Tag: choral

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.

 

 

Organists and Festival Singers bring Vierne to the fore

Posted on by Peter Mechen

The Festival Singers and Wellington Organists Association present:

FRENCH DELIGHTS

Festival Singers / Rosemary Russell (director)

Paul Rosoman (organ) / Jonathan Berkahn (organ/piano)

James Adams (tenor) / Linden Loader (contralto)

VIERNE – Messe Solennelle / Suite Bourguignonne (exerpts) for solo piano

Organ works by Vierne, Becker, and Guilmant

Songs by Hahn, Massenet and Faure

Sacred Heart Cathedral, Hill St., Wellington

Sunday 9th September 2012

A glance at the programme and the list of performers at the head of this review will give the reader an idea of the range and scope of this undertaking – a fascinating, and, as it turned out, extremely rewarding concert.

Centred firmly around the music of Louis Vierne (1870-1937) the presentation included also organ pieces and songs written by other French composers. To begin with, organist Paul Rosoman seemed to put the foundation-stones of the building to the test with a resounding Praeludium Festivum by Rene Becker (1882-1956), from the composer’s First Organ Sonata, music that in any language would make a truly splendid noise.

It occurred to me that this was the first time I had heard the main organ in Sacred Heart Cathedral played at what sounded pretty much like “full throttle” – it was definitely attention-grabbing stuff, stirring and resplendent. I loved the particularly “grunty” figurations in thirds during the fugue, just before the reprise of the opening of the Prelude – all very physical and engaging.

Vierne’s music then made its first appearance of the afternoon with two works for choir and organ – an Ave Maria and a Tantum Ergo. Both stand-alone works, the first, a prayer to the Virgin Mary, had a beautifully seraphic opening, sensitively handled by organ and sopranos, and then featured the full choir bursting in for the second part of the prayer, the “Sancta Maria”. Then, the Tantum Ergo, a prayer accompanying the veneration of the Blessed Sacrament, inspired some finely-crafted singing from all parts of the choir, with the sopranos rising to the occasion at the words “Sensuum defectui” halfway through, and again at “Compar sit laudatio” at the end.

Paul Rosoman again took his turn at the organ, playing this time two of Vierne’s own compositions, both from a set Op.31 containing twenty-four pieces “en style Libre” – I found the first piece “Epitaphe” exuded a strongly Catholic atmosphere, meditative tones, reedy timbres, and harmonies exploring “inner” realms. This was followed by a Berceuse, curiously unrestful –  rather “beefy” for a Lullaby, I thought, to begin with, but then sounding troubled, even angst-ridden, though it seemed as if, again in the best Catholic tradition, rest was eventually achieved at the end of tribulation.

Tenor James Adams was one of two singers who chimed in with heart-warming contributions to this concert, the other being contralto Linden Loader. Songs by Reynaldo Hahn and Jules Massenet were chosen by the tenor, and performed in reverse order to the program listing – so we first got Des Grieux’s heartfelt plea to Manon from Massenet’s eponymous opera, winningly and meltingly floated by the singer, and accompanied sensitively by Jonathan Berkahn’s piano playing. After this we heard the remarkable Si mes vers avaient des ailes (If my verses had wings), written by the thirteen year-old  Reynaldo Hahn. James Adams’ performance of this seemed somewhat inert in effect to begin with, after the radiance the tenor gave the Massenet aria, but the words then seemed to focus more sharply as the song ran its brief but beautiful course. The afternoon’s second singer, contralto Linden Loader, appearing during the second half, brought a rich, velvety voice to two wonderful songs by Gabriel Fauré, the well-known Après un rêve, here lightly and sensitively vocalized and accompanied, and the other, Fleur jetée (Discarded flower), a more dramatic outpouring, singer and pianist relishing the amplitude of Fauré’s writing and putting it across splendidly.

However, for the moment – and keeping a firm focus on the music of Louis Vierne – Jonathan Berkahn returned to the piano to give us two attractive moments from a Suite Bourguignonne, the whole consisting of seven pieces. The “Légende Bourguignonne” owes something to Fauré’s similarly elusive harmonic evocations, not unlike a Barcarolle in effect, with a kind of “rowing” rhythm, here beautifully played, the rather sweet shift into the major suggesting perhaps a journey’s end? Afterwards, a bright and energetic “Aubade” conjured up rolls of pealing bells awakening the new day – we heard a few clangers amid the clamour, but all to great effect, as well as enjoying the piece’s coda, rumbling upwards from the bass and bursting into festive mode once again at the conclusion. Exhilarating!

