Tag: choral

Baroque Voices pay rich homage to NZ “Masters”

Posted on by Peter Mechen

Baroque Voices presents:
Alleluia: a newë work! – “Memories of our Masters”

Music inspired by medieval/ancient songs or texts
by Anon, Guillaume de Machaut, Guillaume Dufay –
Music by Jack Body, Ross Harris, and David Farquhar,
and some of their past students – Helen Bowater, Alison Isadora,
John Psathas, Pepe Becker, Mark Smythe, Michael Norris, and Ewan Clark

Baroque Voices: Pepe Becker (director), Jane McKinlay, Anna Sedcole, Katherine Hodge, Phillip Collins, Kenneth Trass, Jeffrey Chang, Timothy Hurd

Adam Concert Room, NZSM, Kelburn

Sunday, 28th May 2017

This concert was the eighth in the “Alleluia: a newë work” series by Baroque Voices, the idea being, in director Pepe Becker’s own words, to “present works from the early music era alongside modern compositions”, an undertaking which the group first instigated as long ago as 1995. Though the presentations have been consistent in their overall approach, the ensemble has managed to maintain an ever-fascinating and invariably rewarding range of repertoire for the delight of audiences over the duration, this latest undertaking being no exception.

In Pepe Becker’s programme note, she gave a brief resume of the group’s characteristic presentation aims and explorations, by way of reminding us of music’s capacities for both connectiveness and renewal in remarking on audience responses to what she calls “ageless connection” of old and new music in Baroque Voices’ past concerts.

Simply looking over the list of instrumental resources used at various times by a vocal group suggested to me the omniverous inclinations of its performing philosophy! The list’s diversity (hurdy-gurdy, didgeridoo, taonga puoro, electric guitar!) reminded me of similarly far-flung impulses expressed recently in her “Lilburn Lecture” by New Zealand composer Jenny McLeod, talking with her audience about what constituted her “creative heritage”. For her, it was practically a case of “anything goes!”, a kind of “all experience is valid” way of working, a statement of unique truth. If not from exactly the same cloth, the work of Baroque Voices demonstrates a similarly exploratory set of inclinations, a “this is who we are” way of performing and communicating.

Here in tonight’s concert were examples of most of the above performance principles – settings by contemporary and slightly older composers inspired by and set alongside “ancient” works, the latter from sources as diverse as Medieval Europe and 8th Century Japan, as well as creative responses to “modern” works (twentieth century poetry). While most of the works were “a capella” , two were piano-accompanied, and one was flavoured by strains from medieval instruments.

Where the concert’s “official record” above requires further elaboration is in the human inter-connectiveness of it all, a quality which Pepe Becker took some pains to set out in her written notes. It suggests a remarkable collegial quality among local (New Zealand) composers, one I’ve heard remarked upon in the past by people visiting this country, a willingness to interact, with all the teaching and learning that the process implies.

Of course there are and have been notable exceptions, here and there – but the rule is reflected in the willingness and readiness of the concert’s younger composers to pay tribute through their music to their teachers and colleagues, who were mentors and friends. One of the “teachers”, Ross Harris, was quoted as saying that “In the 80s with Jack (Body) and David (Farquhar) teaching…….it was a very good time to be a composition student”. Elsewhere, other tributes were paid to “the inimitable Jack”, as well as to Ross Harris himself.

There were too many “moments per minute” throughout the evening’s music-making for a reviewer to try and do them all full justice – enough for my descriptions to try and convey something of the music’s expressive range in tandem with the performers’ manifest skills and focused intensities. The concert’s first half seemed to me to have a slightly “older” feel, due, perhaps to a predominance of works from the “teachers” and “mentors”, as well as music from two of the earliest “named” composers featured on the programme, de Machaut and Dufay. After that, by and large, it was the pupils’ turn to pay their deeply-felt homages to the teachers.What better way to begin the evening than with a spirited and deeply-rooted rendition of the 15th Century carol Alleluia: a newë work! , a performance which combined beauty and earthiness in its purity of sound and heartfelt vocal energies.

Those same qualities informed the infectious Nowell: sing we, also from the 15th Century, with the vocal concertino/ripieno contrasts between smaller and larger groups characterfully differentiated in both dynamic and tonal variation. The group chose to bracket with this Jack Body’s Nowell in the Lithuanian Manner (1995), featuring four singers in pairs placed diagonally across the platform, singing “phrase-and-answer” in intervals of a second, the voices “leapfrogging” one another (to use the composer’s expression) most effectively.

Guillaume de Machaut’s Kyrie from La Messe de Nostre Dame was sung most sonorously and beautifully by the full ensemble, the lines concerning themselves for most of their contourings with the opening syllables of the words KY-rie and CHRI-ste, resolving each word’s remainder only towards the ends of the sequences – an extraordinary “suspended” effect, generating some tension as one waited for each contouring’s resolution, thus heightening the pleadings for “Mercy”.

This was followed by Pepe Becker’s own composition, Mass of the False Relation,  which I’d heard before, though not in such a context – the opening “Kyrie” featured two voices set at an interval of a second , before the textures were opened, to pleading and beseeching effect. The sequence had something of a “lyke-wake dirge” atmosphere, unsettling and unpeaceful, with high soprano lines effectively putting one in mind of a cry for mercy from an abyss! A calmer, more circumspect “Christe” gathered increasing emotional momentum, before reverting to a differently constituted “Kyrie” to finish, the singers clustering their lines together with great aplomb and considerable emotional focus – brief, but effective!

Relief of sorts was afforded by the beautiful hymn Ave Maris Stella, sung in its original unision throughout verses 1 and 3, but adopting Guillaume Dufay’s setting for the second verse in which the women’s voices break into three parts and beautifully and gracefully explore the firmament. Composer Ross Harris’s response to the original chant followed, originally a 2009 commission by Baroque Voices, here making a welcome and sonorous reappearance.

A striking opening featured a tenor solo soaring above a pedal-point, joined by other individual lines awakening their own impulses to soar, float and beautifully elaborate on the original. Thanks to the intensity and focus of the performance’s individual voice-strands, I felt a real sense of those lines filling their own spaces, but also wrapping their resonances around a kind of central impulse of thought and intention as the work unfolded.

The ensemble at Virgo singularis (Virgin all excelling), generated a tremendous upsurging of intensity, to dramatic, scalp-prickling effect, as did the salutations to the Trinity of the last verse, particularly those invocations to Spiritui Sancto (the Holy Spirit), a display of visceral intensity which contrasted tellingly with the hushed resignation and peace of all things at the final reiteration of the words Ave Maris Stella.

Further back in “teacherdom” than either Jack Body or Ross Harris was David Farquhar, whose 1990 setting of a characteristically quirky set of verses no one and anyone by American poet ee cummings was commissioned and first peformed by Jones and Co., the Australian vocal ensemble. Farquhar described cummings punctuation-less (!) poetry as “slow-moving and lyrical” and “ideal for singing”, and his own quirkily responsive set of creative impulses proved a fitting foil for the poet’s idiosyncrasies of expression.

The “once upon a time” introduction floated the words “anyone lived in a pretty how town”, with a dancing wordless rhythm augmenting the poet’s metre at “he sang his didn’t he danced his did”. Then there were gorgeous harmonies at “she laughed his joy she cried his grief”, and lovely differentiations of rhythm with the different groupings of “sequence” words, such as “sleep wake hope and then”, which danced; and “stars rain sun moon” which was spaced-out, the singers creating limpid pools of light floating over deeper-hued pedal points.

The somewhat matter-of-fact “one day anyone died I guess” began as something angular and dry, which slowly amplified into something more heroic and deeply felt, Baroque Voices splendidly resonating the lines “no one and anyone earth by april” with great stepwise progressions of singing. I loved the crepuscular feeling evoked towards the end, with the ensemble gorgeously resonating evening bells at “women and men (both dong and ding)”, etching detail along the lines to beguiling effect – definitely a work I would like to hear performed again, sometime!

Very different to the featherlight play of ee cummings word-music was Pepe Becker’s heartfelt, almost Tristanesque text for her 2010 work Remembering Now – “a reflection upon love and loss – personal and universal”. Two singers performed the work alongside a piano with its sustaining pedal activated, the instrument thus providing a sympathetic resonance activated by the sung tones, especially when the dynamic levels began to rise. The vocal lines of the singers had, to my ears, a pronounced medieval intertwining in places, with elsewhere, some great vocal leaps to characterise the extremes of emotion – “Eternal depth, exquisite pain, secret union, keep me safe”, and some tightly-woven intervals reflecting in certain places the pain of loss and the jarring tensions of uncertainty.

