ is an oxymoron. And the playing of cellist Robert Ibell, supported vividly from below by Hiroshi Ikematsu on the bass, was particularly elegant.

In the Menuetto, the fifth movement, clarinet and bassoon had an entertaining alternating passage, in passages alternating between major and minor keys.
Then came the most magical opening, Andante molto, of the last movement. I have never heard it played with such tremulous apprehension, a premonition of the unknown, with cello tremolo and studied placing of wind chords: a splendid introduction to the spirited, remarkably optimistic Allegro which is a brilliant section that keeps producing new ideas and fresh angles on old ones, ending in a thrilling climax.

One of the virtues of the performance was the omission of several repeats; Schubert’s repeats are sometimes troublesome; they disrupt that tumbling flow of inspiration. Without them we are left simply to marvel at Schubert’s endless inventiveness.  Anyway, three-quarters of an hour is long enough for most compositions.

SMP Ensemble: Nexus – Poles Apart

Posted on by Peter Mechen

SMP Ensemble

Music by Jack Body, Anton Killin, Simon Eastwood, Karlo Margetic,

Jan.W.Morthenson, Charles Ives, John Adams, Francis Poulenc,

Henryk Gorecki, Richard Robertshawe, Andrzej Nowicki, Carol Shortis

The SMP Ensemble

St.Andrew’s-on-the-Terrace Season of Concerts March 2010

Wednesday 10th March

The SMP Ensemble was formed in 2008, and set up as a forum for the work of Wellington-based composers and performers. Over a short period it has, under the direction of Andrzej Nowicki,  already developed a reputation as a fresh and stimulating force in the capital’s contemporary music activity, organising and performing a number of concerts. Its most recent was a presentation at one of the St.Andrew’s March 2010 concerts, set up to run parallel to the NZ International Arts Festival music offerings.

One of the concert’s themes was a Polish connection, hence the “Poles Apart” reference in the concert’s title. A number of the works drew inspiration from Polish writing, history or political events, among them a work by local composer Carol Shortis commemorating the arrival, sixty-five years ago, of a group of Polish refugee children in New Zealand, many of whom still live in this country. Other works by Simon Eastwood and Karlo Margetic took as their starting-points events or artistic achievements whose source was Poland. As it turned out, the concert presented a tantalising mix of home-grown and off-shore music whose sources of inspiration seemed to demonstrate the “music in the air” maxim.

Jack Body’s “Turtle Time” sets a text by Russell Haley, here spiritedly spoken and enacted by Karlo Margetic, his powerful expression of the words and use of the physical spaces heightening the piece’s theatrical qualities. The ensemble produced some lovely sounds which variously chatter, babble, scintillate and clatter, the sound-picture flipping between ambient and pointillistic, sometimes running with, sometimes countering the words of the poem. These constantly-changing colours and patterns of the soundscape were a source of continual delight, apart from the organ’s swell-pedal which I found too crudely applied and rather irritating.  Given that Karlo Margetic used his voice and the stage so well, I wondered whether the musicians and their instruments could have been placed more outrageously antiphonally, emphasising both the fragmentary nature of the realisation and the efforts made by the ensemble itself to bring their individual sounds more in accord with one another. Interestingly, the voice wasn’t microphoned or otherwise enhanced in any way, as it is on the work’s only recording that I know of, made for Kiwi Records in the 1970s – for me the piece worked just as well in the “real” physical space of St.Andrew’s, the sounds exchanging the claustrophobia of the recording’s close-microphoning for a freer, more theatrical interaction. At the piece’s end, the escape by the “voice” from the turtles’ predatory time-snapping, past wave upon kaleidoscopic wave of obsessive instrumental obstruction, had a satisfying, almost ritualistic feel to it in concert. Abstractionists might object, but my feeling regarding a piece such as this, with so many overtly theatrical elements already present, is that the work’s innate capacity for suggesting interactions in visual terms cries out to be exploited further.

