Tag: choral

Rutter’s Magnificat given impressive treatment by Wellington’s Capital Choir

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Capital Choir – Magnificat by John Rutter
Plus carols, traditional songs, organ pieces by Dubois and Guilmant, and a Telemann flute sonata

Conductor: Felicia Edgecombe; organ: Janet Gibbs; piano – Robyn Jaquiery; flutes: Elizabeth Langham and Megan Brownlie; Soprano soloist Belinda Maclean

Cathedral of the Sacred Heart, Hill Street

Sunday 2 December, 4pm

This concert was in part a fund-raiser by an unauditioned choir, to mark Christmas and the end of the year. It was brave to have tackled a fairly sophisticated contemporary work, though not written in an avant-garde style which an amateur choir would have difficulty making musical sense of. Nevertheless, there were challenges in Rutter’s rhythms and harmony, in control of dynamics and other interpretive aspects that would have demanded a great deal of rehearsal.

But to start at the beginning: the first half was devoted to carols and a couple of other pieces. One of the latter was the droll setting of Little Jack Horner, sung as a round, in crisp accents. Its origin was not revealed; I have a feeling Philip Norman wrote it. A number of carols followed: Rutter’s Shepherd’s Pipe Carol involving a delightful flute obbligato from Elizabeth Langham; Silent Night with soloists Belinda Maclean, Susan Hamilton and Sally Chapman, all drawn from the choir; the lovely Poverty Carol, a touching, traditional Welsh carol; Sweet Little Jesus Boy which involved a splendid introductory solo by bass Rhys Cocker; and finally O Little Town of Bethlehem in the charming traditional setting, again with Cocker as soloist.

A song setting arranged in mock-bluesy style by Bob Chilcott, The Gift, was too saccharine for my taste.

In between, organist Janet Gibbs whose accompaniments had been heard for some of the pieces, played music by French 19th century organ composers Dubois (Chant pastoral) and Guilmant (Invocation); and flutists Elizabeth Langham and Megan Brownlie played a flute sonata by Telemann. Other accompaniments were imaginatively supported by pianist Robyn Jaquiery.

The Magnificat is one of the earliest Christian hymns to Mary and has been set by scores of composers. It has been traditional to introduce other material into the work and Rutter follows that example, principally with his setting of the anonymous 15th century poem Of a rose, a lovely rose which provides an opportunity for contrasting musical emotions and characters, mostly reflecting the joyous and optimistic interpretation that Rutter invests the central Latin text with. A part of the Sanctus from the Latin Mass is found in the Quia fecit mihi magna, and an entire epilogue section, Gloria Patri and Sancta Maria, after the Esurientes.

There are passages, for example in the first section, Magnificat anima mea, quoting a Gregorian chant and again in the final Sancta Maria. Soprano soloist, Belinda Maclean, gave the Et misericordia – the words repeated several times to the enchanting melody – a distinct secular quality. Her later solo passages, in the Esurientes and Sancta Maria, were further chances to enjoy her vocal gifts.

While Rutter’s Magnificat has an interesting orchestral accompaniment, Janet Gibbs on the Cathedral’s main organ fulfilled the role with a keen sensitivity to the colours and instrumental indications in the score.

An amateur performance this might have been, but the results of dedicated work by Felicia Edgecombe, her choir and soloists, and instrumental collaborators gave this attractive and rewarding choral work a highly impressive and satisfying exposure.

 

Bach Choir brings its 2012 to a splendid conclusion with Vivaldi, Handel and a trumpet

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

The Bach Choir conducted by Stephen Rowley with soloists Rebekah Giesbere, Ruth Armishaw, Hannah Catrin Jones, John Beaglehole and Rory Sweeney
Janet Gibbs – organ

Beatus Vir, RV 597 (Vivaldi)
Trumpet Concerto in E flat (Neruda) with Mark Carter – trumpet
Dixit Dominus (Handel)

St Peter’s Church, Willis Street

Sunday 25 November, 4pm

The Bach Choir is one of Wellington’s more distinguished choirs, founded in 1968 by the late Anthony Jennings, a notable harpsichordist and one of New Zealand’s leaders  in the revival of interest in the authentic performance of baroque and early music.

Though the choir’s fortunes have fluctuated over the years, it has experienced a steady improvement in performance standards and confidence under Stephen Rowley.

Vivaldi’s transition from a minor, one-piece composer (The Four Seasons) who was generally absent from the ranks of significant composers (look at any book of music history from before the second world war, even 1950), to a major eminence alongside Bach and Handel has been interesting. His surviving operas have been the most recent discoveries. It was probably Vivaldi’s melodic fecundity and resultant absence of the need to elaborate endlessly one or two hard-won tunes, that caused earlier generations to deprecate and dismiss him.

I had not heard this Beatus Vir before; the earlier of his two surviving settings.  A famous Beatus Vir was one of the first pieces of early Baroque music I ever heard, in my teens – the setting by Monteverdi. And I seemed to hear echoes of it in Vivaldi’s version of a century later.  Vivaldi sets the text (Psalm 111) taking care to reflect meanings, almost of every word, and the use of individual singers, soprano and alto (Rebekah Giesbers and Hannah Catrin Jones) at first and then tenor John Beaglehole, lent the rather severe imprecation of the Psalm brightness and delight.

One of the departures from the strict liturgical character is the repetition of the opening line, imposing a musical rather than an ecclesiastical character on the work, The polish of the orchestral accompaniment from the Chiesa Ensemble comprising NZSO players, lend the whole enterprise a professionalism which the choir readily took upon itself; oboes contributed elegantly in accompanying women’s solos and duets; and Janet Gibbs, largely unobtrusive, emerged occasionally as the principal accompaniment.

But the most striking feature of the performance was that sheer melodic ease that both choir and orchestra handled with such endless accomplishment.