Rather akin to a musical version of “tag wrestling”, Paul Roseman then took back the reins at the organ console, for a performance of a “Scherzo” from Alexandre Guilmant’s Fifth Organ Sonata (the composer’s dates, 1837-1911). Again the piece immediately caught the ear, an atmospherically “serpentine” kind of opening suggesting some sort of “dans reptilian”, filled with slithering chromaticisms, the creepiness relieved by a charming Trio into which the listener could relax, away from thoughts of “something nasty in the basement”. But a reprise of the opening also brought out a remarkable fugue whose different voicings combined with the Cathedral’s ambient acoustic to suggest the idea of antiphonal forces at play.

An interval allowed us to take stock of all these strands of musical impulse before bringing us still more delights – firstly, two exerpts from a work Pieces de fantasie by Vierne himself, played by Jonathan Berkahn (both organists certainly earned their keep throughout this concert!). To begin with came a graceful, if quirkily-harmonised Sicilienne, its modulations flavorsome, and with lovely chromatic meltdowns in the trio section. Then a lively Intermezzo brought out the composer’s awareness of what sounded like jazz elements, the piece becoming almost circus-act oriented at some points, with frequent pauses for theatrical effect! Incidentally, by way of introducing the item, music director Rosemary Russell had already made the timely point about organ improvisation being akin to what jazz musicians do.

After Linden Loader had given us her two Faure songs, mentioned above, Rosemary Russell brought her choir to the platform for the concert’s “signature item”, Vierne’s Messe Solenelle . Two organists were brought into play, Paul Rosoman upon the Grand Orgue in the choir loft, and Jonathan Berkahn playing the Petit Orgue, the latter placed next to the choir. Throughout the Mass’s unfolding the contrasting effect of these two instruments added colour, resonance and drama. A case in point was the opening “Kyrie Eleison” begun by the men,  with dramatic interpolations from the “Grand Orgue” – and most creditably, the Singers were able to match the organ’s voluminous tones with some full-blooded singing of their own. “Christe eleison” made a sweet-toned, nicely harmonized contrast, throwing the creepily-returning Gothic-like Kyrie into bold relief, the sopranos bravely arching their high notes towards the  Grand Orgue to do battle with its massive tones – spontaneous applause!

The Gloria’s jolly, bouncing opening led to some theatrical exchanges between choir and full organ throughout the “Laudamus te….Benedictus te…..”  sequences, with only a lack of numbers hampering the ability of the men in the choir to float their lines comfortably, though the tenors in particular held on steadfastedly. Full-blooded, committed work by choir and conductor brought out grandeur at “Qui sedes ad dextram Patris” from a plaintive plea at “Qui tolls peccata mundi”, and nicely colored the energy at “Quoniam” with well-registered key-changes with each “Tu solus”, before delivering the “Amens” with much joy and plenty of vigor.

The Sanctus grew nicely from its men-only beginnings, the women’s voices properly ritualizing the “Pleni sunt caeli” and adding joyous energies to the ‘Hosannas”. A plaintive note was struck by the Benedictus, with the organ accompaniments distant and magical, before the Hosannas brought back the festive splendor of it all, the men contributing a ringing “In excelsis” at the end. Finally,the “Agnus Dei” was beautifully realized, sopranos really “owning” their utterances of “Miserere nobis”, and making something enduring out of the composer’s celestial harmonies at “Dona nobis pacem”.

Very great credit to Rosemary Russell, her Festival Singers and her organists, for bringing us closer in spirit to the music and times of a remarkable composer.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Splendid singing at gathering of Anglican cathedral choirs

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Cathedral Choirs in Concert:
Choirs of Holy Trinity Cathedral, Auckland; Cathedral Church of St. Peter, Hamilton; Waiapu Anglican Cathedral, Napier; Wellington Cathedral of St. Paul; Christ Church Cathedral, Nelson; ChristChurch Cathedral, Christchurch; St. Paul’s Cathedral, Dunedin.

Wellington Cathedral of St. Paul

Saturday, 8 September at 5.30pm

It was a considerable enterprise to bring together the choirs of seven Anglican Cathedrals, especially when Wellington’s atrocious weather on the day prevented one choir (Dunedin’s) from arriving in time for them to be able to sing their item (it was to be sung in the next day’s Festal Eucharist instead).  Approximately 180 singers assembled for the weekend of singing.