Anton Killi’s electroacoustic piece A Priori resembled for me a message in human speech deprived of its consonants, nostalgically accompanied by feed-back-like squeaks, whines and ambient “radio noise” interference, suggesting to my ears memories of the golden age of radio. Along with these half-words underpinned with white-noise resonances came Ligeti-like vocalisings, impulses of communication either dragging themselves from the pupa or distending their resonances into lengthy, ritualistic sequences of mesmeric mystery.  Less equivocal was Simon Eastwood’s “Jericho – Walls Will Fall”, one of several works in the concert with a Polish connection, in this case the music inspired by a protest song from the 1980s Polish Solidarity Movement, describing how walls will fall if people have the will to knock them down. Written for a Brass Trio, featuring trombone, horn and trumpet, the work constantly delights with its inventive explorations over four brief movements. The first sounds plenty of warning warring notes, each instrument in turn allowed to take the lead with its own patternings. Then, Alex Morton’s horn and Mark Davey’s trombone mute their tones and become nature-drones, leaving Dave Kempton’s trumpet to play its own flourishes, before joining with the others in further melodic and rhythmic combinations. A toccata-like piece follows, trumpet and horn stuttering while the trombone swaggers and struts its stuff. By this time the walls seem to have capitulated and fallen, because the fourth-movement brass cantilena is valedictory in tone, though more insistent at the point where things abruptly cease, the fight having been won.

Karlo Margetic’s “Hommage a W.L.” is a tribute to the Polish composer Witold Lutoslawski, the gesture itself an interesting idea, giving rise to the question regarding which composer’s work should take the credit for whatever success the ensuing piece earns for itself or is accorded. Quoting Lutoslawski’s idea of using aleatoric compositional techniques in a free and spontaneous way, Margetic characterises the older composer’s avoidance of rigour and dry complexity as “a wonderful act of subversion against the dogmatic avant-garde”. The piece (for mixed ensemble) begins with a woodblock-like roll (repeated at certain “get ready” transition-points throughout the work), and a “Bluebeard’s Door” chord immediately following, whose sustained resonances beautifully build the musical argument through melismatic strings-and-wind repetitions towards magically transformed stratospheric explorations of similar material. A string quartet “jams it” along with tattoo-like percussion rhythms, screwing up the tension until the breaking tides wash up and leave aeolian harp-like figurations teetering backwards and forwards, the strings and winds returning to tighten and screw things up again, to the point of near-frenzy. After still more irruptions the energies and tensions slowly dissipate and unravel, brass and piano contributing to a somewhat crepuscular feeling, which the composer promptly and somewhat unexpectedly banishes with an abrupt forte and a pulsating woodblock having the final word. I thought this was a great work, deserving of future notice.

I liked also Jan W. Morthenson’s Unisono, for bassoon, piano and electronics, a piece in which two instruments play with the idea of working in unison, but experience all kinds of tensions while trying to do so. Kylie Nesbit’s bassoon was amplified after her opening acoustic gambit in tandem with Jonathan Berkahn’s piano harmonies, Richard Robertshawe contriving all kinds of timbral modifications to the former, creating almost surreal effects, especially during the ensuing game of chase with the piano, both instruments occasionally pushed to their physical extremities for single notes or chords, and each trying to outdo the other in constructing edifices of sound. Even more of a “cosmic landscape” was attempted by Charles Ives’ 1906 piece “The Unanswered Question”, a work not published for over thirty years after its creation. Ives writes beautifully for the strings at the beginning, the chords slowly oscillating and changing colours before the trumpet enters (here placed at the back of the church, as were wind and brass ensembles), interacting with the antiphonal forces with a view to solving certain of life’s mysteries, but being little the wiser at the end of it all.

After the interval came John Adams’ rumbustious (and, I thought, rather gruff!) tribute to John Phillip Sousa, one which didn’t really do much for me, apart from evoking marching feet and a sense of cumulative excitement. Far more to my taste was the wonderful Sonata for Bassoon and Clarinet by Francis Poulenc, played here at a crackling pace by Kylie Nesbit and Andrzej Nowicki, with sheer momentum and nimble articulation the order of the day right up to the last few drolleries being lightly tossed off. A nicely-judged slow movement, with each instrument a perfect foil for the other, was followed by a finale whose romp of exchange would have melted all but the hardest of hearts. Songful clarinet and droll bassoon momentarily resembled Don Quixote and Sancho Panza setting off home to recover from the latest set of exploits, while the circus clowns returned to flop-start the exchanges for the stop-start concluding statements of the work. A more telling contrast than the Piano Sonata by Henryk Gorecki (he of “Symphony of Sorrowful Songs” fame) couldn’t be imagined. Its ferocity and teeth-in-the-bone tenacity owed much to Bartok, with similar drive and folk-like primitives and repetitions. The brief but exceedingly lovely slow movement provided but a respite for the sensibilities before the finale burst into the ambient spaces, drove through contrasting episodes, then teased us all somewhat with whimsical juxtapositionings of energy and reflectiveness towards the end, before finally delivering a brutal-sounding payoff to finish. Great playing throughout by Sam Jury.