A trumpet concerto completed the first half of the concert: a rarity by a Czech composer, Johann Baptist Neruda, born a generation after Vivaldi, Bach and Handel, proved rather more than a routine baroque concerto. The soloist, Mark Carter, made no concessions to baroque practice, playing a modern, valved instrument; though, probably in accord with the practice of the time, he also directed the orchestra, waving his trumpet about gracefully.  Trumpet and orchestra bloomed in the fine acoustic of the church, allowing the easy legato of the Largo movement to expand, and taking the last movement, marked Vivace, at a pace that was rather slower than that. Though the first movement offered bravura opportunities, it was in the cadenza towards the end that Carter’s fluency finally showed itself. The endless emerging of music by forgotten composers and of lost works by better-known ones, serves to blur age-old judgements about the received masterpieces of the handful of ‘famous’ composers who have dominated music history for several centuries.

Confirmation that such things as masterpieces can still be acknowledged came with Handel’s Dixit Dominus, which occupied the second half. This remains undisputedly a prodigious creation by the 22-year-old composer from his Italian years. Written in Rome while the famous Papal ban on opera was in effect, all of Handel’s dramatic gifts are heard in the Dixit Dominus (Psalm 109); it is marked by one of the most dramatic openings, at least of the baroque period.
It was an arresting start signalling the great opera composer who was to emerge as soon as he reached a more congenial climate – Florence.

The three soloists who had shared the Vivaldi were now joined by soprano Ruth Armishaw  and baritone Rory Sweeney, for a  variety of episodes; alto Rebekah Giesbers enjoyed a striking episode with cello obbligato in the ‘Virgam virtutis’; the fast chorus ‘Tu es sacerdos’ went very well, though sopranos sounded a bit stretched as they negotiated the high passages; when all soloists sang together with chorus, as in (vi), ‘Dominus a dextris tuis’, the similarity of timbre between tenor and nominal bass, Rory Sweeney, somewhat reduced the variety that is a significant aspect of Handel’s composition; but this taxing episode for all soloists against throbbing bass strings they carried off splendidly.

‘Judicabit in nationibus’, in which Handel displays his fugal skills, was probably more tricky that it appeared; it’s little wonder, listening to this, particularly the exciting, staccato passage from ‘Conquassabit…’, that he had so quickly made a big impression in the Roman musical world. The two sopranos promptly changed the tone in ‘De torrente’ capturing beautifully the lamenting character of the verse. The soloists’ diction was generally excellent, while that of the choir was uniformly clear, even though they were probably tiring in the pulsating, motoric rhythm of the Gloria that becomes an extended fugue as it moves to its exultant conclusion.

Though both the works of the first half of the concert are very fine, and so well performed as to display their best qualities, this early Handel masterpiece was a splendid way to end the Bach Choir’s year.

 

Kapiti Chamber Choir offers antidote to Christmas commercialisation

Posted on by Mary Singleton

Joyous Christmas Music
Christmas Oratorio by J S Bach

The Kapiti Chamber Choir with Orchestra directed by Stuart Douglas

Soloists: Imogen Thirlwall – soprano, Emily Simcox – contralto, James Adams – tenor, Kieran Rayner – bass
With a 20 piece Orchestra led by Jay Hancox.

St Paul’s Church, Kapiti Road, Paraparaumu

Sunday 25 November, 2.30pm

Praise be to Stuart Douglas and the Kapiti Chamber Choir for giving Kapiti residents the opportunity to hear arguably the best Christmas music ever written, Bach’s Christmas Oratorio. Accompanied by an excellent orchestral ensemble they gave an enormously joyful performance from the first thrilling trumpet notes of Andrew Weir’s piccolo trumpet to the full bodied final chorale. They were obviously in the hands of a conductor with a great sense of musicality and style.This performance was not just a series of arias and chorales but a thoroughly integrated dramatic event.

The Orchestra, led by Jay Hancox, was a mixture of capable amateur and professional players, many of whom are Kapiti residents. Their playing was vibrant and exciting though just occasionally a little too heavy for the bass and contralto soloists in their lower registers. The instrumental obbligatos, virtually duets with the solo singers, were sensitively performed by Andrew Weir on trumpet, Peter Dykes on oboe and Malu Jonas on flute, all of whom gave thoroughly professional performances.

Douglas’s choice of the four young soloists was excellent. They all sang beautifully and were able to convey the full drama of the Nativity story. Soprano Imogen Thirlwall has performed several times in Kapiti and her rich and powerful soprano soared easily above everything the Orchestra threw at her. Emily Simcox, contralto, who has previously performed with the Kapiti Chorale, has a voice  of great warmth and tenderness which she combines with a riveting presence.

As the Evangelist tenor James Adams proved himself a true story-teller, singing with drama and communicating well with the audience. Bass Kieran Rayner has been singing in Kapiti since he was very young and showed the increasing maturity and depth of his voice. His well-known acting skills were well to the fore in his exciting presentation.

The choir performed Bach’s very demanding score with vigour and precision, providing a big sound when necessary but also great delicacy in the unaccompanied chorale Ich steh an deiner Krippen hier. The usual lack of strength in the tenor section, due to lack of tenors, did not seriously detract from this uplifting performance. The soprano section was notably excellent.

With judicious cutting of the original score by Douglas we were given a full two hours of glorious music – a wonderful antidote to the crass commercialisation of the season. As I was leaving an audience member said to me “I feel so much better for that”.

 

The Tudor Consort in taxing but excellent concert from the Renaissance and Messiaen

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

The Tudor Consort conducted by Michael Stewart

Renaissance Influences V – Springtime

Music by Claude Le Jeune, Claudin Sermisy and Olivier Messiaen

St Andrew’s on The Terrace

Saturday 24 November, 7.30pm

The last of the series of concerts from The Tudor Consort that sought connections between music of the Renaissance and the present gave rise to the most recondite relationship with links that drew together the medieval story of Tristram and Iseult (as it is in Matthew Arnold’s narrative poem), and a little known work of Messiaen, Cinq rechants (‘five refrains’) for 12 unaccompanied singers.

The Cinq rechants form the third part of a strange trilogy that Messiaen composed after world war 2. The first is an hour-and-a-half-long set of poems called Harawi for soprano and piano; the second part is the Turangalîla Symphony, and Cinq rechants is the third. They are all inspired by/derived from the Tristan and Isolde story.