The combined choirs sang first, ‘Hear my words, ye people’ by Hubert Parry.  This music was written for such a building as this one, and it certainly worked.  There was a resounding organ introduction from Richard Apperley, who accompanied the first two items, followed by quite a lengthy choral anthem.  There was lovely shading of the dynamics throughout, but the solos did not carry well.  The work was not as attractive as some of Parry’s better known anthems, and its length probably precludes it from frequent performance.  It was ably directed by Michael Stewart, of Wellington Cathedral.

Next came ‘I saw the Lord’, by John Stainer.  This had the grandeur we associate with late Victorian England.  Wagner might have been proud of the chromatic writing.  In the quiet passages there was a charming stillness, and throughout, effective word-painting.  As in the previous work performed, there was some difficulty in keeping organ and soloists in sync.  Musically, the piece is rather conventional, with effect rather than feeling or subtlety of expression.  It was conducted by Rachael Griffiths-Hughes, Director of Music at the Cathedral in Hamilton.

The choir of Auckland Cathedral sang one of the many unaccompanied church compositions of 16th century Englishman John Sheppard: ‘Libera nos, salva nos’.  There was a splendid introduction from the men’s voices, and wonderful interweaving of the lines.  The singing of the whole motet exhibited sustained beauty.  A gradual increase in volume continued through to the ending.

Junior choristers from Nelson, Napier, Wellington and Christchurch cathedrals combined under the baton of Brian Law of Christchurch to sing two more modern anthems: John Ireland’s ‘Ex ore innocentium’ and ‘Prevent us, O Lord’ by English/Canadian composer, organist and choral director Derek Holman.  The choir of boys and some girls sang with clarity and sweetness of tone.  The organ was very competently played by  Richard Apperley.

The following items were performed by the Hamilton choir, under conductor Rachael Griffiths-Hughes.  First was Palestrina’s ‘Agnus Dei’ from Missa Aeterna Christe Munera.  Mainly an adult choir, it sang with full tone, the female voices more obviously such than was the case with the Auckland choir.  It was a very polished performance, the tone superb and the singers’ mastery of the music very evident.

At this point I had to leave, to attend another concert, so I missed the train; that is, ‘It was on that train’ by Barry Ferguson, from the same choir, combined choir items by Timothy Noon (conductor of the Auckland choir), Bruckner and Elgar, and the Christchurch choir’s singing under Brian Law ‘My beloved spake’ by Paul Halley, an American church musician and composer.

Despite hearing only six items out of ten on the programme (with the removal of the Dunedin choir’s item), I was impressed with the musicianship, confidence, and splendid singing and playing of all concerned.  Words do not travel well in Wellington’s Anglican Cathedral, but the sound was beautiful and the programme (or what I heard of it) very pleasing on the ear.

 

 

Remarkable Big Sing National Finale a brilliant success at every level

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

The Big Sing – National Finale 2012
Organised by the New Zealand Choral Federation

Eighteen competing and four guest choirs, evening compered by Christine Argyle

Wellington Town Hall

Saturday 18 August, 6.30pm

Twenty-two choirs, including four ‘guest choirs’ which are not eligible for an award, from 16 schools came to Wellington for the annual singing jamboree known as The Big Sing, managed by the New Zealand Choral Federation.  The festival began in 1988 when it was separated from the then Westpac Schools Music Contest which included chamber music groups as well as singers.

The latest figures showed that 148 schools, 235 choirs, and 8,440 singers registered to take part this year  nationwide.

The Wellington regional festival had been held on 6 and 7 June in which 33 choirs sang (compared with 36 each from Christchurch and Auckland). Of those 33, five were selected for the Finale: Chilton Saint James School – Seraphim Choir, Tawa College – Twilight Tones, Wellington College – Wellington College Chorale, Wellington East Girls’ College – Cantala, Wellington Girls’ College – Teal Voices.

Wellington choirs won no Golds; three of them won Silver awards, two, Bronze

The choirs to attend the Finale were chosen through an arcane process at the end of the regional festivals that had taken place in June.  They sang to each other and to their friends a families for three days till the three adjudicators had decided which of their pieces should be heard at the Final concert, when august people such as music critics might safely attend.