This concert had promised both substance and variety, which by this time had been achieved handsomely on both counts, though there was still more to come. Andrzej Nowicki’s whimsically-titled Concertino 5b was light relief after the Gorecki work, featuring two musicians dressed in pyjamas, one with an amplified clarinet and the other working the electronics.

It was an entertaining piece of music-theatre, with the energetic clarinettist gradually running quite seriously out of steam, and going to sleep, making in the process some suitably drowsy sounds. Synthesised resonances of what the clarinet had commented on and shared before added a kind of coda to the remnants of the performance.

Finally, another work with Polish resonances was performed, a short cantata-like piece by Carol Shortis whose music was inspired and based on both a Polish folk-song “Polskie Kwiaty” and a13th-century hymn Bogurodzica, and was written to commemorate the 65th anniversary of the arrival in New Zealand of Polish refugee children in 1944. Most of these children had been separated from or lost their parents and other family members. Carol Sortis wrote “Tesknota” (Yearning”) as a response to the story told by one of these refugees, using the traditional melodies of folk-song and hymn to evoke “Old Poland” before the Russian and German invasions of 1939.

Beginning darkly on a double bass, then a ‘cello, and climbing into the higher strings the music sweetly and lyrically bloomed as the choir entered, with the words “Spiewa Ci obcy wiatr” (A foreign wind sings to you) to the accompaniment of wind noises made by additional voices. Counter-tenor Laurie Fleming rejoined with “A serce teskni…” (But the heart yearns….”), the voice truthful and clear, if not ideally strong in the lower register, so that he’s somewhat masked by the other voices at times. Stronger and brighter was soprano Olga Gryniewicz with her “Stokrotki, fiolki, kaczence i maki” (Daisies, violets, buttercups and poppies), the voice pure, radiant and beautiful, the high note at the start pure and sweet with little hint of strain. From here, strings and piano radiantly sing an almost Martinu-like accompaniment, the counter-tenor and soprano voices rising briefly for the last time out of the instrumental and vocal ambiences which go on to conclude the work. Heartfelt and extremely moving.

Festiva Piano Quartet playing for keeps at St.Andrew’s

Posted on by Peter Mechen

St.Andrew’s-on-the-Terrace Season of Concerts 2010

MOZART : Piano Quartet in G Minor K.478

MAHLER – Piano Quartet in A Minor

BRAHMS – Piano Quartet No.3 in C Minor Op.60

Festiva Piano Quartet: Cristina Vaszilcsin (violin), Peter Garrity (viola),

Robert Ibell (‘cello), Catherine McKay (piano)

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

Tuesday 9th March

I can think of no higher praise for the playing of this group throughout the present concert than expressing the wish to hear them tackle, one day, (with the help of another violinist) a favourite work of mine, the Cesar Franck Piano Quintet. That’s not to say that I don’t want to hear them in other repertoire as well – in fact, one of the features of this concert was how completely and unselfconsciously the musicians found the style and voice of each composer’s music throughout the evening. To the Mozart work they brought strong, well-focused contrasts – dark and sunshine, tension and gaiety – knowing just when to “grip’ the music and when to relax. The relatively unfamiliar Mahler Quartet Movement was given concentrated and committed advocacy, with singing lines and deeply-dug intensities from all concerned, while the Brahms work added to the playing tensile strength and intellectual vigour, realising the music’s remarkable synthesis of romantic feeling and iron-wrought discipline.