Known more of late as a film composer, Ewan Clark had previously written works in a wide range of genres, among which was this ballad-like setting of James K.Baxter’s poem Never no more, dating from 2007. With voices accompanied by two pianos, the music and words created a flow of detailed and varied remembrance, a plainer-spoken New Zealander’s version of Dylan Thomas’s “Fern Hill” with its aching lament for lost youth, the music here responsive to incident and ever-ready to wrap its evocations of “golden lads and lasses” in swathes of deep mourning and oblivion. Particularly desolate was the final “never no more never no more”, playing out to something hollow and empty.

Part Two of the concert began with rather more sardonic, grim-humoured tones, an energetic dance of death Ad mortem festinamus, a 14th Century composition linked to the time of the Black Death, and expressing fatalistic sentiments very much in accord with what must have been an everyday experience for many people. The dotted dance-rhythms had a kind of horrid glee, allied to an almost festive quality enhanced by the ambient instrumentations, a dulcian, drum and “shruti box”, the latter a kind of harmonium which supplied a drone, altogether creating a wry ritualistic statement.

Ritual of a different kind coloured the work of Michael Norris, a setting of a poem by one Pierre Reverdy, described by the composer as ‘a lesser-known French proto-surrealist’, whose creative work involved a “sublime simplicity of reality”, and whose words suggest a kind of transcendence of substance towards abstraction – for Norris, a process suggesting “an inevitable movement from presence to absence”, very much an underlying theme of this concert (for which this work was written).

To the names that have left is a line from the poem “The traits of the sky” which Norris used as his piece’s title, a reference to whom the composer described as “some important men in my life who left us in the last few years”. It was obviously a piece which suggested feelings of loss in its juxtapositioning of long-held tones and sudden, sharply-etched irruptions of either violent noise or silence – characterisations of the unexpected, either explosive or insinuating. We heard sliding (glissando) notes, voices overlapping, unison and harmonies, some magnificently rich modulations, then textures cut to pieces by confrontational thrusts. There were yelps, breathings, elongated word pronunciations, almost didgerie-doo-like textures. Eventually the voices seemed to gather girth and vocalise as with long slow breaths, until we became aware of the “dying fall” of the lines, a sense of something “running down” or drifting away. Women’s voices imitated high, sustained bird-calls (farewells?) after which the singers put their hands over their mouths to mute their tones at the end.

An anonymous 15th Century English Carol Lully, lullay: I saw – was next, featuring two groups of two voices placed opposite one another, immediately sounded its time, helped by some lovely singing, mostly interactive of phrasing, greating a gorgeous effect. The same text was then re-enacted in a work by John Psathas, entitled Baw my barne, an old favourite of Baroque Voices, having been commissioned and premiered by the group in its first “a newë work!” concert in November of 1995. Beginning with richly-wrought note-clusters over which the soprano soloist’s voice hovered, the clustered lines were reiterated one-by-one, depicting in sound a kind of burgeoning of motherly bliss with a newborn allied to a sense of “a blissful burd, a blossom bright” as creation wondered at the Saviour’s coming.

Helen Bowater’s setting of a Japanese poem from antiquity (found in an 8th-9th Century AD collection of Japanese poetry “Man’yoshu”) hoshi no hayashi (in the forest of stars) gave us some gorgeous word-painting, with some particularly evocative, almost other-worldly singing from Pepe Becker – as with the poetry, the impression of the music was a kind of “stream of consciousness” which belied the precision of the craftsmanship to remarkable effect. Something of the same spontaneous and on-going outpouring of tones characterised Jack Body’s fifth Lullaby from the set of Five Lullabies, a work which was first performed in full by the Tudor Consort. Having watched the performance by Baroque Voices on You Tube given at Jack Body’s memorial service, I thought this evening’s performance was less contained and reverential, more flowing and intense, with a more clearly-delineated shape of rise and fall – again, very beautiful, with the dreaming especially vivid.

I liked Eve de Castro-Robinson’s comment, quoted, and indeed affirmed, by Alison Isadora, the composer of the programme’s penultimate work Blessing (in memoriam Jack Body), regarding how memorial pieces often write themselves. Isadora described her work on this occasion as “the output of a grieving process”, by way of expressing her tribute to Jack in three languages, plus the translations, Maori, Latin and English. After expressing Maori, Latin and English texts in turn, the piece combined elements of all three blessings, in places bringing out contrasts whose different characters produced extraordinary sounds – insistent lower voices setting the Latin plainsong against the bell-like women’s voices with their Taize chant, and colouring the textures differently as the music moved forwards, the differently-constituted textures surging and breaking like ocean waves, before the sopranos guided the intensities towards gentler cadences and brought the music to a close.

A kind of “return to our lives” was in order at the point of conclusion, here supplied by Mark Smythe’s 2007 Alleluia, one which Pepe Becker described as a “signature tune” for Baroque Voices, while very much a stratospheric soprano display piece, with both singers, Pepe and Jane McKinlay in sure touch, even at the end of a long and demanding concert, resounding their “Alleluias” as steadily and ambiently as ever. Very great credit to the whole ensemble, both for the works which have been encouraged into “being”, and for the group’s inspired performances of them.

Brahms’s Deutsches Requiem given spirited and scrupulous performance by Tudor Consort

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

The Tudor Consort conducted by Michael Stewart

Brahms’s Ein deutsches Requiem

Emma Sayers and Richard Mapp (piano)
Katherine McIndoe (soprano) and Simon Christie (baritone)

Wellington Cathedral of Saint Paul

Saturday 27 May, 7:30 pm

Brahms’s Requiem is known well enough by name and reputation to all tolerably interested in Music, but fewer would be familiar with it or have actually heard it live. I don’t think I’ve ever heard it in live performance, and have, somewhat to my embarrassment only become familiar with it on recordings in the last twenty years or so. The Orpheus Choir, naturally, has been its main advocate in Wellington over the years; my colleague Rosemary Collier, a long-time singer in the choir, looked up its history in the choir’s archive. They sang it in October 1968, October 1976, April 1988, September 1996, and November 2008. And it was sung by the New Zealand Choral Federation Choral Workshop a few years ago, too. The only record I can find of the NZSO’s participation was in the 1996 performance; I do not have a programme or any record of my reviewing either the 1988 or 1996 performances, both during my years at The Evening Post.

First, this was an extremely fine performance, spirited, colourful, scrupulously studied and rehearsed; the accompaniment was by duet pianists instead of orchestra, and their performances were pianistically admirable, if obviously not really a match for Brahms’s important and beautiful orchestral score.

Brahms had arranged the alternative accompaniment for piano duet for its first London performance in the home of a prominent surgeon where a small choir (about the size of the Tudor Consort, according to Michael Stewart’s notes) without an orchestra, could perform it. The piano duo of Emma Sayers and Richard Mapp excelled themselves in their formidable task of emulating Brahms’s emotionally charged orchestra.

Interestingly, Brahms incorporated into the piano score the choral and solo parts so that it could be played simply as a piano work. And indeed, whenever I turned my attention to the piano, it certainly seemed to invite admiration as a rather gorgeous piano work in its own right, as some kind of Strauss-length symphonic poem for the piano, or a suite ‘inspired by elegiac Biblical readings’.

The piano introduction was propitious, with most of the weight in the lower register, setting a suitably elegiac tone. At least the first few minutes suggested that the piano would offer a reasonably satisfactory substitute for the richness of an orchestra. And the choir begins in a similar spirit, uttering slow phrases that filled the space, with congenial, uncluttered echoing effects. And there were moments of illumination as the choir sang words like ‘mit Freuden ernten’.

The choir was arrayed in two sections, left and right at the front of the sanctuary: sopranos and tenors on the left, basses and altos on the right. It was aurally interesting to hear the parts distinctly.

The lovely, sombre piano introduction to the second part, ‘Denn alles Fleisch…’, also caught my ear. Though I read German adequately, I don’t know the words well, and had difficulty following the text, partly as Brahms moves the text about, and the cathedral acoustic doesn’t exactly clarify words; it also matters where you sit. I wasn’t in the first ten or so rows. Nevertheless, given that this was a smallish and superbly schooled choir, I’m sure that singers’ diction was pretty good.

The second is the longest section of the work, and though it’s taken from four different Biblical sources, the first (1 Peter) is finding solace in the evolving natural world, and in the second, from James, celebrating the joys to be found. The heart of this movement is with the splendidly triumphant ‘Die Erlöseten des Herrn…’, in which one might have enjoyed a bigger choir. But they captured its spirit admirably, powerful at its climaxes.

The baritone soloist arrives in ‘Herr, lehre mich doch   ’. Simon Christie’s lines somewhat resemble a particularly expressive recitative interspersed by choral passages, and he met the challenge of conveying the declamatory verses from Psalm 39, capturing the sharp contrast in tone with the words ‘Ach, wie gar nichts…’. Its splendid climax, involving a rise from hushed silence to a triumphant affirmation of faith, pretty well overcame the limitations of choral volume and lack of the orchestra.