It’s a mighty production, actually starting around midday Saturday, when the ‘Massed Flash Choir’ sang and made a lot of noise in Civic Square. And the New Zealand Secondary Students Choir was on hand to astonish the drifters-by. Their programme included: Toia Mai (Paraire Tomoana)
Rytmus (Ivan Hrušovský)
Geistliches Lied (Johannes Brahms)
‘Mitten wir im Leben sind’ (Felix Mendelssohn)
Nemesi (John Psathas, commissioned for the 2011-12 NZSSC)
Hamba Lulu (traditional Zulu wedding song arranged by Mike Brewer)
‘Tofa Mai Feleni’ (Trad. Samoan, arr. Steven Rapana)

As the audience entered, most of the choirs were already there or coming in, and they performed in a variety of apparently spontaneous ways. The compere was Christine Argyle, announcer (presenter) on Radio New Zealand Concert. She described what the procedures were and how the organisers had reached this point. Her delivery and comments were useful, interesting and clear yet matched the gaiety of the evening excellently.

I could make certain general remarks about the music and its performance.

The thing feeds on itself. Year by year, the choirs observe the presentation ideas and stunts that proved successful and learn from them, so that few choirs confine themselves merely to singing the piece of music. There is a great variety in costumes, in members’ dispositions on the stage, their actions, hand and facial gestures, in extraneous and intraneous noises and sound effects.

Sometimes one can tell, after a while, how the organisers have been guided in deciding on the order of items: the strongest first or in the middle? grouped together so that contrasts are not too stark? a stunner at the end of the first half to encourage reckless drinks-buying at the Interval?

Those chosen for the Finale was dominated as much as ever by the schools that have become famous for their music, and a couple of them gained places for two choirs: Burnside High in Christchurch, Wellington East Girls’, Tawa, Marlborough Girls’ and Rangitoto colleges, and the two Westlake High schools on the North Shore; and among the private schools, St Cuthbert’s, Chilton St James, King’s College.

The choir that eventually won Platinum sang first: Bel Canto from Burnside High School, with the Gloria from a Mass by Hungarian composer György Orbán. A moderately big choir of tall girls, they are conducted by Sue Densem and also rehearse with a student conductor; they sang a conspicuously bright, non-pious movement with a brisk enthusiasm, sparkling with staccato and easy syncopation, at once setting the tone and a very high standard for the rest of the concert.

Nga Manu tioriori O Kapiti, a girls’ choir (a Reserve Guest choir) from Kapiti College sang ‘I am not yours’ by prominent New Zealand choral composer David Childs. (I heard a Kapiti College Choir sing it in 2009). The chair of the judges panel James Tibbles, in his witty overview at the end, remarked how David Hamilton seemed to have been supplanted as leading New Zealand choral composer by David Childs. Bridget O’Shanassy conducted. However, I thought it a somewhat limp, clichéd piece (ghosts of A Lloyd Webber?) which hardly encouraged the choir to demonstrate their real abilities.

All the King’s Men from the obvious college, is a new choir formed this year; they are conducted by King’s organist and choirmaster Nicholas Forbes. The choir won a Silver award with David Griffiths (only Davids need apply as New Zealand composers) setting of Curnow’s Wild Iron, a poem of short, staccato phrases that did not lend itself to easy delivery, but was handled with skill and intelligence.

From that unique musical by John Kander, Cabaret (Christopher Isherwood, stories, via John van Druten, play), Kristin School’s girls’ choir Euphony sang, with great resourcefulness and wit, ‘Don’t tell Mama’. They sat on low benches and took up changing dispositions, with splendid little vignettes, to create a brilliantly funny rendering, which won them laughter, on top of the shouts and screams (which are almost unvaryingly de rigueur). Cheryl Clarke’s jazz accompaniment was a vital ingredient; with at least some credit to conductor David Squire, it got them a Gold.

Macleans College Choir, Howick sang a Mendelssohn song, In Grünen. It could not have been a greater contrast; though a perfectly unobtrusive song, the experienced hands of their conductor Terence Maskill showed in the way they coped with its demands: in tonally variety, subtlety, in exploring its simple, Romantic era sentiment with integrity and vivacity, all of which they carried off with plain honesty. The judges agreed with my assessment of Gold.

Marist Stella, a guest girls’ choir from Marist College in Auckland, conducted by Rostislava Pankova-Karadjov, tackled Louis Armstrong’s last charts success, in 1968, ‘What a Wonderful World’, with open and unaffected sentimentality. Not the way Armstrong would have played it but, with their undulating tempi, care and feeling, he’d have loved them for it.