I mention the Franck Quintet, because I couldn’t help being frequently reminded of it throughout the latter part of the concert, especially during the Festiva Quartet’s wholehearted tackling of the Brahms work – though Franck’s language and thematic constructions are of course quite different to Brahms’ in this Quartet, the works share a fair degree of nineteenth-century “sturm und drang”. No less heartfelt was the musicians’ approach to the Mahler, whose often feverish effusions in places put one even more in mind of the Belgian composer’s candidly-expressed outpourings. Again, the playing brought out the character of the music in each case, I thought, emphasising in Mahler’s work a certain febrile quality in some of the writing, while informing the Brahms Quartet with richer, deeper-throated tones, bringing out a more layered and complex web of expression.

First up, however, was the Mozart Quartet, the key of G Minor promising, as with other works from this composer, a vein of dark, agitated feeling colouring the music. So it proved, the players making the most of the music’s contrasting moods, the opening filled with foreboding and unease, and the second subject light and tripping, with some nice flashes of musical temperament in violinist Cristina Vaszilcsin’s work. It was playing that made the repeat a real pleasure to experience, as one could focus on different aspects of the music-making – the strong rhythmic support from Robert Ibell’s ‘cello, for example, and the clear, sparkling lines maintained by pianist Catherine McKay. The development’s surge and flow was nicely realised, the strands of melancholic feeling well-activated, with intense dialoguing between violin and viola (Peter Garrity), and an almost Beethovenian strength coming out in the piano part.

In the slow movement, the piano-and-strings exchanges exhibited grace and tender feeling, the violinist negotiating her extended “running” solo with deft elegance. The group generated great “schwung” in the finale’s concerted passages, the piano taking the spirited lead, and the individual strings allowing themselves some “glint” when negotiating their separate lines, occasionally setting against this lovely trio-voicing moments during softer episodes. The players enjoyed the work’s “teased-out” ending, Mozart treating us to a few bars of remote modulation before returning to the home key for a grand finish.

Mahler’s Piano Quartet Movement came from a work written when the composer was just 16, the rest of which he later destroyed, apart from a few bars of a Scherzo. It remains a fascinating glimpse of a “composer-in-gestation”, one whose characteristic fingerprints are already discernable. The piano-dark, brooding opening, with its repeated emphasis on a three-note motif swung between lyricism and angst, building up towards lines of running counterpoint, with every instrument singing its own song. The three-note motiv dominated the music’s central section, driving things to fever pitch in places, and creating what seemed like an unstoppable tide of impassioned feeling – full credit to Catherine McKay for her full-blooded pianistic flourishes, and to the strings for their similarly-expressed energies. The music and the playing continued to enthral, throughout contrasting episodes of exhausted calm (voices singing atop of murmuring piano chords), quickening tensions with occasional major-key flirtations, and exotic colourings (a gypsy-like violin solo leading a valedictory processional – very Mahlerian!), right to the hushed pizzicato ending.

But it was the Festiva’s playing of the Brahms Op.60 Piano Quartet which capped off an evening’s remarkable music-making. Big-boned playing, with full-bowings and richly dark piano tones captured the work’s opening, and made the contrast with the second subject markedly “tell”, the piano’s lyrical reflections answered with real depth of feeling, real “hurt”, conveyed by the rest of the ensemble. In places I could almost feel the players listening intently to their own interactions, while in others I had a sense of playing-for-keeps risk-taking, close to the edge of abandonment, as the music surged and seethed through the development. The performance had the feeling of a soul taking stock of its own strength after intense tribulation, and renewing its journey through sheer will.

The scherzo’s tricky syncopations were played with glint and fire and real “point”, with a dynamic range encompassing everything from a roar to a whisper, and a  storytelling impulse able to realise the suggestion of headlong flight with demons in pursuit. By contrast, the slow movement’s various instrumental combinations wrought magical results, ‘cello and piano beginning, followed by violin and ‘cello, and then violin and viola, each pair adding a different strain of feeling to the melody, whose eventual dying autumnal fall at the close evoked an atmosphere so beloved of this composer. The group caught the agitations of the finale’s opening, strings pounding in three against the piano’s four (and then swapping around!), the second subject’s hymn-like respite being overtaken by the restless opening music, the turbulence surging and abating throughout the development – exciting playing from all concerned! Catherine McKay’s emphatic march-like piano chords triumphantly proclaimed the hymn-like tune’s affirmations on its return, though to conclude the composer resolutely led the argument through a further agitated flurry and into the autumnal regions once again, the players determinedly and assuredly going with the music’s flow and delivering the final chords with proper and characteristic gruffness.