Its most authentic early form of the Tristan story is found in the German poem by Gottfried von Strassburg of around 1200. It was included by Malory in his Le Morte d’Arthur (though it is not, of course, strictly part of the Arthurian legends) in the 15th century and hence is found in Tennyson’s version of Malory’s poem, in his Idylls of the King.

It would be hard to identify any musical connection between the legend and Messiaen’s composition, though there are verbal references to Brangaine and Yseult in the first of the five poems which Messiaen wrote, partly in a made-up language devised for onomatopoeic reasons.

What then is the connection with the 16th century French Calvinist composer, Claude Le Jeune? The Tristan story and Le Jeune’s Spring theme were linked through Messiaen.   Le Jeune wrote 33 ‘airs’ and six more extended chansons, with the title Le Printemps. We heard five of the latter: ‘Revecy venir du Printems [Printans]’, ‘Voicy du gay Printems’, ‘Chant de l’Allouette’, ‘O Rose reyne des fleurs’, ‘Le Chant du Rossignol’.

Messiaen knew them and was influenced by Le Jeune’s technique of somewhat rigidly echoing stressed syllables in the text with long notes in the music. While this offers sensitive treatment of the meaning of the Old French (of benefit to very few of the audience I imagine), it made rhythms irregular; combined with a melodic penchant that paid more attention to meaning than to lyrical beauty, the results were interesting rather than beguiling.

Thus their performance was not an easy task and the choir displayed singular accomplishment in making them so musical, especially those singers who occasionally took passages by themselves.

The choir also sang a chanson, ‘Au joli bois’ by Claudin Sermisy, who was thirty years Le Jeune’s senior. It was in a much more familiar polyphonic style, Italianate perhaps; the wood might have been beautiful but the singer was grief-striken, not that the spirit of the music or the singing gave that away.

Then, before the interval came the five Messiaen songs. The first began in deceptive calm from women’s voices while the men disturb it, singing pseudo-Hindi words. They continue making use of linguistic, poetic devices that have, for Messiaen, musical equivalences that vary in their effects as the listener grasps or fails to grasp what he is seeking. There is nothing simple in the music; one was often overwhelmed by the virtuosity exhibited by the choir, and wondered that so few hints of imperfection appeared.

For all the difficulties presented for the singers and the listeners, earlier and later hearings, even if only of bits of the cycle such as are found on You-Tube, begin to cohere musically, and encourage one to explore more of the less-known works of this extraordinary composer.

The Tudor Consort continues to offer Wellington wonderful opportunities to enlarge and deepen (if such a flawed metaphor is allowed) our musical horizons.

 

 

Gospel Truth – great singing from Gale Force Gospel Choir

Posted on by Peter Mechen

COLOURS OF FUTUNA – Concert Series

Gale Force Gospel Choir

Carol Shortis (conductor)

Futuna Chapel,

Friend St., Karori

Sunday 4th November, 2012

In a world where hype of all kinds relating to every sphere of activity seems to be piped into our houses with our drinking water, it’s refreshing (ha!) to encounter publicity for an event that turns out to be nothing but gospel truth – announcing this concert by the Gale Force Gospel Choir at Karori’s Futuna Chapel, the blurb read, “……a non-stop blast of foot-stompin’ mad-clappin’ gospel classics that will have you joining in before you know it..” Exactly so, and in the interests of maximum impact I could dramatize further by announcing that I was “throwing down my cyper-pen because that was all that needed to be said!”.

However, such was the pleasure afforded by this  cheek-by-jowl experience, It’s entirely fitting that I relive a few impressions in order to bask in the resonance of the occasion a little more, and perhaps encourage those who didn’t attend to seek out any subsequent occasions at which this group is performing and get similarly caught up with it all.

One of the things that gave the concert real distinction was the venue. Futuna Chapel, situated in Karori, was known to me from times past in an entirely different context, as a place of worship and spiritual retreat. My own experience was a “once-been-there-never forgotten” three-day residence while a callow, 1960s schoolboy, at what I thought at the time was this (still) magnificent place. The chapel, designed by the architect John Scott, and acclaimed in its day and since, has fortunately survived the ravages of time and greed intact, and is now available for our pleasure as a concert venue. The building enjoys protection as a Category 1 Historic Site, but the once-beautiful surroundings, which incorporated a good deal of native bush, have unfortunately been taken over and, for me, besmirched by “development” of the usual rapacious kind we’ve unfortunately come to expect these days. One gets an impression of individual housing units mercilessly jammed together for what imagines would have been maximum financial return for the developers.

Inside the chapel one is fortunately able to leave behind any such temporal preoccupations, and allow oneself to be transported into another world, in which light and colour play an integral part. I thought that the space seemed one in which almost any chamber-like performance of anything would bloom, through taking on the air, space and light of the ambience. Its character seemed at once abstract and personable, austere and warm. We could as well have gathered waiting for a string quartet to emerge to give us a performance of Bach’s “The Art of Fugue”, or for an actor to take the stage and read to us TS Eliot’s Four Quartets, as much as welcome the performers of the Gospel Songs we were expecting.

To begin the program conductor Carol Shortis brought different sections of her choir into the space antiphonally, making for a “surround” effect which enclosed us in a continually-changing sea of sound-hues, caused by the different harmonic strands keeping on the move until the altar-steps were reached. The choir’s singing of Way By and By while congregating on these steps, plus the backdrop of colour as the sun activated the stained-glass windows made a wonderful show of sight and sound.

All of the songs were taught to the group by Auckland composer and arranger Tony Backhouse, whose deployment of the rhythms and harmonic strands among parts of the group made for ear-catching effects in places. Carol Shortis welcomed us to the concert before setting the following I’m Glad to be in the Service, a song with real Gospel swing, one whose beautifully-harmonised control was allied to the kind of spontaneous outpouring of energy which made it sound as though its performers were truly imbued with the “spirit”, and , at the song’s end, unwilling to let go. An old slave-song Steal Away was no less heartfelt, the first unison note flowering into closely-knit harmonies, and opening into an almost militant middle section with the words “My Lord, He calls me on the Thunder”. Only slight lapses of tuning towards the softly-sung ending served to demonstrate to us the difficulty of some of this repertoire.

