Tag: chamber music

Paekakariki’s Mulled Wine Concerts: Houstoun and Brown

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

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.

Netherlands and New Zealand music from SMP Ensemble

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

The SMP Ensemble conducted by Lucas Vis

VISTAS — music by Karlo Margetic, Louis Andriessen, Jack Body, Dylan Lardelli, Anton Killin, Yannis Kyriakidis  

Adam Concert Room, Victoria University

Friday 26 March 2010

The recent St Andrew’s series during the Festival included a concert by the SMP (Summer Music Project) Ensemble; that comprised music by Polish and New Zealand composers. This concert was entirely of New Zealand and Dutch music. Michael Norris introduced the concert Caprice Arts Trust director . They included the Caprice Arts Trust, the New Zealand School of Music, both universities, the Netherlands-New Zealand Association, KLM and Creative New Zealand. There was one premiere; some pieces were quite new and others as much as 40 years old.  

The title of the concert was Vistas: I suppose honouring Dutch conductor, Lucas Vis, a prominent figure in the promotion of new music. Most of the music in this programme was written for unconventional instrumental combinations and most eschewed the kinds of sounds that have been embraced by the generality of music lovers. Composers of this turn of mind seem comfortable carving a isolating niche, largely rejecting the standard musical formations and forms, such as the symphony orchestra or the string quartet, most kinds of tonal music and even the strains of contemporary music that have found more general acceptance.  

The first piece, written for a probably unique combination, was Karlo Margetic’s Hommage à WL: that is, Witold Lutoslawski. It opened, and closed, with Yoshiko Tsuruta playing with soft mallets on a wood block, soon supported by a dense bed of winds and strings: clarinets and horn; violin, viola, cello and double bass; piano and percussion, and it evolved into an aleatoric exercise (for which Lutoslawski was noted) each instrument playing according to his/her own instinct, but launching afresh at the end of each phase; those points were about the extent of the conductor, Lucas Vis’s, role. Occasionally a definite punctuation point arrived, e.g. with piano and cello; the mood became increasingly disturbed, even frenzied, before subsiding.  

Louis Andriessen’s Zilver was written in 1994. The prevailing character was vivid contrasts of pitch, setting flute against piano, vibraphone and marimba, all of which played identical or closely related lines. While the effect was distinctive, one lost a sense of the individual instruments; this was the effect of much of the music in the concert, for while the ensemble was smallish, several pieces were scored extensively for all together, in this case seven voices that the ear is not accustomed to hearing all sounding at once.

The music, nevertheless, gained in coherence as repeated motifs – gestures rather – were handled, at slowly increased speed and changing rhythms, at one point seeming to make wry allusions to the Viennese waltz. It drew to a close by dismantling the tighter framework that had evolved.

Jack Body’s Turtle Time dates from 1968 – a setting of surrealist poems by Russell Haley. Dated? well, perhaps, but it successfully maintains its character: witty, eccentric, the poems brilliantly articulated by Karlo Margetic, with huge gestures, likewise surreal, that reached out insistently to the audience. The music and its performance by piano Sam Jury), harpsichord (Jonathan Berkahn), organ (Matt Oswin)and harp (Natalia Mann), imposed a sort of irony of very traditional sound sources handled with drollerie and wit.  The words might have been a useful addition to the programme note.

Then came the ‘World premiere’ (I do wish we could just settle for ‘first performance’; I do doubt that even the composer expects a rush of breathless music publishers and promoters wanting performance rights in Buenos Aires and St Petersburg). Dominating the stage was the contrabass clarinet of Justus Rozemond, reaching two meters high, along with piccolo, piano, viola and cello.  

Noh theatrical precepts lay behind Dylan Lardelli’s piece, entitled Aspects of Theatre; where each performer rehearses alone, and the eventual performance is the first time the players have got together. The resulting spontaneous spirit was palpable; the musical experience was of extreme dynamic variety, of seemingly random, widely spaced pitches, whose relationships were irrelevant.  Though I have to plead failure to get Noh theatre, in spite of first hearing 40 years ago at the Athens Festival, and subsequent exposures.

Anton Killin’s Two Moments were approximately that; when its end seemed unexpectedly close to its start, Vis led a second performance there and then. In spite of its brevity, the composer had taken pains to score it carefully for seven strings, winds and an accordion carefully arrayed on stage. Interesting, though the purported depiction of the life of Denisovich and the death of Solzhenitsyn failed to register with me, and I had to wonder about the sort of audience envisaged by the composer.