The muicians received an enthusiastic and well-deserved ovation from an audience whose enjoyment would, I’m sure, have helped spread the word regarding these St.Andrew’s concerts, in the wake of such exciting and involving performances.

Kugeltov: Klezmer music opens the St Andrew’s Concert Season

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Klezmer music old and new

Robin Perks (violin), Tui Clark (clarinet), Ross Harris (accordion), Malcolm Struthers (double bass)

St Andrew’s on The Terrace

Monday 8 March 2010 midday

(N.B. Ross Harris has drawn my attention to a mistake and to a couple of other misunderstandings in my review and the review has now been amended.  Wednesday 10 March)

The series of lunchtime and early evening concerts at St Andrew’s opened with a highly diverting concert of Klezmer music – the music of the Jewish cultures of Eastern Europe, whose traditional language is Yiddish, derived from Middle High German, mixed with Hebrew, Aramaic, Slav and Romance languages.

The group’s name, Kugeltov, dervives from Kugel which means ‘ball’ in German. A Kugel is a staple of Jewish cooking and it originally referred to balls of noodle dough. (The programme note included a recipe for ‘Malcolm’s Kugeltov Cake’).

Their music, likewise, echoes these cultures, so lovers of the music of Serbia and Croatia, Bulgaria and Romania, Greece and areas of southern Russia, Ukraine and the Caucasus will find much delight.

The series revives one of the original elements of the New Zealand International Arts Festivals: concerts by mainly New Zealand musicians at lunchtime and in the early evening, playing music of all kinds (apart from commercial popular stuff). The concerts were hugely popular from the start and reached their peak in the festivals of 1990 and 1992, under Chris Doig. It is a mystery that festivals in the last decade have so reduced the amount of music generally and turned their backs on these fine opportunities for New Zealand musicians to stand alongside overseas artists in concerts that are cheaper and more informal than the NZIAF itself. They also offered an extra draw-card for visitors from elsewhere who look for things to do during the day.

The musicians offer another example of the way professional Wellington musicians get involved in popular music of all kinds. Two of these players are in the NZSO – Robin Perks and Malcolm Struthers, one in the Vector Wellington Orchestra – Tui Clark, and Ross Harris, who taught  at Victoria University and has other lives as composer and French horn player, not to mention a commitment to Klezmer music.

So the quality of the playing was one of the striking features. Nothing was more striking than the frequent clarinet sallies from Tui Clark, a player of lively brilliance with an uncanny instinct for idiomatic styles rendered with excitement and real delight.

The first piece, by Ross Harris, opened with an exciting, anticipatory, plucked bass intro, followed by squealing clarinet rushes and staccato phrases; accordion and violin soon fleshed it out.

The second medley of three tunes opened with Robin Perks’s perfectly idiomatic gypsy sounding violin, that turned from melancholy to a wild, foot-stamping dance.

Most of the pieces, many consisting of two or three distinct tunes fused in cunning ways, were of genuine folk origin, and ten tunes were by composer/accordionist Ross Harris.

The centre piece was Ross Harris’s Klezmorphology, which was the most extended and took the genre to areas remote from the simple Klezmer, almost losing sight of its origins at times and becoming a piece that may well please conventional chamber music lovers, and there were many at this concert.

The quite large audience clapped along with the infectious final number, the popular Klezmer tune, Hava Nagila. The series has got off to a great start.