 

Keep so busy praisin’ my Jesus was begin by the men’s voices, the women lifting the song harmonically upwards to exciting effect, with plenty of dynamic variation in places like “If I don’t praise Him the rock’s gonna cry out!”. I’ve been in the Storm too long was another slave song, this one harmonically adventurous to the point of discomfiture in places, with disconcerting key-shifts capturing some of the raw desperation of the slaves’ plight. Some relief was afforded us with Ezekiel saw a Wheel, the tenors enjoying their downward glissandi on the word “Wheel”, and also with the following Joshua fit the Battle of Jericho, a song which dynamically ranged from opening whispers to great maestoso-like utterances, and a spectacular chromatic descent on the final “down”.

 

The catchy “ba-dum – ba-dum” rhythms of That’s All Right  used an arrangement by Stephen Taberner, a Melbourne-based Kiwi choirleader, one which nicely varied the “dynamics” of interaction between the different voices. More wayward was Nobody’s Fault But Mine, the concert’s final listed item, and one that featured three solo voices from the choir, the first of which was particularly outstanding, confident, true-toned and stylish! To our delight, we were treated to a brief reprise of this first voice at the end, a solo line answered by the full choir. In between times there were lines, counter-lines, clapping and minimalist-like repetitions, the rhythmic and melodic patternings of which seemed to move everybody’s spirit as one – then, to finish the concert Carol Shortis taught us, the audience, some of the patterns of the very first song, Way BY and By, so we could then join in with the choir’s encore – it was a great way to finish the concert and sent us all babbling happily out into the sunlight, thoroughly energized by what we’d heard – Gospel truth!

 

Futuna Chapel and Alliance Française inspire an attractive French women’s choir

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

‘Beau Soir’: a programme of French and New Zealand music and poems

L’Alliance Française Women’s Choir: Voix de femmes, Janey MacKenzie (piano and voice), Madeleine Dean (poetry reading), Brigid O’Meeghan (cello), Julie Coulson (piano and choir), Marie Brown (conductor)

Futuna Chapel, Karori

Friday 2 November 2012, 6.30pm

O Futuna!  But this concert was not Orff in any sense of the word.  Despite comparatively little publicity that I was aware of, the chapel, its coloured glass radiating beautifully onto the concrete walls as the sun shone intermittently, was full.  The choir of 14 singers (unnamed), and others, gratified the audience with a varied range of music.

A variety of French music was to be expected; the introduction of a couple of New Zealand compositions was an added bonus.

The concert, the choir’s second only since its formation, began with Fauré; first a hymn, Maria, Mater gratiae, which was followed by a short mass: Messe des pêcheurs de Villerville.  This was written, so Marie Brown told us in one of her clear and excellent introductions, with André Messager, Fauré’s friend and former pupil, with whom he collaborated on other works.  They wrote it to raise money for a charitable purpose, while on holiday in 1881.  It appears that there were several versions of this mass, which is titled Messe basse in Grove.  The first version calls for a harmonium, while the last is set for organ accompaniment, without the movements by Messager.  Perhaps the electronic organ in the chapel is not functional; the accompaniment we heard was on digital piano.

The choir made a very good sound and produced a pure tone, but the acoustic at Futuna shows up even slight lapses of intonation, of which there were a number in the hymn; the mass fared better.  The words were very clear and precise – although a little more care is needed in the pronunciation of the back ‘e’, as in ‘Christe eleison’.

There was a beautiful blend of voices, especially in the lower-pitched sections.  Unison sections were unanimous.  The ‘O salutaris’ movement was particularly beautiful, and there was a nice variety of styles between the movements, both in their composition and in how they were performed.

A Baudelaire poem was recited next: Élévation.  The English translation was printed, with that of the other poem, on a separate sheet.  It was read deliciously by Madeleine Dean, who stepped in at very short notice when the original reader became ill.  The translation guided non-speakers of French through beautiful English to the idea of the elevated soul soaring above the sorrows and pollutants of life.

Two Debussy songs followed.  The French words of one and the translations of both were printed in the main programme.  However, 8 point font is really too small to read in the semi-dark; it would have been preferable to have had a full A4 programme, as some Wellington choirs customarily do, rather than half that size, especially when the type of paper used did not show up that size of print well.

The songs are normally solo songs: Beau soir, with words by P. Bourget, and Nuit d’étoiles, words by Banville.  However, they were sung very effectively by the choir,  with perfect intonation.  The ending of the first song, in close harmony, was quite beautiful. Debussy’s use of language is just superb, and the fabulous accompaniments plus the gentle dynamics from the choir demonstrated what a wonderful composer he was.  He knew how to write for choirs, though he is not generally thought of as a choral composer.  The lower voices produced superb tone, while the sopranos were generally good, but occasionally shrill in this acoustic.

Marie Brown said some interesting words about the history of the chapel, then Madeleine Dean read the poem Le cynge by René-François Sully-Prudhomme.  Again, it was a very fine reading, the image of the swan’s characteristics and movements exquisitely described and his environment evoked.  It was appropriately followed by Brigid O’Meeghan playing the very well-known cello solo of the same name from Saint-Saëns’s Carnival of the Animals, accompanied by Julie Coulson.  It was a sonorous and lovely performance.

Berlioz was the next French composer, with two of the gorgeous songs from Nuits d’été: ‘Villanelle’ and ‘Le spectre de la rose’.  I have to confess that, though I have loved these songs for years, I don’t recall previously reading the translated words carefully.  By the prominent French poet Théophile Gautier (the title inspired by Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream), the poems are full of almost self-indulgent expressions of love.  Janey MacKenzie sang them, accompanied by Julie Coulson.  Although they were Berlioz’s own settings for piano (as opposed to his full orchestra version) I have to say that the digital piano did not provide enough timbre or resonance for these luscious songs.

The second one worked better in this building, being mainly lower in pitch.  The higher notes tended to become shrill here.  Berlioz’s sublime music needs perhaps more sensuous treatment from the singer as well as from the instrument, but nevertheless it was most ably performed.  It was a high note on which to end the French section of the programme.