A consoling change of tone in the gentle fourth movement, ‘Wie lieblich sind deine Wohnungen’; and on to the soprano’s movement, ‘Ich habe nun Traurigkeit’, with Katherine McIndoe. Her lines were even in tone, legato, well projected; in short capturing the beautiful, flowing and peaceful spirit of the three excerpts that comprise the seven minutes or so of this poignant episode with subtle contributions from the choir.

Simon Christie returns to a vigorous episode where Brahms uses the same verses from Corinthians as in Messiah, ‘Behold, I tell you a mystery’: always a curious experience to hear a different setting of words indelibly fixed in the mind by the likes of Handel. (Why do I remark this, with the hundreds of settings of standard liturgical texts that bother no one?). But Brahms’s view fitted the context, especially the powerful performance by the choir reinforcing the baritone.  The fugal passage and formidable climax towards its end brought the spirit of the work back to its Baroque antecedents.

The last section sets a short verse from Revelation, simply confirming that we are listening to a requiem. Calm and peace are restored; there are no words of a hereafter, merely that the dead may rest from their labours: Brahms a spiritual figure, but not an orthodox believer.

This was a fine performance, a singular credit to conductor Michael Stewart, generally overcoming the obvious shortcomings imposed by the choir’s size, the acoustic and the stringencies of Wellington – New Zealand – cultural circumstances.

 

Peter Walls steps in to conduct Bach Choir in Vivaldi and the Bach family

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Bach Choir of Wellington, conducted by Peter Walls, with The Chiesa Ensemble, Douglas Mews (organ) and vocal soloists

Vivaldi’s Gloria, RV 589
Johann Christoph Bach: Fürchte dich nicht.
Johann Ludwig Bach: Das ist meine Freude.
J.S. Bach’s Kyrie-Gloria Mass in B minor of 1733

St. Andrew’s on The Terrace

Sunday, 13 May 2017, 3.30pm

Great praise is due to Peter Walls for the success of this concert; previous conductor Peter de Blois had departed overseas leaving rather short notice for the preparation of the music.  Without this explanation, the audience would hardly be aware that ample time was not available for rehearsal, such was the high standard of most of the music presented.  One item originally scheduled, by J. Christian Bach, was dropped.  This was no bad thing; the concert was of a more than adequate length with the remaining items.  The church was almost full.

It was good to see (for the first time in New Zealand, in my experience) reproduced in the printed programme, words from the programmes at the Royal Festival Hall in London, regarding the decibels produce by an uncovered cough.  Indeed, I noticed no coughs during this concert.  Notes in the programme were informative, and the words were printed, along with English translations.

First up was Vivaldi’s well-known Gloria, RV 589.  This was taken at a slick pace, but The Chiesa Ensemble, notably the trumpets, were up to it.  The attack from the choir was excellent, as were the gradations of dynamics.  The choir threw themselves into this lively work with vigour, and communication was good, with most singers watching the conductor well.

There were some rough sounds from basses, but generally, balance and blend were admirable.  The quieter second sentence ‘Et in terra pax’ was a beautifully calm contrast to the lively opening ‘Gloria’.  The women soloists (Nicola Holt, soprano, and Megan Hurnard, mezzo-soprano) were animated and well-matched in their ‘Laudamus’ duet.  The soprano solo ‘Domine Deus’ was delightful, not least for the wonderful oboe solo.  The staccato bassoons below the vocal part added clearly articulated character.

The instrumental ensemble, of 22 players, was made up to a large extent of professional musicians from both Wellington-domiciled orchestras, and along with Douglas Mews on the baroque organ, contributed very largely to the success of the performances.  As did the acoustic of St. Andrew’s Church, aiding the choir in achieving a big sound when required.

The bouncy and jubilant ‘Domine Fili’ chorus was for the most part carefully articulated as well as being lively.  The contralto solo (sung here by mezzo-soprano) opened with a  sombre cello solo, accompanied by the organ’s flutes.  Megan Hurnard’s voice was beautifully produced, and her tone appropriate to the sense of ‘Misere nobis’.  The choir’s uniform pronunciation of the words was an exemplary feature of their interjections.

It was strange not to find the soloists’ names listed in the programme, but there were biographies at the back.

The final sections of the piece where sung and played with verve – though a little strain showed in the tenor parts.  Again here, the trumpets excelled.

A complete contrast followed, with an unaccompanied motet by Johann Christoph Bach (1642-1703): Fürchte dich nicht.  It began rather hesitantly but warmed up, and ended well; not an easy piece.

Then it was the turn of Johann Ludwig Bach (1677-1731); the motet Das ist meine Freude.  I have heard this fine choral work for double chorus sung by the New Zealand Youth Choir.  It was sung with vigour, but some of the many runs were not executed convincingly.  However, the German words were well enunciated.

Following the interval, we heard J.S. Bach’s Missa from 1733, better known as the ‘Kyrie’ and ‘Gloria’ from his Mass in B minor, where they were reused.  The opening ‘Kyrie’ had the choir faltering a little.  The Chiesa Ensemble again were in superb form, led by Rebecca Struthers.

For the choir’s part, it cannot be said that intonation never wavered, but by and large they did splendidly, and communicated the majesty and drama of this great work.   The duet ‘Christe eleison’ by the two women soloists was sung with absolute unity and concord, strings and organ accompanying.

The second ‘Kyrie’ began, and continued, confidently.  The complex fugal setting of ‘Et in terra pax’ likewise was accurate, the choir displaying pleasing tone and attention to dynamics.  Here, the brass were in their element, well supported by the other players.  The highly decorated ‘Laudamus te’ was handled with aplomb by Megan Hurnard.  ‘Gratias’ from the choir was very fine.  The timpanist was able to let fly.  ‘Domine Deus’ with the tenor soloist, Ken Trass followed.  He was not as strong as the soprano with whom he shared the duet, but nevertheless, his singing was accurate and he made a pleasing sound.  A lovely flute obbligato embellished the singing.

It was good to have no break between the sections; it made sense to carry straight on, and this heightened the contrasts in tempi, orchestration and dynamics.  After singing ‘Qui tollis’ the choir at last got to sit down for the first time since the interval, during the delicious contralto solo ‘Qui sedes’, accompanied by gorgeous oboe, and the following bass aria (David Morriss): ‘Quoniam tu solus sanctus’, accompanied by a magnificent solo horn.  The bass voice did not come through the orchestral texture as well as the other soloists did, though there were fine notes and passages.  The intricacies of the horn part did not have difficulty in communicating.

The final ‘Cum Sancto Spiritu’ was magnificent.

It seemed odd to me that the male soloists wore open-necked shirts, when the men of the choir wore bow-ties.  Women soloists take care with their dress, which could not in any way be called informal.  True, the orchestra men had open-necked shirts also, but these being black were not so obvious.  The previous evening I attended Orchestra Wellington’s fine concert.  They dress in much less formal fashion than does the NZSO, but nevertheless, the men all wore ties.  I believe it is a matter of respect to the music as well as to the audience.

Once again, St. Andrew’s proved itself an ideal venue for this type of concert.  And once again Bach proved to be the superbly inventive composer of choral music. No-one in the audience could be anything but satisfied with what they heard.  Much credit must go to Peter Walls for his direction of his forces in this dynamic and musically alive concert, that was nevertheless taxing for the choir.  Bravo, all!

 

 

Kindred Spirits indeed – Nota Bene and Guests at Sacred Heart Cathedral

Posted on by Jennifer Shennan

Kindred Spirits: Nota Bene Chamber Choir and guests
Peter Walls (conductor)

Sacred Heart Cathedral, Hill St., Wellington

Sunday 7 May, 2017

The choral concert, ‘Kindred Spirits’, by Nota Bene Chamber Choir and guests, was a luminous and lovely affair. The themed programme juxtaposed compositions of Benjamin Britten and Jack Body, offering more substance than a ‘regular’ concert might, the sum more than its parts. The acoustic in this light-filled space is clear and clean, and enterprising use was made of different areas in the church. Good sightlines make it a most attractive and comfortable concert venue and the capacity audience could tell they were in for a good time.

Peter Walls in an interview with Eva Radich on Upbeat (worth listening to on RNZ archive) gave background to his idea that these two composers could indeed be seen as kindred spirits, sharing musical sensibilities, as well as similar concerns … including pacifism, an appreciation of the music in other cultures especially Indonesia, and an empathy for those struggling in different times and places for their society’s acceptance of homosexuality.

The opening work, a traditional Macapat sung by Budi Putra, director of the Gamelan Padhang Moncar of VUW, was delivered in the rich and astonishingly resonant voice that Putra has long been recognized for. The violin of Tristan Carter danced a bridge between music worlds.

Britten’s Hymn to the Virgin, with its ascetic clarity, was followed by Body’s Carol to St.Stephen. The voice of the itinerant soprano seems to arrive through stained glass windows around the church, and Jeltsje Keizer delivered that beautifully. (Some of us remember Marilyn Waring in the premiere of this work 1976, in St. Peters Church in Willis St. There is much in Wellington’s music history to hold dear).