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DIRTY BEASTS and other stories

Posted on by Peter Mechen

Oliver Hancock – Three Tolkien Miniatures / Paul Patterson – Rebecca / Little Red Riding Hood

Martin Butler – Dirty Beasts

Nigel Collins (narrator), Diedre Irons (piano)

ZEPHYR – Bridget Douglas (flute), Robert Orr (oboe), Robert Weeks (bassoon), Phil Green (clarinet)

with: Vessa-Matti Leppanen (violin), Rowan Prior (‘cello), Patrick Barry (clarinet), Mark Carter (trumpet),

David Bremner (trombone), Leonard Sakofsky (percussion), Emma Sayers (piano)

New Zealand International Festival of the Arts

Wellington Town Hall

Saturday, 7th March 2010, 2pm

Music, theatre and story together provided diverting entertainment for an enthusiastic audience of children of all ages at the Town Hall, with something for everybody, young and old and somewhere in between. These settings of different generations of cautionary tales for children by contemporary composers were brought to life by narrator Nigel Collins, with vivid and colourful support from some of Wellington’s finest musicians, some of whom were, at times, tantalisingly difficult to recognise in their various costumes.

A pity the staging of this presentation wasn’t ideal, with the Town Hall platform built out as a smallish square onto which the performers crowded, the musicians in a rather tight and inwardly-looking semi-circle that didn’t help generate enough performer-and-audience contact – we weren’t sufficiently encouraged by the arrangement to project ourselves into the music-making spaces. What it meant was that Nigel Collins and his cohorts had to work all the harder to draw their audience in and enable that fusion with fancy and imagination which makes for memorable theatrical (and musical) experiences. And, if the stage was too small, the venue itself was too big, the empty spaces not allowing that sense of intimacy and involvement between and with all those present, performers and audience members.

This said, the energies and skills of the performers kept up the flow between platform and auditorium – of course, the “nature of the beast” meant that there would possibly be a few surprises in store, everything seeming to be somewhat outside the parameters of a “normal” concert-going experience, which was itself an enticing prospect. The performers certainly entered into the spirit of the entertainment, and seemed to be thoroughly enjoying themselves – as did the audience, a few “drop-offs” apart (which is par for the ‘children-entertainment’ course, I would expect).

Nigel Collins’ appearance as The White Rabbit was the occasion for great mirth, though I thought the section describing the predatory habits of wolves, vividly illustrated by the musicians though it was, elongated the somewhat arch Roald Dahl story of Little Red Riding Hood overmuch in Paul Patterson’s setting. Even the narrator’s gorgeously dipsomaniac Grandma didn’t rescue the retelling from its longueurs (partly the author’s fault), though the denoument, with a very modern Miss Riding Hood conquering all, finally got things moving (and I loved the epilogue’s Facade-like strains accompanying Miss Hood’s parading of her wolf-skin coat). Oliver Hancock’s Three Tolkien Miniatures was next, the wind players, helped by some magical piano-string activations, marvellously evoking the dark expanses of the Forest, with its gradually-burgeoning alarms and horrors recalled by the Tolkien poems, focusing upon both Middle-Earth and pre-Hobbit characters.

Paul Patterson’s Rebecca (who slammed doors for fun and perished miserably) brought to mind for those with long enough memories a different, somewhat more punitive era of child-rearing. Projected with a deliciously awful French accent by Nigel Collins, the “contes de fée noir” came to life with the help of the deliciously disguised Emma Sayers on piano and Lenny Sakofsky contriving percussive noises, the latter making excruciating sounds with a number of balloons after releasing a brace of helium-filled ones (an opportunity for child-involvement missed, there, I thought). Nigel Collins mixed up a couple of words in the excitement surrounding the unfortunate eponymous heroine’s demise, but it all added suitably to the furore, which became nicely funereal towards the end (apart from a rogue balloon leaving its mark on the proceedings, doing what balloons do best).

Last was Martin Butler’s “Dirty Beasts”, settings of Roald Dahl’s somewhat nauseously crude poems depicting various interactions between animals and humans. Of the three sections I enjoyed the music for the first most of all, the spiky, chattering writing for winds readily evoking the pig’s rising panic concerning his fate and his vengeful plan of grisly retribution. Somehow the other two realisations didn’t have sufficient visceral impact to be truly memorable, the “Tummy Beast” in particular disappointing us with its refusal to explore any truly gastro-endocrinal depths in the writing – perhaps a contra-bassoon was what was lacking! Nevertheless, appetites were more-or-less satisfied, and a sense of good having more-or-less prevailed sent everybody home contented.