Now to Nouvelle-Zélande: first, to Craig Utting, in Monument, a setting of a poem by Alistair Te Ariki Campbell, about the sort of weather we’ve had over these few days.  The piece began with the choir singing in unison, then dividing into parts.  The music had a grand and surging effect, as befitted a storm, before subsiding to a gentler choral sound, even as we could hear the northerly wind whistling around the chapel, and making its roof creak and groan.

Also about weather, but in a totally different style was Arlen and Koehler’s Stormy Weather.  Its bluesy rhythm and harmonies were amply projected, and the tone at the finish was delectable.

David Childs, formerly a church musician in Nelson and Christchurch but now resident in the United States, blended the New Zealand and French interests of the programme, with his Les Béatitudes.  An effective work, it incorporated interesting choral writing.  The French language was set extremely well.  One could have assumed the composer to be French if the programme had not told us differently.

The final item was John Rutter’s setting of A Gaelic Blessing.  This piece sounded a little less secure than did the rest of the programme, at the beginning, and there were a few less than unanimous endings to phrases towards the end.

Overall, it was a most enjoyable programme presented by very competent performers, who delivered the interesting music and readings with excellent French pronunciation.

 

Choral and orchestral extension of case law advocated by Wellington lawyers and jurists

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Counsel in Concert: At the Movies

Music, mainly classical, from the films

Choir and orchestra of lawyers (with some NZSO and Vector Wellington Orchestra players in the orchestra), Deborah Wai Kapohe (soprano), Amanda Barclay, Jared Holt (baritone), John Beaglehole (tenor), Douglas Mews (keyboards), Kenneth Young (conductor)

St. Andrew’s on The Terrace

Tuesday, 23 October 2012, 12.15pm & 5.30pm

These lawyers worked to a brief of abbreviated (or should that be a-breve-iated?) musical works.  Some were very short excerpts, for example, the opening bars only of Strauss’s Also Sprach Zarathustra, which opened the 45-minutes-long concert and gave Douglas Mews a little burst on the organ in the gallery, and the final item ‘Ode to Joy’ from Beethoven’s 9th symphony, of which we heard only the final part of the chorus.  Most people will be familiar with these two movies (2001: A Space Odyssey, and A Clockwork Orange).  Despite its brevity, the Strauss was much more exciting in its impact, being live, than the recording of the full work heard on radio that very morning.

In between, there were several speeches, notably by concert organiser Merran Cooke, who besides being a lawyer is an oboist in the Vector Wellington Orchestra.  Other items from the choir were part of the ‘Dies Irae’ from Verdi’s Requiem, Nella Fantasia by Ennio Morricone (arr. Snyder), from the film The Mission, with Deborah Wai Kapohe (choir and harp very attractive here), Conquest of Paradise by Vangelis (of Chariots of Fire fame), and, most notably, a work especially written for this occasion by orchestra member Aaron Lloydd: Fundamental Obligations of Lawyers.  This set words from section 4 of the Lawyers and Conveyancers Act 2006; an unusual text, indeed.  The choir made a good, strong sound in all its items, but sometimes was swamped by the brass in the resonant acoustic of the church.  The choral writing was somewhat plain, but effective – more like a chant – it was probably a necessary characteristic if the words were to be heard, which they were.  The orchestral writing was more interesting, with some lovely percussion effects – befitting for bandsman Lloydd.  There were, too, some delicious woodwind effects, with sounds which were evocative – but not of the law!

Then there was a fanfare – that used by 20th Century Fox for the introductory screen to its movies – this case was very quickly resolved, with plenty of clamour.  Its composer was Newman (Randy, I assume).  The theme from Mission: Impossible was another brief display.  This music was by Schifrin, arranged Custer.  One trusts that this and the Morricone arrangement were done  with due regard to copyright law.

The items for the soloists received less condensed renditions.  Deborah Wai Kapohe’s ‘O mio babbino caro’ from Gianni Schicchi, by Puccini to which the singer gave an excellent introduction, was utterly ravishing.  Orchestra and singer were both in fine form.

Jared Holt followed with ‘Largo al factotum’, the famous aria by Rossini, from The Barber of Seville.  Like Wai Kapohe, Holt has returned to a legal career in New Zealand after some years singing in opera overseas.  His Figaro was full of character and wit;

The third solo was ‘La Donna e Mobile’ from Rigoletto by Verdi, the third in a trio of very popular operatic arias.  John Beaglehole’s singing was very fine, if his voice was a little light for Verdi.  The orchestra played with spirit and accuracy.  His introduction and singing had the necessary sarcastic humour.

‘Pie Jesu’ from Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Requiem was sung most affectingly by Amanda Barclay and Deborah Wai Kapohe, though the style was somewhat too operatic for this simple piece.  Douglas Mews accompanied sympathetically on the baroque organ.  For the next item, the Vangelis, he played the piano.

Kenneth Young directed his counsel very well, particularly in view of the fact (of which we were informed) that he had taken on the case fairly recently, due to the previous conductor, Owen Clarke, moving to Auckland.

The concert was quite informal in the way the choir wandered on, chattering, and in its late start – perhaps a contrast with the court scene many of the participants are more accustomed to?

Tumultuous applause greeted every item, and the large audiences responded to a very good effort all round from the performers.  An irritant was the clicking of a camera upstairs during a number of the items, a phenomenon increasingly apparent in a variety of concerts recently.

Far from sticking to the letter of the law, the whole enterprise, and the performances, showed flair and originality.  Should we look for the chiropractors’ chorale, or the diplomatic dancers?

 

Wellington Community Choir – delights both human and animal

Posted on by Peter Mechen

LAND, SEA and FRIENDLY CREATURES

Wellington Community Choir

Directed by Julian Raphael and Carol Shortis

Diedre Irons (piano) / Simon Burgess (bass) / Sarah Hoskyns (mandolin)

Nino Raphael (guitar) / Ukulele Ensemble

Opera House, Wellington

Friday, 21st September, 2012

Two years ago, I spent a rollicking, richly-conceived evening in the Town Hall with the Wellington Community Choir, on the occasion of its 5th birthday. This latest concert, in the very different surroundings of the Opera House had a separate and distinct buzz of its own, the contrast underlined by a photograph from that memorable, multi-layered 2010 event reproduced in this year’s programme.