Mandate, another pun-title choir from Otago Boys’ High School, sang another comic scena ‘Kiss the Girl’ which I’ve heard sung at an earlier Big Sing. They have made the Finale several times since 1996 and have been conducted by Karen Knudson since 1998. It’s a barbershop number, tackled with manly confidence by this 35-or-so choir, with odd accompanying sound effects and discreet witty gestures. The crowd loved it and the judges too: Silver.

Christine calmed audience alarm by disclosing that SOS means ‘Sisters of Soul’. The auditioned girls’ choir of 38 members from Rangitoto College was founded in 1992 by Jillian Rowe, and they have reached the Finale most years since then. Under Karen Roberts they sang Beau Soir, an arrangement of a Debussy song that one might have had difficulty attributing. This short, not very remarkable song, in very fair French, had attributes similar to Macleans College Choir’s Mendelssohn; the virtue of unpretentiousness and plain, attractive musicality. It too won them a Silver.

Another Rangitoto College choir, The Fundamentals (how pervasive is the widespread fashion among pop bands for taking abstract nouns as their names), also sang Mendelssohn, in German: three poems by Heine together entitled Tragödie. Curiously enough, I heard them sung recently at a Bach Choir concert: this performance captured them with a little more youthful enthusiasm. The choice of these songs involved more than fundamentals, and their polish, dynamic variety and tonal precision, singing unaccompanied, were well handled by conductor, Jonathan Palmer. They demonstrated elegant expressive gestures which I thought might have gained them better than Bronze.

Bella Voce, from Marlborough Girls’ College, directed by Robin Randall, has done well over the years. They sang, with gestures that were not really integrated in the performance, the spiritual ‘Aint no grave can hold my body down’. It’s a well-schooled choir but they gained only Bronze. Here too it was useful to bear in mind that the judges’ decisions are based, not on the evening’s performances, but on their singing in the previous two days.

Burnside’s auditioned mixed choir, Senior Chorale, also under Sue Densem, sang the gently sentimental, a cappella, Earth Song. It might not be an especially arresting song but it made an impact through their slow, quiet, restrained approach, with exquisite dynamic and tone control. But there was real integrity here and they made quite an impression. I was not surprised at their Gold award.

The first half ended with The Seraphim Choir, the premier auditioned choir from Lower Hutt’s Chilton St James School, singing another disguised Debussy song, Nuits d’étoiles. Again in quite good French, conducted by Ella Buchanan Hanify and accompanied by Hugh McMillan, the song is hardly a masterpiece, but it is a good choice to offer judges of taste and refinement, who properly awarded Silver.

Wellington Girls’ College opened the second half; their Teal Voices (teal, the school colour) sang ‘Like a Rainbow’ which involved many repetitions of those words. Though he’s a prolific American choral composer of some renown, Bob Chilcott’s song seemed to do the choir few favours, though the performance, guided by Nicola Sutherland and Michael Fletcher employing small groups or individual voices attractively, was imaginative enough. A Bronze.

Viva Camerata from Wairarapa’s Rathkeale and St Matthew’s Collegiate, a guest choir, sang another comedy number, The Driving Lesson. The choir, conducted by Kiewiet van Deventer and accompanied by Adam Gordon, enacted the little skit effectively if without great flair, but its slender, somewhat obvious wit needed more adult skills than a teenage group is likely to command.

Saint Cuthbert’s in Auckland also entertained the crowd with ‘Johnny said No’; their auditioned choir. Saints Alive, under the direction of Megan Flint, with light and deft singing and discreet, comic gestures, carried it off in a certain droll style, which gained them a Silver award.

A mixed choir, Twilight Tones, an auditioned choir within Tawa College’s main choir, the Dawn Chorus, sang ‘Give me Jesus’. Alongside so many choirs exhibiting flair in both singing, histrionics and comic talents, something special is needed in presenting a traditional religious song. The singing, under Isaac Stone, was technically fine, under good, unostentatious control, but something was needed to lift it from the merely very good.

Saint Kentigern College from Auckland sent a large guest choir, Menasing (get it?). It’s unauditioned, in its first year. Their party piece was a highly effective performance, guided by Lachlan Craig and involving bass and drums, plus piano, as well as comic sound effects, of ‘I’ll fly away’. It elicited stentorian teenage shrieks as bassist took his instrument under his arm, like a guitar.

Con Brio is no stranger to the Big Sing. From Villa Maria College in Christchurch, they included a double-ended drum to accompany, otherwise a cappella, the Xhosa song, Dubula. Their party piece was to launch by throwing off their jerseys. But they also captured the African sound brilliantly. The fact that their conductor, Rosemary Turnbull, stood aside to some effect, might have prompted the remark by Tibbles about the conductor as sometimes surplus to requirements.