The last piece, Tinkling, was for a much larger ensemble, ten players. Eshen Teo – flute, Andrzej Nowicki – clarinet, Peter Maunder – trombone, Dylan Lardelli – guitar, Dorothy Raphael – percussion, Yoshiko Tsuruta – marimba, Vivian Stephens – violin, Charley Davenport – cello, Simon Eastwood – double bass, Sam Jury – piano. A reworking, shortening of an earlier piece, based on a riff by Thelonius Monk, there was more for the mind to adhere to than with some of the other pieces.  More familiar musical patterns and procedures were suggested; subtle dramatic moments occurred, and arresting little accelerations; attractive hints of rubato in repeated phrases. Again however, I found the busyness of the scoring prevented distinguishing many individual instruments a lot of the time; why bother then with such detailed instrumentation? Pianist Sam Jury had been particularly notable and conductor Vis singled him out.

There was no question about the accomplishment of the players who devoted themselves with commitment to some pretty challenging music that clearly appealed to this audience. The concert was well-attended and there was long applause for the ensemble and for the conductor in particular.

Full-frontal Mahler at St.Andrew’s

Posted on by Peter Mechen

MAHLER – Des Knaben Wunderhorn (The Youth’s Magic Horn)

Linden Loader (mezzo-soprano) / Roger Wilson (baritone)

Terence Dennis (piano)

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

Friday 19th March

No composer is more identified with song as integral to his output than Gustav Mahler. The creator of a number of vast symphonic edifices, he worked into most of these compositions either direct quotations from his own songs or melodies derived from them. His Eighth Symphony is, in essence a choral symphony, and his orchestral song-cycle Das Lied Von Der Erde he regarded as a symphony in all but name.

Mahler grew up in the garrison town of Jihlava, in Moravia, a region steeped in folksong, and a place which would have frequently rung with the sounds of military marches, the boy’s enthusiasm for these tunes probably accounting for the prominence of such melodies and forms in his instrumental works up to the Eighth Symphony. His forty or so songs include no less than twenty-one settings of verses from a German folk-collection of verses entitled Des Knaben Wunderhorn (The Youth’s Magic Horn), an anthology which first appeared in 1805, with two further volumes following. These poems, collected by Achim von Arnim and Clemens Bretano, include a colourful variety of themes, topics and characters, both religious and secular, all displaying an engagingly simple but deeply direct set of fireside-wisdoms.

Mahler first set some of these verses in 1883 for a collection entitled Lieder und Gesange; but better-known are the twelve settings which make up the composer’s “Wunderhornlieder”, and which we know indeed as Des Knaben Wunderhorn. The use of orchestral accompaniment brought out Mahler’s skill at fashioning chamber-like instrumental sonorities, often using single lines or small groups for colouristic effect, though the expediences of publication and performance saw Mahler write piano versions of the accompaniment as well.

To have the whole set performed live would be, I think, a rare treat anywhere; and singers Linden Loader and Roger Wilson along with pianist Terence Dennis threw themselves into the humour, tragedy, irony, drollery, foolishness and romance of the different settings with plenty of feeling and gusto. The theatricality of some of the duets brought out a ready response from Roger Wilson, putting his extensive operatic experience and vocal acting skills to good use with some vivid characterisations. If somewhat less outwardly demonstrative and spectacular in her character portrayals, Linden Loader’s beautiful voice made the perfect foil for her partner in their duets, such as in the opening Der Schildwache Nachtlied, a dialogue between a soldier and a beautiful ghostly temptress. And she nicely caught the cocquettishness of the girl in Trost im Unglück, a song abut a hussar and his recalcitrant sweetheart, one in which the singers played the contrasts off each other deliciously. For me, the “plum” of the duets is Wo die schönen Trompeten blasen, a song whose music is filled with eerily-charged beauty and deep regret, depicting an encounter between a girl and her dead lover – both singers here characterising their parts with the utmost feeling, and Terence Dennis’s piano-playing getting everything right, from the ghostly trumpet calls near the beginning to the flashes of anguish transfixing the girl’s vocal line, and the beautiful transitions between the warmly romantic music in 3/4 time and the spectral reveille-calls of wind and brass. Elsewhere, perhaps Roger Wilson’s extremely boorish lad in Verlor’ne Müh might have been thought by some too dunderheaded to be a credible object of a young girl’s attention; but I enjoyed it immensely.

The individual songs were no less finely done by each singer. Again, Roger Wilson pointed the words of Des Antonius von Padua Fischpredigt with obvious enjoyment, relishing the irony of the fishes’ pragmatic response to St Anthony’s sermonisings, and later, turning his gift for comic irony towards creatures of a different kind in Lob des hohen Verstandes, bringing off the brayings of a donkey most beautifully. He was suppported to the utmost by Terence Dennis, whose playing nicely underpinned the garrulousness of the saint’s preachings (a fiendishly difficult “perpetuum mobile” piano-part), as well as pointing all the fun and pomposity of the animals’ pronouncements in the latter song. And Linden Loader caught our sympathies all too heart-rendingly on behalf of both mother and child, in the tragic Das Irdische Leben, but then in due course restored equanimities with a charming, nicely-related Rheinlegendchen, the music lovely, lilting and lyrical (the performance surviving the all-too-audible and out-of-rhythm tappings of a nearby workman!).