This time round, the performing focus was less on diversity and more on specific repertoire, with two very different and captivating musical strands plucked and resonated for our great enjoyment. We had a “Pasifika” first half, put together under the title “Songs from Oceania”, and then a distinctly “Northern Hemisphere” second half, courtesy of that redoubtable duo Flanders and Swann – with one exception, not the well-known “At the Drop of a Hat” items, but songs from a less-known collection “The Bestiary of Flanders and Swann”.

One registered that, even before the singers took the stage the Opera House atmosphere had created something rather more theatrical than in 2010, aided by back-lighting and a proscenium arch “framing the magic” as it were. But just as strong was the community aspect of it all – as the singers and instrumentalists came on their audience connections were underlined by shouts and waves of greeting, bringing stage and auditorium cheek-by-jowl, as it were. So, we had the best of both worlds by the time conductors Julian Raphael and Carol Shortis made their appearance.

The first song, from Tonga, Malimali Mai, had one of those rhythmic trajectories that has the effect of catching up up whole bunches of people in some kind of mesmeric spell, and getting them to move, think, act as one. The choir sang with plenty of gesturings, and conductor Julian Raphael invited us audience members to clap the rhythms – so we were involved from the outset. Various members of the choir introduced each item during the first half, which heightened the sense of “performer ownership” of the proceedings.

The opening item from Tonga had occasioned a lighting backdrop of the most delicious mango-like hues, underlining the sweetness and warmth of the song’s “place” in our minds. For two songs from Samoa which followed, the intense blue of the sea was emphasized instead; while the songs, firstly Falealili Uma, and then Fa’afetai I le Atua featured richly-harmonised repeated refrains, the second in particular real a cappella stuff. The NZ Maori Wairua o te puna Aroha which followed brought in a strong instrumental beat, and a pronounced swaying motion from the choir, underlining a sense of one people moving in accord.

An old favorite was The Wellerman, an early New Zealand whaler’s song, describing struggles between man and beast relieved occasionally by the “Wellerman” with fresh supplies for the whalers. Here I thought the song’s tessitura too low for the men’s voices to be able to clearly enunciate the tale, compounded by a tempo that was too fast for those same singers – as well as clarity, something of both the melancholy and the drudgery of the whalers’ situation wasn’t for me put across strongly enough. More securely grounded in effect was a New Zealand Lullaby from a slightly later period, early in the 1800s, apparently composed as a joint venture by two women, Maori and Pakeha, its attractive, faintly exotic melodic line accentuated in a Russian-sounding direction by the balalaika-like ukulele accompaniment!

I had to get my atlas out to find Boigu Island – its song Waiye here sounded suitably “ethnic”, which wasn’t surprising considering the island’s proximity to the Papua-New Guinean mainland – instrumentalists gathered around two impressive-looking and -sounding drums which punctuated the ends of the song’s phrases in fine style. The singing had that peculiary “open-throat” sound one associates with Polynesian cultures, slightly raw and very exciting, the men’s lines harmonizing with those of the women’s. More westernized, though still with exotic elements such as rhythmic chanting, was the Australian Soul Wind, the melody line and harmonizing very bluesy in places. Both of these were conducted, spaciously and most expressively, by Carol Shortis.

Two contrasting “Pasifika” items concluded the half, the first Tagi Sina, from Tokelau, dramatic and mournful, with a heavy rhythmic drumbeat underpinning the women’s plaintive melodic line, and the feeling of a whole community expressing sorrow taking up the whole company, the whole intensifying then concluding with a resounding crash. A perfect foil to it all was the concluding Sipaio from Niue, introduced as “Happiness”, with open, long-breathed melodies, accompanied by exuberant hands-and-arms movements suggesting joyful overflowing of feelings. The “tropical” lighting of the very first item returned as well to bring things to a kind of full circle.

From largely oceanic climes and vistas, we were taken by the concert’s second half to different worlds inhabited by non-human creatures, courtesy of one of the greatest musical comedy duos of them all, Michael Flanders and Donald Swann. World-famous for their “At the Drop of a(nother) Hat” shows” they also created a collection, “The Bestiary of Flanders and Swann”, less popular, but just as high in literary and musical values. We were given eight of these, five arranged by Julian Raphael for choir, and three sung as either solos or duos by Julian, Carol Shortis and a character called Lambton, who was also the “compere” for the second half, in which role I thought he often became tiresomely wordy, his humour mostly of the heavy-handed W.S.Gilbert variety. Fortunately he was able to redeem himself with a spirited solo performance of “The Rhinoceros”.

Julian Raphael’s similar turn for “The Elephant”, augmented with a pair of elephant ears, brought out all the droll humor of the words concerning a pachyderm who has lost his memory, to the audience’s delight – while his “Warthog” duo with Carol Shortis gave both performers and their audience plenty of fun at the tale of Warthog Wallflower’s neglect at a party, until the arrival of Mr Right Warthog saved the day.

The rest of the songs featured the choir, supported by some superb piano-playing from Diedre Irons, the “guest accompanist” for the evening (occasionally doing a “Donald Swann” and adding an extra voice to those in the choir). The Whale sang and sneezed its way through Seas Antarctical, while the choir, although resisting the temptation to sing while standing on their hands, still evoked the world of the Sloth with words like, “The world is such a cheerful place /when viewed from upside-down / It makes a rise of every fall; a smile of every frown.”  Other wonderful rhyming couplets came in the song “The Armadillo”, in the wake of the unfortunate creature falling in love with an armoured car- “I left him to his singing / cycled home without a pause / never tell a man the truth /about the one that he adores…” music filled with droll, regimented rhythms and ironic gentleness, soft-hearted beneath the armour-plating!