Wellington College Chorale, an auditioned choir, sang Toki Toki, a Malaysian song arranged by their conductor Katie Macfarlane. Bearing ethnic relationships in mind, it revealed a quality that could have been Polynesian, and it gave the performance an air of idiomatic ease. They judged their movements carefully and achieved a performance that was vocally skilled and visually effective, gaining a Silver award.

Cantala, from up the hill at Wellington East Girls’ College which had been in the news with its triumphant recent international tour also won (only) a Silver. Dressed in one of the prettiest of all the costumes, their droll song, Bitte Betti, was enacted with refinement and restraint but through that achieved a performance that both revealed some fine individual voices and excellent ensemble singing, not to mention the skilful direction of Brent Stewart.

David Squire conducts Westlake Boys’ High School choir, Voicemale, of round 50 boys. They sang ‘Embraceable You’ from Gershwin’s Girl Crazy, a fairly short song, but more than enough to prove splendid balance of the parts and ensemble, all in a perfectly gauged style, gaining them a Silver award.

Placed at the end of the concert was another choir with a punning conflation of a name, Choralation, from a conflation of Westlake Boys’ and Girls’ High Schools. In the previous three years they gained the Platinum Awards and this year had to settle for Gold. They did that under Rowan Johnston with the Gloria from Bob Chilcott’s Little Jazz Mass, which called for guitar, bass and drums as well as sparkling supported in by their pianist.

The Big Sing does not end there, but continued with snippets of a video of the lunchtime spectacles and speeches; the most insightful came from the chairman of the adjudicators’ panel, James Tibbles, hinting at the need to explore a greater variety of New Zealand composers, and of getting more representation of Maori music and singing which are distinctly absent, though glancing at the choirs appearing at the regional sessions, it looks as if choirs with a larger Maori element simply don’t quite achieve the level demanded. (I wonder whether, as in so many aspects of the way in which Maori prefer to follow paths in education and the arts that tends to view their own culture on terms equal to the rest of the world, their music achievements are disadvantaged by disregarding the importance of the universal world of classical music).

Thus the award for the performance of a song with Maori text went to Saints Alive from St Cuthbert’s, from a not very large field.

The Minister for Culture and Heritage Chris Finlayson spoke and handed out the awards, which have been mentioned in the remarks about each choir. His admiration for the entire fabric of the festival reflected what is certainly felt by all involved, that it is probably remarkable at an international level for qualities like collegiality and generosity, for the huge variety of musical styles and cultures that flourish, and that the size of the country makes possible the staging of an event of this kind that reaches such a wide and disparate range of communities.

It’s also necessary to recognise the extraordinary feat of organization by teachers and choral federation workers throughout the country in regional and national phases of the Big Sing festival.

It ended with all 750 or so, shoulder-to-shoulder on the choir stalls in massed singing of two South African songs, just rehearsed, conducted by Andrew Withington, conductor of the NZSSC. And organist Thomas Gaynor, a couple of days before leaving to take up a scholarship at the Eastman School of Music in New York State, accompanied the massed singing, by choirs and audience, of the National Anthem.

 

Young musicians’ mid-winter warm-up with Mozart and Rachmaninov

Posted on by Peter Mechen

Wellington Youth Orchestra Winter Concert

RACHMANINOV – Symphony No.3 in A MInor Op.44

MOZART – Requiem (arr. Maunder)

Amelia Ryman (soprano) / Alison Hodge (contralto)

Cameron Barclay (tenor) / Matthew Landreth (bass)

Wellington Youth Choir (Katie Macfarlane – Music Director)

Wellington Youth Orchestra

Hamish McKeich (conductor)

Wellington Town Hall,

Sunday 12th August, 2012

Aside from the circumstance of this being the THIRD Mozart Requiem performance offered the Wellington concert-going public this year so far (after all, it’s only August!), I thought the program of this concert by its own lights adventurous and challenging. And, regarding the combination of Mozart and Rachmaninov, a well-known French saying – “Vive la différence” can easily put it in an acceptable context.