Lesley Graham sang ‘S’un casto amor, s’una pieta superna’ an excerpt from Body’s Love Sonnets of Michelangelo ( from the 1976 season Between Two Fires, choreographed by Michael Parmenter, another work that has remained etched in the memory). This was followed by Britten’s setting of the same poetic text. Both composers had also written a Hymn to St. Cecilia – and in the Body work, Daisy Venables, newcomer to the choir, revealed a voice of heavenly quality.

During the interval many expressed regret at the absence of recording microphones from such an engaging concert which could surely have been broadcast to an appreciative national audience? Lucky we were to be there in person.

Wellington Young Voices, over 30 young singers directed by Christine Argyle (founding director of Nota Bene) sang Britten’s Psalm 150 with spirited and sweet sounds, and later This little babe from his A Ceremony of Carols. This choir is brimming with talent and enthusiasm to give us much to look forward to.

Gamelan Padhang Moncar played Jack Body’s So Short the life – a lively, lovely, poignant piece, being played close to the second anniversary of the death of this much loved composer. ‘Vita brevis’ indeed, but ‘ars longa’. The gamelan instruments produce familiar sounds yet are played without the intensity of interlocking patterns of the traditional gamelan music we are accustomed to hearing – as though voices from the past join the players, and a microphone involved as a musical instrument helps carry the sound towards the future. A remarkable composition.

Finally Jack Body’s People Look East, based on the ecstatic poem and melody by Eleanor Farjeon, sent out a joyful clarion that made fitting finale to an inspired and inspiring concert.

Peter Walls had had a good idea, followed it through, and all the performers did the occasion proud. The chance we had to contemplate echoes, contrasts and parallels in works from two stunning composers is one that will not easily be forgotten.

 

Orpheus Choir’s “Chichester Psalms” concert terrific! – but James MacMillan has the last word……..

Posted on by Peter Mechen

The Orpheus Choir of Wellington presents:
CHICHESTER PSALMS

JAMES MacMILLAN – Seven Last Words From The Cross
LEONARD BERNSTEIN – Chichester Psalms

MacMillan: Pasquale Orchard (soprano) / Alexandra Woodhouse Appleby (soprano/alto)
Karishma Thanawala (alto) / Giancarlo Lisi, Peter Liley (tenors)
Stephen Clothier, Minto Fung (basses)

Bernstein: Liam Squire (treble) / Pasquale Orchard (soprano)
Alexandra Woodhouse Appleby (alto) / Giancarlo Lisi (tenor)
Joe Haddow (bass)

Orpheus Choir of Wellington
Brent Stewart (Music Director)
Thomas Gaynor (organ)

Wellington Cathedral of St.Paul

Saturday, 29th April 2017

As with music and art in general, people’s responses to matters of spiritual belief seem to vary enormously from individual to individual. Despite what seems like an ever-increasing secularisation of everyday life, we’re still can’t help being either active or passive observers of institutionalised calendar commemorations based on matters of belief in God which affect various human activities – we’re regularly made aware of certain historical frameworks and structures brought forward from times when people in general rendered to a Deity things that were regarded as belonging to that Deity, with few questions asked. A pivotal event in this history is without doubt the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, one which continues to exert significant influence in the Western World along any point of the spectrum of faith, on believers and non-believers alike.

Still, however much belief and spirituality in general takes up people’s lives in the 21st century is well-nigh impossible to gauge, except in the most generalised of terms – it would seem far less than, say, a century ago, and that the unprecedented horrors of the previous century, including the escalation of the human race’s own self-destructive potentialities might suggest a growing crisis of belief in any kind of omnipotent being who might allow or oversee such universal catastrophes, from which advancement of humankind towards any kind of future seems increasingly unlikely.

Creative artists these days seem to me to either mirror or confront these present-day actualities in their work – a case in point regarding confrontation is the Scottish composer James MacMillan, whose compositions actively reflect an active and securely-held Christian faith – at the opposite end of such motivations (to contrast the work of two utterly different “visionaries” I’ve encountered recently) is British playwright Caryl Churchill whose latest work for the stage (Escaped Alone, recently performed at Circa Theatre, Wellington) presents frighteningly dystopian scenarios of the future, one in which God as he/she is presently known seems non-existent. Of course both the dystopian prophetess playwright and the social-justice-driven Catholic composer advocate in different ways strategies for countering certain trends before a point of no return is reached, and so in some respects there’s common ground. Perhaps a basic difference between MacMillan and Churchill is that, for the former, there’s always a sense of optimism for the future amid the struggle – whereas for the latter the proposed scenarios and nihilistic attitudes given voice in her most recent work seem matter-of-factly pessimistic.

As was the case with the great French composer Olivier Messiaen, MacMillan’s creativity is inextricably tied up with his religious beliefs – “For me, religious faith is rooted in the mess of real life” he once said in an interview. And though he may no longer be the Marxist revolutionary of days of yore, his work still has an occasional “firebrand” quality, a confrontational edge which sets him apart from the new-age “Holy Minimalist” school of composition, whose preoccupation is a kind of transcendence set largely above conflict. By contrast, music such as MacMillan’s “Seven Last Words from the Cross” expresses great swathes of anguish and explosions of anger, alongside a sense of grief and sorrow, all of which suggests that its creator is well aware of the pain and suffering of all mankind as articulated by the sacrificed Christ. MacMillan’s text in this work is somewhat more than merely the seven “scripture-gazetted” utterances of Jesus on the cross, but takes also from sources such as the Good Friday Responsaries for Tenebrae which quote from the Book of Lamentations: “All you who pass along this way take heed and consider if there is any sorrow like mine……” – an impassioned call across the ages for human empathy.

This 1993 work for voices and strings (performed here with the instrumental parts transcribed for organ) came across with considerable force within the vast Wellington Cathedral of St. Paul spaces – it was a fairly no-holds-barred setting of the seven finally-reckoned gospel-recorded statements uttered by Christ as he hung on the crucificxion cross in Jerusalem. I’m aware that my comments below are as much descriptive of the music as analytical of the performance – perhaps even more so the former! I hope the reader will forgive such self-indulgence at my delight in coming across such a magnificent piece of relatively “new” music for me, and be reassured that my descriptions inherently recognise the abilities of the musicians involved to “articulate” the music to the point where it was able to make the impressions on me that it did!

There were times when the lush ambiences of the Cathedral told against the music’s clarity, places which I’ve tried to pinpoint as best I’ve been able to. However, as there are usually roundabouts at hand where there are swings, the up-side of the venue was its incredible resonance, which in places “enlarged” the music’s expressive scope to awe-inspiring extents! With a work like MacMillan’s containing both grand and intimate statements, no one venue is going to be ideal, and Wellington Cathedral was certainly no exception. Conductor Brent Stewart certainly brought out the best of the venue’s interaction with the music, and the performers did the rest with their, by turns, sensitive and full-throated music-making.

The organ opened the work with a simple plaintive note, the sounds of deep and inward mourning – as the choir intoned the words “Father forgive them”, the organ became an enormous swinging pendulum over which movement the voices rose and climbed, the cathedral’s spacious acoustic allowing the voices to “float” and soar. As well the cavernous spaces gave the organ’s deepest notes enormous girth, the combination of “space above” and “depth below” making for an amazingly cosmic sound-experience. Much of the plainchant-like agitated exclamations which followed were unintelligible as words from where I sat, at about the halfway mark within the audience – those sounds jumbled in the huge spaces, but the choir’s magnificently-sustained intonings filled the building’s ambience with urgently prayerful impulses and piteous beseeching.

A raw, monumental quality resounded from the voices over the repeated statement “Woman, Behold thy Son”, the utterances underscored with great silences “surging softly backwards” in between each tumultuous command – at first a soft organ pedal measured the depths of the sea of each silence, stirrings and sproutings of energy which grew into sequential melodic patterns, and finally burst forth with bravura-like outpourings of a fantastical nature. Everything was superbly controlled as the voices continued to repeat the phrase, with the organ accompaniments becoming more frenetic and desperate-sounding until a kind of exhaustion-point was reached, the instrumental sounds whimpering and imploring, searching for some kind of resolution or answer – in the throes of these agitations the voices spoke to and for the son, naming the woman as his mother. With fewer words to decipher I found this movement simply overwhelming in its direct, almost confrontational attitude, and in its sense of journeying stepwise towards depictions of a spirit in extremis.

Beginning the third section, the men intoned in Latin a tribute to the wood of the Cross – “Ecce Lignum Crucis” – (Behold the Wood of the Cross..) – accompanied by a singing melody the men sang “Venite Adoramus” – “Come, let us adore him”. Women’s voices at first sounded earthier, almost medieval, as they repeated the “Ecce Lignum” salutation, then rhapsodised more freely with the organ, the voices overlapping and suffusing the acoustic with richly-upholstered tones of adoration.