As happened with every one of the actual Flanders-and-Swann concerts, the show’s climax came with the concerted singing of the “Mud, mud, Glorious mud!” chorus from “The Hippopotamus”, a ritualized celebration, indeed. Though there was an encore song with audience participation, called “Midnight makes up its own mind”, our hearts and sensibilities mostly stayed with the Hippopotami on the banks of the cool Shalimar, taking the song and the other spirited evening performances from choir, pianist and conductor happily with us with us out into the evening air.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Enter Spring – wishful encouragement from Nota Bene

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Spring Songs: English songs by Moeran, Finzi, Michael Head, Parry, Holst and Rutter, arrangements by John Walker and Philip Walsh

New Zealand songs by Janet Jennings, and American songs by  Ken Neufeld, Scott Wilkinson, Rodgers and Hammerstein, Loesser and Charles Collins

Sharon Talbot (soprano), Stephanie Gartrell (mezzo), Juliet Kennedy (soprano)

Nota bene conducted by Peter de Blois, with Rosemary Russell and Peter de Blois (piano)

Sacred Heart Cathedral, Hill St., Wellington

Sunday, 16 September 2012

It is rather unusual to hear a programme of songs entirely in the English language – there is a certain refreshing nature to such a concert.  Most of the songs were by English composers, but there were a number of American compositions, a couple of New Zealand ones, and a couple of arrangements (where, strangely, the original composers were not properly credited).   Not only were they all in English, they all evoked the season of spring in some way – some very directly, others by inference.

A very full printed programme gave the words to all the songs, which was most useful.  While in many cases the words of the songs were projected clearly by the singers, in those songs with more complex settings it was difficult to pick up all the words.  The entirely Internet-derived programme notes gave concert-goers plenty of information.

The programme opened with seven songs by Ernest Moeran (1894-1950), (not Edward Moeran as in the programme – he’s a later musical character) whose Songs of Springtime were settings of words by Shakespeare, John Fletcher, Thomas Nashe, Samuel Daniel, William Brown, and Robert Herrick, all of them poets flourishing in the late 16th and early 17th centuries, the earliest birth date being 1562 and the latest date of death, 1674.

There are those who will say that a well-written poem is music in itself, and it does not need to be given melody and harmony in the musical sense.  Nevertheless, composers are attracted to fine poetry, and if the settings are inspired, they can enhance the words and the meaning.

Most of Moeran’s a cappella settings filled this definition.  ‘Under the greenwood tree’ was full of joy, and had interesting modulations.  There was some harsh tone from the choir in this item.  The second song, ‘River-god’s song’ was of a different mood, and featured lovely suspensions, great variation in dynamics and clear enunciation.

‘Spring, sweet spring’ was a gentle evocation of birds and their songs, and spring was gently introduced.  ‘Love is a sickness’ was notable for gorgeous harmonies.  During ‘Sigh no more, ladies’ the tone of the men was very good – often it is the case in choirs that the male voices do not match the female ones in this respect.

‘Good wine’ was a tricky piece, but the choir brought it off.  The church’s good acoustics assisted the very pleasing timbre and resonance of the voices.  The final song of Moeran, ‘To Daffodils’ projected a smooth and pleasing quality from the voices.

The men of the choir took a break, while the women sang two songs by New Zealander Janet Jennings: ‘To Spring’ and ‘How sweet I roamed’, the words of both by William Blake.  What wonderful words they were!  Rosemary Russell accompanied on the piano.  These were most appealing songs.  Nota Bene has sung Janet Jenniings’s music before; it deserves wider performance and notice.  These were very accomplished songs.

Gerald Finzi was a composer with a great gift for setting poems.  His unaccompanied Seven Partsongs (five of which were sung) are settings of poems by Robert Bridges (1844-1930).  The poems are quite wordy compared with those set by Moeran and the other composers we had heard already.  Yet Finzi’s love of poetry and his skill combined to write the music sensitively, showing ‘…an unfailing response to and unity with each poet’s words…’ as the programme note had it.

It was a pity that the choir was not together for the start of the first song; elsewhere in the programme initial attacks were faultless.  Two songs about flowers, and the mournful thoughts they can evoke, were followed by a more well-known song (a favourite of Professor Peter Godfrey’s) changed the mood: ‘My spirit sang all day’.  The rising cadences of this song indeed raise the spirit; it is a wonderfully jubilant and affirmative song invoking joy.

The poem set for the next song, about a stream, struck me as rather too complex to communicate well through music, and the final one also.  That is not to say that the settings were not beautiful, the music of the first being clear and gentle, despite some strain and inaccuracy from the choir; the tenors’ tone particularly was sometimes abrasive.  Nevertheless, excellent blend is a lovely feature of this choir, and the performances were very musical.  The final song, ‘Wherefore tonight’ was about the soul and its experiences, and was scattered with wonderful discords and their resolution.  It was a grand conclusion to the cycle.

Now for something completely different – two solos: Michael Head’s A blackbird singing, and Parry’s My heart is like a singing bird, sung by Sharon Talbot, accompanied by Rosemary Russell on the piano.  These were not entirely successful.  The words did not project, for the most part, and the lower notes disappeared. The piano was a little too loud at times to allow the singer to be heard well in such an acoustically alive building.  I was amused to read that Michael Head ‘gave his first public recital as a self-accompanied singer’; not so many years ago, Simon O’Neill was disqualified from a class of a prestigious Sydney voice competition because he accompanied himself, his designated accompanist having not been able to be present at the last minute.

The choir returned to perform I love my love by Gustav Holst; it was given a spirited performance when required, but also thoughtful.  The words were depicted well in this beautifully varied song.

American composer Neufeld was represented by ‘To Daffodils’, Moeran’s setting of which we had already heard.  It was very apparent that we were hearing a more modern setting than Moeran’s; the jazz elements, and different use of the voices were distinctive, particularly the great low bass notes.  It was a charming setting.  Another American followed: Scott Wilkinson, whose setting of words from the Biblical Song of Solomon was complex, however the words were beautifully treated.  In this song the tenor tone was variable.

Several solos followed, from Rodgers and Hammerstein’s State Fair, ‘That lovely weekend’, a Vera Lynn song, with music and words by Moira and Ted Heath (although the printed programme implied they had written the words only).  It was arranged by John Walker, who has arranged for The King’s Singers; and Frank Loesser’s ‘Spring will be a little late this year’ from the movie Christmas Holiday.  The first and third songs were sung in good style by mezzo Stephanie Gartrell, accompanied by Peter de Blois on the piano, at an appropriate level for the soloist.