Looking at things more closely than mere concert listings, one then discovers that, unlike with the first Mozart Requiem performance of the year by the Bach Choir of Wellington, this latest performance did feature an orchestra, and not merely an organ accompaniment. And unlike both of the previous performances (the second one being by the Voices New Zealand Chamber Choir and the Vector Wellington Orchestra), the recent one explored some different musical territories, using an edition prepared in 1986 by the scholar Richard Maunder, which largely dispensed with the attempts of Mozart’s pupil, Franz Süssmayr, to finish the work, uncompleted at the composer’s death.

Maunder’s version, completed in 1986, retains some of Süssmayr’s completions of Mozart’s sketches, but abandons what he feels are the non-Mozart parts, such as the Sanctus and Benedictus. Maunder does retain the Agnus Dei, feeling that the influence of Mozart did guide Süssmayr here more directly. But he recasts the work’s two final movements differently – Lux Aeterna and Cum Sanctis – drawing from material earlier in the Requiem. 

Like others before and since, Maunder considered Süssmayr’s work generally unworthy of Mozart’s, though many music-lovers down the years have had far more cause to thank than revile the unfortunate “johnny-on-the-spot”, given the sheer impossibility of his task. Poor Süssmayr wasn’t exactly a favourite of Mozart’s, either, the composer, in a letter to his wife Constanze, referring to his erstwhile pupil as a “blockhead”, and likening his native intelligence to that of “a duck in a thunderstorm” – but then Mozart was often almost pathologically unkind towards people he considered his inferiors.

From the singers’ point of view (as well as from that of this audience member), the dropping of both the Sanctus and Benedictus might well seem unfortunate, irrespective of considerations of greater “authenticity”. Still, both the on-going conjecture and the various attempts to render the work nearer to what the composer might have “wanted” have kept the music well away from any kind of museum mothballing. In essence, it’s very much a “living classic”, and likely to remain that way, considering that some of the work’s secrets can never be actually told – merely guessed at.

As regards the actual concert, I’ve run ahead of things, here, as the evening began with music from quite a different world. This was the Rachmaninov Third Symphony, a stern test, I would have thought, for a youth orchestra to tackle. Rachmaninov wrote this work late in his composing career, and filled its pages with contrasting and conflicting impulses and emotions. In places, the sounds and themes nostalgically evoke the Imperial Russia of the composer’s boyhood, of Tchaikovsky and Rimsky-Korsakov, particularly the latter composer – Rachmaninov shared some of his older compatriot’s fondness for quasi-oriental themes and orchestral colorings. In other places the music snaps at the heels of contemporary trends, with enough rhythmic and timbral “bite” to suggest Bartok, Prokofiev and Stravinsky.

There are the familiar Rachmaninov trademarks, among them the well-known plainchant “Dies Irae” theme, which pulsates like an electric current through much of the composer’s music (contributing not a little to its deep, prevailing melancholy, and undoubtedly influencing Stravinsky’s famous description of his compatriot as “six feet of Russian gloom”), the brilliance of the orchestration, and the heartfelt beauty of the themes, so candidly and unashamedly expressive. It seems incredible when listening to this work to imagine anybody writing of its effect – “a chewing-over of something that had little importance to start with….” which is what one New York critic wrote after the premiere in 1936. Another, a tad more sympathetically, wrote “Rachmaninov builds palaces with his music in which nobody wants to live any more…”.

Fortunately for those of us in the audience at this concert, conductor Hamish McKeich and his young players (their numbers judiciously augmented by a handful of NZSO members, probably some of the students’ tutors) seemed to pay no heed to such agenda-driven comments, and instead plunged into and appeared to revel in what the music had to offer – a whole-hearted, sharply-etched lyricism, expressed through a brilliant and wide-ranging orchestral palette. Both conductor and orchestra leader Arna Morton seemed to me inspirational by dint of gesture and physical involvement with the music, each readily able to delineate the work’s every mood and movement and show the rest of the players the way.

Arna Morton’s solo playing was nicely turned, as were some of the many wind solos throughout the work – the horn solo at the slow movement’s beginning actually sounded rather “Russian” with an engaging “fruitiness” of tone. Then first the flute and afterwards clarinet (from where I was sitting I couldn’t actually see the soloists) made a lovely job of the third movement’s solo lines leading to the whiplash conclusion of the symphony; while, of the other instruments, Dorothy Raphael’s timpani made something resplendent of the brief but impactful crescendo at the climax of the central movement’s scherzando section.