A great outburst of agitation from the organ ( with the conductor, Brent Stewart, “conducting” the organist!) prepared the way for two women soloists, their voices positively stratospheric, giving voice to Christ’s radiant invitation to the “good thief” to join him in Paradise. Deep organ meditations followed (eight speakers and a sub-woofer, doing the “honours” with a smaller organ, I was told, proudly, before the concert began, by one of the organisers – I can vouch for the effectiveness of the arrangement as the result seemed even more sonorous and wide-ranging as we in the audience had a right to expect!), with the soloist, Thomas Gaynor, skilfully managing the transition from inchoate murmurings to full-blooded transcendent intensities of light and colour, as the men sang, with increasing agitated feeling “Eli, eli lama sabachtani” – My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

Again, I found it difficult to decipher some of the words in that cavernous acoustic, though such was the intensity of the music’s rise and fall and the musicians’ control, I was content to be borne along on a tide of pure emotion, unsure of exactly where I was going, but confident in the musicians’ ability to keep things afloat and buoyant. Whether slow or swift-moving, such was the fascination exerted by music and performance, that specific words mattered less than the sense of being caught up in somethingsignificant and deeply felt – The “I thirst” section featured men’s voices barely “registering” against a background of women’s voices by turns, whispering, chanting, and singing, in Latin “I gave you to drink of life-giving water….”, before organ and voices suddenly erupted, flooding the vistas with sonorous urgencies, and then withdrawing into the agitated resonances once again.

Jagged organ chords slashed their way across the sound vistas, occasioning a sudden lighting change, as if the world was suddenly drenched in blood – most effective! Over the agitations the women’s voices began a flowing passage based on the Good Friday Responses for Tenebrae, “My eyes were blind with weeping” joined by the rest of the choir, developing a sombre meditation on sorrow.

The instrumental slashings returned, but couldn’t quell the impassioned cry from the voices of “Father”, which the organ supported with a heartfelt meditation, generating some Janacek-like intensities in places before slowly allowing resignation and a kind of tingling tranquility to drift back and settle all around for what seemed like moments outside time. The performers requested before the concert that no applause should follow the performance, and this strange sense of something continuing to resonate stayed with us throughout the interval – a most telling strategy, and one that worked brilliantly!

The Cathedral’s voluminuous spaces brought out the arresting attack of the voices and the wonderfully percussive scintillations at the opening of the second item on the evening’s programme, Leonard Bernstein’s “Chichester Psalms”, even if the resonances played havoc with the music’s more incisive, quick-moving sequences.
A dancing organ solo brought the soloists briefly to the platform, before some gently exotic percussive touches introduced the boy soprano, Liam Squire, singing the words of Psalm 23 – “The Lord is my Shepherd – I shall not want” – the melodic line characteristically mixed its composer’s penchant for sentimentality with slightly “grainier” sequences, bringing forth moments of rapt beauty from the young man’s voice, along with passages that seemed more effortful, perhaps too low-lying in places for the voice to properly expand and take flight.

Bernstein’s setting of Psalm 2 “Why do the nations” (the words familiar from Handel’s “Messiah” of course), galvanised the ensemble, with rhythmic passages that seemed to come straight from “West Side Story”, along with exciting percussion effects – even in this acoustic the trajectories of the music danced and enlivened the textures to spectacular effect.

A “grunty” organ solo with harmonic sequences and progressions reminding one of Reger’s music introduced the third section “Adonai, Adonai” (Lord, Lord), sung in the manner of a ballad, the melody graceful and warming, wrapping itself around and about one’s sensibilities, especially so in the wordless sections. The soloists tenderly and sensitively extended the mood with variants of the melodic line, until the sound’s “dying fall” imparted a rapt and devotional sense of valediction to the proceedings, the composer striving to impart the text’s sentiment of “brethren…together in unity” at the work’s very end.

Coming after James MacMillan’s direct and uncompromising exploration of grief and pain in “Seven Last Words From The Cross”, Bernstein’s far less demanding work might have been regarded by some people as a kind of emotional refurbishing in the wake of a series of debilitating meditations, and, in contrast, by others as something of an anticlimax. I inclined more to the latter than to the former view, thinking I would have preferred to leave the concert with those heartfelt gestures of compassion and empathy resounding in my head and playing on my sensibilities. Still, each of the pieces spoke its own particular truths and left the other more-or-less intact – and the performances by solo singers, instrumentalists and the choir, under Brent Stewart’s inspired leadership, along with organist Thomas Gaynor’s brilliant playing, certainly delivered the goods, enabling each work to make its own particular impact in grand style.

Marking Holy Week through Biblical Lamentations and music inspired by 20th century atrocities

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

The Tudor Consort conducted by Michael Stewart

Music for Holy Week: The Desolate City

Music by Antoine Brumel, Philippe de Monte, Palestrina, Byrd, John Mundy, Rudolf Mauersberger, Douglas Mews and Jack Body

Wellington Cathedral of Saint Paul

Good Friday, 14 April, 7:30 pm

The theme of this concert, The Desolate City, was a reason to look at two cities that have suffered terrible, war-driven destruction in living memory (Dresden and Hiroshima), and to associate physical destruction with social and moral destruction as described in Biblical accounts of cities considered to have been desolated by sin or perhaps merely by adoption of a rival religious faith.

The Book of Lamentations and Psalm 137 provided the main source of music: various Renaissance motets based on the words that can be read as mourning God’s desertion of Jerusalem and thus his complicity in the city’s destruction by the Babylonians in the 6th century BC. The words of Lamentations are traditionally recited during Tenebrae, in Holy Week.

The concert was preceded by a revelatory talk by Michael Stewart and, as well as words printed in both English and other languages in the programme, a large screen behind the choir displayed the words progressively – surtitle-like throughout. An excellent innovation.

Dresden
Rudolf Mauersberger’s motet Wie liegt die Stadt so wüst, was one of the three non-Renaissance works in the programme. It applied some of the words from Lamentations to the Allied bombing of Dresden in 1945, less than three months before Germany’s defeat. Mauersberger was director of Dresden’s Kreuzchor through World War II and this motet is perhaps his best-known work. The Kreuzkirche was destroyed in the bombing, and was rebuilt around 2005.

The motet expresses a deep feeling of grief, in dense harmonies that are punctuated with pauses that allowed the sounds to fill and re-echo through the large space of St Paul’s. Where I was sitting some voices, probably the soloists, Phoebe Sparrow, Rebecca Howan, Phillip Collins and Matthew Painter, seemed to emerge from deep within the choir and sanctuary, as if they were physically removed. Whether or not that was a calculated effect, the performance created a quite transcendental spirit, giving the impression of a rather more splendid composition than perhaps it is.

Byrd
To follow that by Byrd’s powerful Ne irascaris, Domine (from Isaiah), 370 years earlier, was to dramatise its contemporary relevance: in a totally different way. Through its message of spiritual rather than physical desolation, the Catholic Byrd expressed his anguish, living in a dangerous, Protestant England. The performance was exquisitely solemn, each short stanza quite extended musically, with each vocal section deliberate and perfectly in place so that at times certain voices could emerge distinctly.

Palestrina
Then came Palestrina’s Super flumina Babylonis (the first verses of Psalm 137), the generation before Byrd’s. Though a ritual lament for the Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem, it paints a much more peaceful atmosphere in less complex and tortured musical syntax than Byrd’s. The choir’s superbly subtle and expressive capacities were impressively revealed.

Body
Another setting of Psalm 137 came from the pen of Jack Body, this time a setting of the original Hebrew text. The succession of pleas was handled by dividing verses between men and women, dramatically and colourfully, as if to emphasise the varying ways in which the anguish of the people could be expressed. At one point (my Hebrew is not up to identifying the precise section) women’s voices rose to an almost terrifying pitch. For me, it revealed musical dimensions in Body’s music that I may have rather underestimated: sophistication, choral virtuosity, confidence.

Philippe de Monte is another rather unfamiliar name from the mid-16th century – shameful in the light of his prolific output: Flemish but, like many Flemish composers, multi-national; a few years older than Palestrina. As Michael Stewart explained, he too was touched by Reformation controversies/persecutions. On account of Queen Mary’s Catholicism, her brief reign (1553-58) gave Catholics a short respite between the Protestant extremes of Edward VI and Elizabeth I. De Monte served at her court in 1554-55 in the entourage of Philip II of Spain who was her husband.

In the 1580s he sent to the embattled Byrd a copy of this setting for double choir of some verses of Psalm 137, Super flumina Babylonis, “as a show of solidarity”, as Stewart wrote: Jewish exiles in Babylon = Catholics in England.

To one whose mid-16th century polyphonic sensibilities are not highly cultivated, it sounded not too dissimilar from Palestrina, Lassus, Vittoria or Byrd for that matter. It was slow moving and beautifully articulated.