Performing Revelge, the longest song of the set last of all in the concert naturally threw weight onto the darker, more serious side of the collection – the piece describes a post-battle parade of ghost-soldiers, with music that’s mostly funeral-march in character, but filled with sardonic, mock-heroic gestures as well as grim finalities. I thought Roger Wilson and Terence Dennis gave the piece such vivid, in-your-face treatment that anything that followed afterwards would have seemed impossibly pale and wan. The singer’s repeated cries of “Tra-la-li” at regular intervals seemed, if anything, to increase in energy and desperation as the song marched grimly onwards, with the piano-playing at times practically orchestral in its amplitude and colour, resolutely supporting the singer to the bitter end. For some tastes, perhaps, a little TOO over-the-top – but not for mine! Any music written by a man who, upon visiting Niagara Falls, exclaimed “At last – fortissimo!” cries out for the kind of full-blooded performances which we certainly got during this splendid concert.

Cello and piano recital at St Andrew’s series

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

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.

A St Patrick’s Day ensemble: clarinet, piano and strings

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

The Leprechaun Ensemble: Philip Green (clarinet), Tom McGrath (piano), Anne Loesser and Cristina Vaszilcsin (violins), Peter Garrity (viola), Rowan Prior (cello)

Clarinet Quintet, K 581 (Mozart), Sextet: Overture on Hebrew Themes (Prokofiev), Piano Quintet, Op 34 (Brahms)

St Andrew’s on The Terrace

Wednesday 17 March 2010, 6.30pm

This early evening concert may have been one of the most looked forward to though its audience may have been reduced by the clash with the first of the two concerts by the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra. Those present were richly rewarded.

There was curiosity about the meaning of the name, and the best guess seemed to be the date of the concert, St Patrick’s Day.

Philip Green is co-principal clarinet in the NZSO and he has also made a big contribution to chamber music since coming to New Zealand from Australia in 2002. The sound he produces is very beautiful – steady, clear, capable of a very wide dynamic range and variety of colours, and he performs masterly glissandi and note-bending.

The sequences of up and down arpeggios in the first movement were not simply exercises; they were organic things with individuality, ravishing expressions of musical delight, sounding as if Mozart expected that nothing was likely to disturb the course of his life.    

The first movement is a masterpiece of structure, but also of rapturous melody; the second movement is no less, each instrument displaying the players’ gifts, often most attractive in duet. One of the effects that caught my ear was the alternating phrases between clarinet and the two superb violins where the violins’ tone seemed to merge with the clarinet. The ornaments in the Minuet and Trio were beautifully turned and the clarinet led the movement to a particularly glorious end. None of the repeats in this music were unwelcome; perhaps, even, there were too few! The variations of the Finale were the final source of wonder, the variety of mood and emotion, of colours and decorative effects and the prolonged phrases of the closing page were of unbelievable beauty.

Whether it was decided to play Prokofiev’s sextet first and then to look for a piano quintet to make full use of Tom McGrath; or whether the presence of a clarinet and a piano together with a string quartet led to a search for a piece using all six, who knows?  Prokofiev’s little piece is a charmer, usually heard in its orchestral clothes, but this is the real way. Right at the start I knew we were in for an exemplary performance, right inside the composer’s mind, Its sharp contrasts of mood and tempo make it an engaging piece and these players let no nuance go unexplored and enriched. Makes you wonder that its success did not inspire him to write more for such ensembles.

As if the most beautiful of clarinet quintets (well – what about the Brahms?) was not enough, I shall recklessly suggest that Brahms’s piano quintet, Op 34 made this an evening of absolute ecstasy. There are a couple of other piano quintets of surpassing beauty too, but this one did for, or rather undid, me. I listened to the lovely viola melody in the opening pages, and soon to the duetting by the two violinists (both exceptionally fine musicians and treasured imports from Europe in the past decade to join the NZSO’s first violins). Other charming little musical relationships of twos and three also emerged.

At first I thought the piano was not entirely at one with the quartet, but by the second movement I had completely changed my mind. Sure there was an occasional slip, but McGrath seemed to fall in naturally with the spirit of the string playing, the colour and rubato, their expressiveness.  His hesitant opening phrases in the second movement endeared the piano’s part to me and their sensitivity to moments of restraint or particular emphasis, seemed second nature.  The string players did well to invite McGrath back to Wellington to play with them.

Their instinct for the dramatic found full scope in the last movement, the withholding, and the releasing of tension, finally giving way to the galloping motif than plunges to the finish.  Brahms fecundity seems to know no end; till the very end you sense him, with difficulty, resisting the temptation to let his endless flow of fresh ideas and variants delay him.

I hardly need say this was a wonderful concert.

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.