Gartrell possesses a very resonant voice, and moved around in a natural manner while singing.  However, these pieces seemed incongruous from a singer (and a choir) dressed totally in black, in the atmosphere of a church, and while not at all against the inclusion of such items in a choral concert, I felt that they fell flat in this environment.

The Heath song was sung by Peter de Blois, while the choir ooh-ed in harmony.  De Blois’s fine tenor voice sang very expressively with absolutely clear words, while the choir ooh-ed with smooth tone and appropriate style.

The next item again acknowledged the arranger in the programme (former busy musician in Wellington Philip Walsh), but not the composer, Manning Sherwin.  It was the wartime favourite ‘A nightingale sang in Berkeley Square’.  The statement ‘…was written for the choir of Queen’s College, Cambridge’ presumably applied to the arrangement.  A soprano soloist, Juliet Kennedy, sang the do-dos and ah-ahs as well as text, but without the smooth insouciance of a Vera Lynn.

Charles A. Collins was the composer of an amusing song, ‘Mary had a little blues’, with de Blois accompanying on the piano.  It was sung by the women; the sole male vocal participation was an ‘Oh yeah’ at the end.  A lively rendition from memory,  the performance proved how much more communication there is with the audience when music is memorised.

The final item was by that British master of choral music, John Rutter.  His setting of Shakespeare’s ‘It was a lover and his lass’, another unaccompanied piece which the conductor joined in singing after getting the choir started.  The song had a jazzy style and rhythm, and was a cheery ending to the concert.

Peter de Blois’s conducting style is fluent, and the choir responded well in all the items. The rather small audience gave the choir enthusiastic applause.  It struck me that the English songs could be compiled into an very acceptable and attractive CD.

 

 

The Tudor Consort celebrates Mexico’s National Day with great 17th century music

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

‘Missa Mexicana’

Missa ego flos campi by Juan Gutiérrez de Padilla and other Mexican baroque music

The Tudor Consort conducted by Michael Stewart with Matthew Marshall and Jamie Garrick (guitars)

Church of St Mary of the Angels

Saturday 15 September, 7.30pm

The inspiration for this concert of Mexican music, mainly liturgical, came from its coinciding with Mexico’s national day, celebrating independence from Spain in 1810 (though not from the economic colonisation by the country to their north).

For all the cruelty of the conquistadors towards the pre-Colomban peoples, Spain had nevertheless planted a richer and in some ways a more permanent linguistic, cultural and religious character on the country, in the shape of splendid religious architecture, painting and music; though of course that went with a conservative social and economic framework that the countries of Latin America are still suffering from today.

Recall that a major Spanish composer, Padilla, who lived in Mexico through the mid 17th century while the English colonies to the north remained relatively uncultivated, had found an environment that had already succeeded in replicating the culture and sophistication of the home country quite profoundly.

When Padilla was 26, in 1616, he became Maestro di capilla at the Cadiz Cathedral, and travelled to Mexico by 1622 where he became Maestro di capilla at the Cathedral in Puebla. Puebla, now a city of around a million, had by the 17th century become remarkably rich and had gained a pre-eminent position in Mexican cultural life, especially music. Padilla was the leading, and an enormously prolific, composer whose name, curiously, will not be found in English music reference books of earlier years. However, a glance at ‘Mexico’ and his own entry in the New Grove Dictionary of Music, will put him in context.

It was one of his many masses that formed the backbone of the concert: Missa ego flos campi (‘I am the flower of the field’, from The Song of Solomon). It was accompanied by Michael Stewart on the chamber organ and two guitars played by Matthew Marshall and Jamie Garrick.  Apart from that, there seemed little to distinguish it from the polyphony of Morales or Victoria, and the choir performed with its accustomed elegance and clarity. The Gloria attracted special attention with its opening tenor solo, leading to passages that were perhaps a little more light-hearted than earlier masses; while the Sanctus introduced rhythms with a hint of syncopation.

I was particularly charmed by the translucent singing of the Agnes Dei which was greatly enriched by the simplicity of guitars and organ.

As is common in concerts of this kind, the mass was interspersed by smaller motets and guitar pieces, and there were some changes that were reportedly brought about by rehearsal problems.

Between Kyrie and Gloria, the Xácara (a Portuguese word meaning ‘ballad’; the Spanish is ‘jacara’), ‘Los que fueran de bien gusto’ was sung by three soloists from the ranks: sopranos Erin King and Jane McKinlay and alto Megan Hurnard: syncopated rhythms were accompanied with clapping.

After the Gloria Matthew Marshall played a Prelude, allegro and gigue by Francisco de Vidales, which had been programmed in the second half. (It replaced a xácara by Padilla). The prelude, slow and meditative, led to a charming triple-time allegro which revealed the hand of an accomplished composer and a spirited performance. In the Gigue quite tricky rhythms had me wondering whether a particular phrase was smudged or merely an unusually complex little turn.

Soprano Erin King sang again after the Sanctus: ‘Marizapalos a lo divino – Serafin que con dulce harmonia’ by a contemporary of Padilla, Joan Cererola. Her singing was warm and soft, and perhaps in my imagination, I was hearing the wonderful Montserrat Figueras’s voice.

Matthew Marshall contributed another solo, this time way out of the era: ‘Por ti mi corazón’ by the father of Mexican nationalism in music, Manuel Ponce. Its gentle meandering melody suggested Mompou or Turina, in a performance that spoke of modesty and refinement.

The choir then returned to the 17th century with Garcia de Zéspedes’s ‘Convidando esta la noche’ (which I suppose means something like ‘Convivial is the night’). Part way through Michael Stewart took to a drum set while a singer handled maracas as the spirit of the music grew more and more lively, with an energetic tenor taking command towards the end.

Though the concert was a bit shorter than might have been expected the goods were of the finest quality and the audience showed great delight at this move away from the heartland of the early baroque, no doubt to open many ears in surprise to the sophistication of New Spain in the 17th century.