Byrd’s Quomodo cantabimus
A year later, Byrd replied to De Monte, sending a copy of his setting of different verses of the same Psalm, Quomodo cantabimus and the choir sang it after the interval. Here there was an unexpected feeling of delight somewhat at odds with the words, as Stewart’s graceful sweeping arm movements delineated scoring that was more complex, dense, interesting (I thought) than De Monte’s. After all, Byrd was a survivor in a hostile climate.

Antoine Brumel was the earliest of the composers featured in the concert (born c. 1460); another of the French-Flemish school. The notes reminded us that he was the composer of the Earthquake Mass performed by The Tudor Consort in 2012. Unlike that important work, for twelve parts, this motet, Lamentatio Heremiae Prophete, was for men’s voices in four parts, which created a very homogeneous, tranquil, constant feeling, a chance to pay attention to the excellence of tenors and basses. I had even jotted the word ‘stately’ in my notebook.

John Mundy’s Lamentations
The last Renaissance piece was John Mundy’s De Lamentatione: a setting of a Latin poem by Jean de Bruges (about whom I can find references to only an engraver and illuminator). After their absence for a few minutes, the high sopranos here particularly pleased me, though the choir’s unvarying evenness, refinement as well as endlessly delightful dynamic and articulation variety again maintained rapt attention through the seamless contrapuntal score.

Finally Douglas Mews’s Ghosts, Fire, Water which I heard sung by Nota Bene in September 2009, and in November 2011 a performance by Voices New Zealand was reviewed in Middle C by Peter Mechen.

This was sung by alto soloist Michelle Harrison in a sort of responsory pattern with the choir. It’s a powerful work set to a poem by James Kirkup, which is an impressively persuasive and vivid evocation of the human catastrophe; yet it almost burdens itself too much with unrelieved anguish and anger (on the other hand, can Hiroshima be considered otherwise than as an utterly unjustifiable atrocity?).

So I concluded that music is the better vehicle for the expression of horror at a crime that words simply lose their ability to handle. The performance was a model of expressiveness and profound emotion while at the same time, of restraint and unambiguity. In this context, the use of spoken words towards the end, instead of music, made the greater impact.

So this was a brilliantly conceived programme, employing examples of traditional Christian music for the major sacrament of the Christian year, book-ended by two of the worst horrors of the 20th century; in wonderfully prepared and executed performances.

 

 

Capable and well-considered performances of Arensky, Rachmaninov and Cherubini by Cantoris and their pianist conductor

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Cantoris Choir conducted by Thomas Nikora
Piano Trio: Thomas Nikora (piano), Vivian Stephens (violin), Lucy Gijsbers (cello)

Rachmaninov: Vespers (‘The All-Night Vigil’), Op 37 – ‘Bogoroditse Devo’
Arensky: Piano Trio No 1 in D minor, Op 32
Cherubini: Requiem in C minor (1816), accompanied by Mark Dorrell (piano)

St Andrew’s on The Terrace

Saturday 8 April, 7:30 pm

In addition to the advertised Requiem by Cherubini, the programme was fleshed out with the most popular movement from Rachmaninov’s Vespers (‘All Night Vigil’), Op 37, and Arensky’s first piano trio.

The Rachmaninov piece is the sixth movement in the 15-movement, hour-long Vespers setting, rather inaccurately called the ‘All-night Vigil’. Bogorovitse Devo (pronounced ‘djevo’) means ‘Rejoice, O Virgin’. It’s a short, gentle piece that introduced the choir in a beautifully quiet, religious spirit, an ideal way to gauge the choir’s ability to control subtle dynamics; the singers were mixed so that the harmonies emerged in a blended manner rather than in distinct blocks according to their registers.

I haven’t heard Rachmaninov’s Vespers in performance for a long time; the last may have been back in 1987 from Maxwell Fernie’s Schola Polyphonica. Perhaps Cantoris could put it on the ‘must do sometime’ list.

(NOTE: I have been reminded that the Orpheus Choir has sung the Vespers twice (at least): in 1997 under Philip Walsh and in 2003 under Andrew Cantrill. I may or may not have heard and reviewed those performances in The Evening Post – my archive is not quite exhaustive enough to be certain.)

Arensky’s Piano Trio became known to Wellingtonians of my generation through performances by the remarkable Turnovsky Trio in the 1990s. (Sam Konise, Christopher Kane and Eugene Albulescu: Konise gave up a highly promising career; cellist Kane died and Albulescu went to the United States, taking up a career as pianist-cum-inspiring-educator).

Arensky was born in 1861, twenty years Tchaikovsky’s junior, four years older than Glazunov and twelve years older than Rachmaninov.

At once these three players (Thomas Nikora – piano, Vivian Stephens – violin, Lucy Gijsbers – cello) captured the essence of this music, rather Tchaikovsky in character, yet strikingly individual. All three found a subdued unanimity quickly, in voices that were warm and legato in the enchanting opening melody, until a somewhat unduly assertive chordal attack by Nikora which disturbed its affinity with violin and cello. Elsewhere however the original balance was maintained, though in the Scherzo Nikora again produced contrasts with his colleagues, particularly in the boisterous runs. In this venue, certain pains need to be taken with the piano’s response.

In all however, this was a most rewarding performance of a gorgeous piece that deserves to be played more than occasionally.

The main work was probably the real attraction: it was for me, as I’d never heard it performed live though I was familiar through my recordings of both this Requiem and Cherubini’s later one for male chorus in D minor.

The choir’s discipline and scrupulousness with balance, tempi and dynamics, demonstrated earlier, bore fruit here. From the start, the choir produced a sound that was not only liturgical in character, but imposing as a somewhat sombre choral work – without solo voices, though sections of the choir were often used in a way that simulated the participation of solo voices. Cherubini was conscious that his commission by the French Restoration Monarch Louis XVIII to mark the anniversary of the deaths of his predecessor Louis XVI and Queen Marie Antoinette, was a serious opportunity. (They were guillotined during the short period of The Reign of Terror (1793-94) during the French Revolution). Beethoven famously thought he was the greatest of his contemporaries and this Requiem was played at Beethoven’s funeral. Though Cherubini, rather a conservative figure (read Berlioz’s Memoirs!), a supporter of the monarchy, had navigated his way safely through the Napoleonic years, life blossomed for him at the Restoration, and this Requiem was an opportunity to make an important gesture: his career blossomed from then on, becoming director of the Paris Conservatoire in 1822.

It is of course a quite splendid work and nothing is more impressive, even exciting, than the Dies Irae; considering the absence of the full orchestra for which Cherubini scored it, with important timpani and gong, this performance did pretty well. Mark Dorrell, a bit of a magician in the task of transforming the sounds of a piano into those of absent instruments, now like a fine string ensemble, now mimicking woodwinds; and in the Dies Irae, even offering something approaching timpani and gong. Though the lack of orchestra is usually a serious matter for any music scored for orchestra, since the majority of an audience is likely to have the sounds of a recording or an earlier full-scale live performance in their ears (even, I like to think, a less familiar work like this), a skilled and imaginative pianist together with an arresting performance by the choir can distract attention from a missing orchestra.

There is great variety in the work: the lively interweaving and the increasing excitement of voices through Hostias was splendid, reminding us, if his large gestures were not visible proof, that Nikora is proving a very capable conductor.   Sobriety was restored in the following Sanctus: staccato, accented and well projected, leading to the end of the Benedictus for the choir to build to a powerful dramatic declamation. Then the gentle melody of the Pie Jesu, passed around the various sections of the choir, might almost have been heard as a pre-echo of Fauré’s.

The Agnus Dei accounted for the last five minutes or so and here the choir moved calmly from arresting passages to those that were deeply elegiac.

If I understood correctly, the choir , following their 2014 trip to New York to sing at Karl Jenkins 70th birthday celebrations in Carnegie Hall, will travel there again later this year, with this Requiem by Cherubini.

There is every sign that the choir will make a fine impression.

No Christmas without “Messiah” – with the Tudor Consort and the NZSO

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

New Zealand Symphony Orchestra presents:
HANDEL: Messiah

New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, Graham Abbott (conductor), with Madeleine Pierard (soprano), Christopher Field (counter-tenor), Henry Choo (tenor), James Clayton (bass), The Tudor Consort (Michael Stewart, Music Director), James Tibbles (harpsichord), Douglas Mews (chamber organ)

Michael Fowler Centre

Saturday, 10 December 2016, 6.30pm

 

This was a remarkable performance, in many ways.  The smaller-than-usual orchestra was matched by a larger-than-usual Tudor Consort in fine voice, and splendid soloists, all directed by Australian Handel specialist Graham Abbott.  Unusually, there were no cuts in the score; all was performed.  ‘Their sound is gone out’, in Part II is usually a chorus.  But this was composed three years after the première; in the first performance it was a tenor solo, and so it was in this performance.  (Thank you, Wikipedia).

An excellent printed programme gave much information, as well as the full libretto.  The biographies of the soloists were marred by a number of minor errors – whether the fault of the singers or the NZSO, they should not have been difficult to correct.  No author was given for the excellent notes, but the subscript ‘Approximately 2 hours’ was certainly a considerable understatement.  Perhaps it was based on performances where some numbers are omitted.  As happens so often, the lighting was too low for much of the audience to read the programme easily.  It is a strange New Zealand custom that I have not met in the UK or other countries.  Programme designers for this type of concert need to bear in mind that a large proportion of the audience is over 55 years of age; it is known that older people need more light to read by.  But in any case, this is not a spectacle like ballet, opera, cinema or plays.  There is no detail on stage needing to be seen.  The printed words are what need to be seen – especially at the $10 price-tag.

This was an approach to an ‘authentic’ (aka historically-informed) performance; the soloists introduced their own flourishes to endings of arias; the string players played in baroque style, with little vibrato (but not authentic instruments or bows), and the high trumpet was used.  Tempi were in the main fairly fast compared with what was usual 30+ years ago.

At first I was doubtful of the capacity of a small orchestra and relatively small choir (39 singers) to produce an authentic performance in a huge auditorium such as Handel would not have dreamt of for his oratorio’s initial production in Dublin (in a hall that, at a squeeze, accommodated 700), but I was wrong.  The placement of the choir behind the orchestra, where its sound resonated off the wooden panelling behind provided a more than adequate, accurate sound, for the most part.

The orchestra, too, created a sound that was readily heard, whether forte or pianissimo.  It was led by recently appointed Yuka Eguchi, Assistant Concertmaster.  The opening number, the gorgeous Sinfonia, gave the orchestra a chance to prove its lovely tone, with crisp oboes to the fore; the pace was not too fast.

The choir is really the principal performer in this work; how much of the finished product  was due to Graham Abbott and how much to the choir’s Music Director we cannot tell, but certainly what was produced was accurate, mellifluous, alert, flexible and very pleasing on the ear.

The soloists were a very even bunch (was it because most of them, and the conductor, were Australians?).  Henry Choo was first to be heard. He is a very accomplished singer, although not the most beautiful tenor I have heard in this work.  However, he has superb control and shaping of phrases and runs,  His embellishments at the end of ‘Every valley’ were wondrous.

The choir’s entry of ‘And the glory’ seemed a little understated, but it soon proved that it has plenty of volume, especially the men.  The clarity of words matched that of Henry Choo.  Accuracy was assured; throughout the performance only a few consonants were out of place, and intonation was always spot on.

Bass James Clayton in his declamation ‘Thus saith the Lord’ let us have it, in a robust reading.  His runs were well-articulated, and his words were exemplary.

It was a little surprise to hear the alto solos sung by a counter-tenor.  I find that Handel’s first performances in 1742 had a woman alto soloist; the first use of a male alto was in 1750.  Christopher Field has a fine voice and technique, and his flourishes in his recitatives and arias were remarkable, but his lower notes often disappeared.  He excelled in ‘O thou that tellest’; he had great breath control throughout the aria, taken at a fairly fast tempo.  The chorus section of this was bright and punchy.

The choir was notable in the tricky ‘And he shall purify’; the ensemble was salutary, making for an admirable rendition.  There was no muddiness despite the slick pace, and attacks and cut-offs were absolutely together.  However, here and elsewhere there was too much ‘thuh’ instead of the mute ‘e’ of ‘the’ in normal speech.

Throughout, the orchestra was simply top-class, not least in the lovely Pifa (Pastoral) movement for orchestra alone.  It was followed by the first appearance of Madeleine Pierard, who declaimed with great clarity the recitatives leading to the choir’s ‘Glory to God’, in which the brass instruments are first used – they made their mark.

‘Rejoice greatly’ went at quite a lick; Pierard’s decorations were sublime.  The harpsichord was notable in this aria; I hadn’t always heard it earlier, but there were no violas or organ in this number.  The counter-tenor’s return with the recitative ‘Then shall the eyes of the blind be opened’ revealed the singer’s expressive singing giving the words meaning.  The soprano part of ‘He shall feed his flock’ came as a bit of a shock because of the contrast..  Both singers have incisive but beautiful voices.  Pierard exhibited great control as she sang high notes in a delicate pianissimo.

The choir sang ‘His yoke is easy’ at a cracking pace to end the first part.  Consonants were clear, and accuracy was maintained.  The opening chorus of the second part, ‘Behold the Lamb of God’ surprised me, since the interpretation involved no double-dotting of the rhythm, as had become customary.  This was a beautifully smooth performance; throughout the work, there was admirable contrast between punchy, staccato choral movements and others that were legato.  The choir’s next chorus, ‘Surely he hath borne our griefs’ was an example of the former style.  Then ‘And with his stripes’ reverted, in contrast, to legato, followed by staccato ‘All we like sheep’ with its musical word-painting, and legato ‘And the Lord hath laid on Him’.

Before these, ‘He was despised’, a favourite alto aria, was sung well apart from one or two ugly notes, and a rather unattractive habit of the soloist bending his knees while singing.  There was a wonderful high note in his final embellishment.

The tricky chorus ‘He trusted in God’  had some ‘s’s that happened before they should have, but this is nit-picking; the singing was excellent.  The contrast of tenor recitative ‘Thy rebuke has broken his heart’ was made meaningful by its very slow tempo.  ’Behold and see’ revealed a lovely tone from Henry Choo, followed by ‘He was cut off out of the land of the living’.  Here, as elsewhere, Andrew Joyce (cello) and James Tibbles (harpsichord) were busy providing the continuo – though unlike other baroque composers, Handel frequently used other instruments to accompany recitatives.  Singing again in ‘But Thou didst not leave his soul in hell’, Choo expressed the words clearly and phrased the music intelligently.

One word describes the  chorus ‘Lift up your heads’: splendid!  ‘Let all the angels of God’ is a chorus I had never sung, or heard – it is usually cut, likewise the very florid alto aria ‘Thou art gone up on high’.  In ‘The Lord gave the word’, great was the singing of the chorus.

Another favourite soprano aria, ‘How beautiful are the feet’ followed.  How beautiful is the voice of the one who sang it.  ‘Their sound is gone out’ was slow but strong from the tenor, followed by the rousing ‘Why do the nations’, in which James Clayton was in his element with excellent vigour and clarity. These characteristics persisted in the next tenor recitative and the aria ‘Thou shalt break them’.  Part II concludes with choral music’s most celebrated chorus: Hallelujah’.  Following tradition, the audience took to its feet (but I did not, due to a current infirmity).  It was rendered brilliantly.

The pinnacle of all the solos is probably ‘I know that my redeemer liveth’, and Pierard gave  rich, controlled performance – one out of the box.  The soft notes were exquisite.  The following chorus ‘Since by man came death’, with its contrasts of quiet phrases and  contrasting excitement of ‘…even so in Christ shall all be made alive’ was spectacular.  The choir’s uniform timbre owes a lot to the careful discipline of every singer making the vowels in the same way.

Another highlight is the aria ‘The trumpet shall sound’.  Clayton was in fine form.  The high trumpet was splendidly played by Cheryl Hollinger; it was relatively legato playing, and she only required back-up on a couple of notes.  The only vocal duet in the work ‘O death, where is they sting’ was pleasingly sung by alto and tenor, followed by a good outing for ‘But thanks be to God’ (it is often omitted).

Another less familiar aria ‘If God be for us’ was superbly sung by Pierard, with ethereal high notes.  Finally, the glorious chorus ‘Worthy is the Lamb’ and ‘Amen’.  It was accurate and lively despite coming after much singing and playing.  The two trumpets and timpani brought a jubilant end.  What a magnificent conclusion to a long work!  What a great variety of wonderful music Handel wrote in this masterwork!

All praise to choir, orchestra, conductor and soloists.  The audience’s enthusiastic response was well deserved.

Capital Choir reveals musical values with fine performance of Donizetti’s Requiem

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Donizetti: Messa da Requiem

Capital Choir, conducted by Sue Robinson, with Pasquale Orchard (soprano), Maaike Christie-Beekman (mezzo), Jamie Young (tenor), Simon Christie (bass-baritone), Rhys Cocker (bass), Belinda Behle (piano)

Sacred Heart Cathedral

Sunday, 13 November  2016, 3pm

For an ‘all-comers’ choir, Capital Choir has achieved an enviable level of expertise, adventurousness and commitment.

Under Sue Robinson, the choir demonstrated a considerable range of choral skills and abilities.  The various parts all made a good sound most of the time.  There were many quiet passages in which the choir exhibited a lovely tone.  But there were others where things threatened almost to fall apart, especially among the men, and others where the high soprano tone was too screechy.  Tenors were strong, with pleasing tone.

Throughout, the choir showed its variety and control of dynamics; words were for the most part clear.  The main problem was the tendency, not uncommon in amateur choirs, to sing slightly under the note much of the time, especially when singing in higher registers.  Another common fault was rushing to the letter ‘s’ at the ends of words, and not giving the preceding vowels their full value.  However, timing and rhythm were both strong attributes.

The work is not well-known nor widely performed.  The internet informs me that “Donizetti wrote this piece for chorus, orchestra and five soloists, with the male singers getting the bulk of the work. Though Donizetti includes distinct arias, such as the tenor’s Ingemisco, he also alternates chorus and solo voices in a very operatic manner. Also operatic is his use of the soloists in ensemble.”

These comments were certainly borne out.  The Requiem was unlike that of Verdi, in that there were few long choruses, and there were many solos and ensembles interspersed.  However, the many dramatic passages put one in mind of the later composer.

After the opening movements, the ‘Tuba mirum’ revealed signs of strain from the choir, however, the splendid soloists then gave them a rest. The male trio in this movement included difficult chromatic music, but it was mainly steady, and the voices were strong.  The following ‘Judex ergo’ featured bass and tenor.  Their voices were well matched, making for a very pleasing duet. ‘Rex tremendae’ was very operatic, while in ‘Recordare’, the featured solo soprano was Pasquale Orchard (quite a challenge after her splendid solo singing in the Orpheus Choir’s concert the previous evening.  She was later joined by chorus and solo bass.

The tenor solo in ‘Ingemisco’ was very fine.  Subsequent movements made for pleasant, if not riveting, listening, interspersed as they were with solos and chorus singing, much of an operatic character.  The pace of ‘Praeces meae’ was not managed very well, but this movement again featured superb solo singing.

Rhys Cocker had the largest solo role throughout the work, but all the soloists acquitted themselves well.  Maaike Christie-Beekman was superb, as ever.  Pasquale Orchard had a relatively small role, and performed it well; Jamie Young’s tenor was strong, and he infused his singing with fervour and drama.  Simon Christie had less to do, and much of that was in ensembles.  Cocker’s singing was at times very expressive, and he had some gorgeous sustained notes, although there were other times when he needed to vary the colours in the voice more.

The ‘Libera me Domine’ was rather weak – perhaps the choir was tiring by this time, although the entire concert was less than an hour-and-a-half long.  It ended strongly with final chorus and solos in ‘Kyrie eleison’.

It was a shame not to have the sound-colours that an orchestra would have brought to the performance.  Cost would preclude this, but use of the organ would have been a good substitute; while Belinda Behle’s work on the piano was immaculate, it did not contribute the desirable variety.

One could not say that the work was an undiscovered masterpiece, but it has many splendid and beautiful moments.  My companion and I decided it was probably one of those works that was more fun to sing than to listen to.  The church was well-filled with an appreciative audience.

Highly diverting Orpheus Choir mixes seasonal Haydn with animals and cloudbursts

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

The Orpheus Choir conducted by Brent Stewart with Thomas Nikora (piano) and Michael Fletcher (organ) 
A concert aimed to take full advantage of the Cathedral’s acoustic.

Programme included: Kondalilla by Stephen Leek
Selections from Haydn’s The Seasons
Cloudburst and Lux Aurumque by Eric Whitacre
Dirait-on by Morten Lauridsen (in place of the earlier announced Missa Gaia {Mass for the Earth} by Libby Larsen)

Wellington Cathedral of Saint Paul

Saturday 12 November, 7:30 pm

What is detailed above, as well as a statement that further details would be announced, is the information about this concert we had received and had filed in our Coming Events, but no ‘further details’ arrived: no soloists named, no organist or piano accompanist; not even the name of the conductor, though one knew that.

As we entered, we were handed a folded A4 page with the greeting – “just the words” and adding, “there is no programme”. That was a rather unfortunate omission; there may have been a sound reason for it, such as the imminence of a major earthquake, or the recent election in the Northern Hemisphere, but….

Not only am I a strong advocate of printed programmes, preferably of modest, non-luxurious design and cost, but I also think it’s important that they are free, as the notes in a programme are one of the few means by which a now poorly musically-educated public can improve their ability to recognise the difference between Palestrina and Puccini.

Conductor Brent Stewart did speak about the music and the performers, but without proper amplification, much of what he said was hard to grasp, especially beyond about six rows from the front (there was a pretty full cathedral).

Kondalilla
However, the concert began propitiously, men streaming in to stand across the front of the Choir while women filed up the north aisle to the west end. One became aware of a low murmur, initially mistaken for the heavy rain, but slowly growing to create the expectant sound of a big audience awaiting the start of an exciting performance. That was the way it worked for me, and I forgot the no-programme matter, to be won over by this ‘special occasion’ atmosphere.

Stephen Leek’s Kondalilla depicts the spirit of a waterfall in south-eastern Queensland. There was an arresting multiplicity of motifs, harmonies, chaotic or inchoate from the men, mainly, which slowly died away on a rising fourth. Then a new feminine sound arrived, birds, the sounds of wind instruments.

Lighting was an important element, mainly trained on the pillars on either side of the choir.

Haydn’s The Seasons
Lighting was used to characterise the seasons in the following performance of selections from Haydn’s oratorio on that subject. The Spring cantata was celebrated with a lightish pink which echoed the charming, dotted rhythms of the first Chorus of Country People.

Though Haydn had set the German text, we heard an English translation by Margaret Bosden and Barbara Cook; English has some claim on the work as Baron von Swieten (probably a friend of Mozart more than Haydn) based his text on James Thomson’s poem, The Seasons, and after Haydn’s composition was finished he did a translation back into English as the composer wanted it to be accessible in both languages.

The work was of course composed for the normal classical orchestra, but here the cathedral organ stood in; though Michael Fletcher (Director of Music at the Cathedral of the Sacred Heart) handled the registrations imaginatively, the fact that the work employs colourful orchestral sounds to accompany the moods of the seasons, seemed to make rather special demands. Demands that, it seemed to me, are more easily met by many human beings on many instruments than through the fairly inflexible mechanical sounds from an organ, no matter how versatile it or the player is.

The big choir was well balanced and produced sounds of vitality and elasticity, dividing between men and women, occasional duets, while the soprano soloist here, and at various later stages, produced luminous and interesting seasonal portrayal. In the Summer cantata light became a warm white for the word painting of a summer landscape and a joyous trio of voices created a sense of peace; until the organ interrupted with a lightning flash of a descending scale announcing a summer electrical storm in which the choir and conductor generated plenty of visual and sonic drama.

Other singers took a variety of solo roles; without names I could not identify them, but these were the names of the Orpheus Scholars that I was given later: Alex Gandionco, Alexandra Woodhouse-Appleby, Karishma Thanawala, Pasquale Orchard, plus a non-Orpheus Scholar bass, Minto Fung.

After a solo and chorus from Autumn and the chilly, drifting Introduction and recitative from Winter, the choir returned to Spring for a suitably apostrophe to God.

After the interval, the music returned to pieces by prominent American choral composers, Eric Whitacre (again) and Morten Lauridsen.

Lauridsen
Lauridsen’s ‘Dirait-on’, the poem, one of the five of Rilke’s Les Chansons des Roses.  (Did Rilke write much in French?). The setting is one of the signs of the growing rejection of abrasive, alienating music that has driven audiences away in recent decades: there are curious sounds of pop styles, sentimental but not cheap. And the performance sustained those characteristics with enthusiasm and enjoyment.

Whitacre’s Lux aurumque and Animal Crackers
First Lux aurumque (‘light and gold’), which Edward Esch had written in English. When he showed it to Whitacre, the latter asked Charles Silvestri to translate it into Latin as Whitacre likes the sounds of Latin (so do I). Inevitably, Latinists have criticised it for not being quite the way Virgil or Horace would have written it.

The choir split up allowing the soprano voices slowly to fill the big space, pinned by a long-held soprano ‘pedal’ note (if that’s not a sort of oxymoron). Very evocative, emotionally involving, accompanied by Thomas Nikora on the piano.

Eric Whitacre returned with his famous Animal Crackers to Ogden Nash’s Carnival of the Animals-style verses E.g. ‘The cow is of the bovine ilk / One end is moo, the other milk’. There was laughter.

Cloudburst
And the concert ended with another Whitacre venture into foreign language – Spanish poet Octavio Paz’ El cantaro roto (‘The broken water-jar’), which Whitacre called ‘Cloudburst’. Programme notes might well have explained some of these matters. Distinguished Mexican poet, Paz, by the way, is characterised in Wikipedia: “He is considered by many as one of the most influential writers of the 20th century and one of the greatest poets of all time.” Quite a statement!

There were long-held pedal notes, prolonged, underlying murmuring, dense harmonic clusters, sprechstimme interventions,  heavy breathing, little chimes from hand-bells, accompanied later by enigmatic revolving and gesturing hand movements, finger-clicking by the choir members; bass drum, other percussive effects and some piano offerings as the music dies away. One can understand how it and Whitacre’s music in general has swept the choral world!