The richly lyrical moments were what this orchestra did best – the opening soulful “motto” theme, and the movement’s luscious tunes, the second movement’s richly and exotically-wrought archways, and the finale’s dying fall, the melodies and their inspiration spent. In these this orchestra gave its all, bringing a natural, youthful ardor to the shape and intensity of those yearning lines. And the  ceremonial episodes, such as the finale’s opening, had great exuberance, a similar sense of “playing-out” and letting things “sound”. Somewhat predictably, the players found the many treacherous “scherzando” passages in the work difficult, fraught with syncopations and difficult rhythmic dovetailings, as though the bar-lines were booby-trapped and waiting to pounce. To their credit, conductor and players kept going through the squalls, celebrating the triumphs and thrills along the way as readily as coping with the spills – at the end of the day the performance’s overall effect did enough of the work justice for conductor and orchestra to be pleased with its achievement.

Orchestrally, the Mozart was more uniformly impressive, perhaps even too much so in relation to the choir and soloists, whose relative backward placement seemed to put them at a dynamic disadvantage. Of the soloists, soprano Amelia Ryman shone brightly, her lines clear and silvery and always a delight. The others lacked her projection, and sometimes had to force their tone to be heard, stationed as they were just at the foot of the choir. It’s always seemed to me that composers intended soloists’ voices to stand out, rather than be given a “solo voice from the choir” kind of balance; and here for most of the time alto, tenor and bass needed all the help they could get, not necessarily an enthusiastic student orchestra anxious to demonstrate what they could do, to accompany them.

Throughout, both the general playing and detailing of individual instrumental lines from the orchestra was of a high standard – a sonorous trombone solo at “Tuba mirum”, majestic strings at “Rex Tremendae”, and secure brass and strings throughout the final “Cum Sanctis” fugue. The choir sang truly, beautifully and accurately, even if there were times when those voices didn’t manage to get across the weight of tone required to properly dominate the sound-picture, such as in the aforementioned fugue. To fill a Town Hall with sound, after all, takes some doing. I would have actually like the soloists closer, so that I could have more readily enjoyed Amelia Ryman’s singing, and got a better sense of the voices of the other three. For each of them, mellifluous moments of singing alternated with sequences where they seemed to struggle to be heard against the orchestra. Tenor Cameron Barclay made the most consistent impression, though his voice seemed not to have quite the same command and attack that was evident when he sang in the Beethoven Missa Solemnis, earlier in the year.

Still, very great credit is due to these young singers and players for what they achieved, and to their “guiding hand” on the night, conductor Hamish McKeich, who was able to bring the different elements together and preside over their fruitful interaction. The efforts he and others inspired made for an enjoyable and heartening evening’s concert.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bach Choir recovers its earlier renown with fine concert of Mendelssohn and Brahms

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

The Bach Choir of Wellington conducted by Stephen Rowley, accompanied by pianists Douglas Mews and Diedre Irons

Mendelssohn: Six songs to sing in the open air (Sechs Lieder im Freien zu singer), Op 41 and Six duets for voice and piano, Op 63 (with Rebekah Giesbers – mezzo soprano and Ailsa Lipscombe – soprano)
Brahms: Die Mainacht, No 2 from Op 43; Feldeinsamkeit, No 2 from Op 86; Botschaft, No 1 from Op 47 (with Rory Sweeney – baritone)
Hungarian Dances Nos 1, 3, 6
Liebeslieder Walzer, Op 52

St Andrew’s on The Terrace

Saturday 28 July, 5pm

This concert had been originally scheduled for the evening, but was moved to 5pm when it was realised that it clashed with the Orpheus Choir’s major performance of Bernstein’s Candide in the Town Hall.

The clash would probably have been more damaging to the Bach Choir than to its big cousin. As a result (I suppose), quite a large audience came to this concert. A good programme was available giving words in both German and English with informative notes about the composers and the works.

The choir was on very good form. The balance and ensemble were admirable and the choir held audience attention through their sensitive variations in dynamics and articulation. Though probably with too few tenors, and perhaps as a whole, not presenting quite the level of vocal polish of the women, the men’s contribution was more than adequate.

Mendelssohn composed the set of open air songs to be sung on a summer evening in a forest near Frankfurt and a letter to his mother described their delightful effect in words that could, with a few modifications, describe this performance. They were, naturally, set for unaccompanied singing, and the choir generally avoided the problem of slipping intonation.  The texts included three poems by Heine, together entitled Tragödie, first published in 1837 in a collection called ‘Salon’, and later collected in Neue Gedichte of 1844. They tell a typical tale of ill-fated love, but in the last poem the lovers’ common grave is the tryst of blissful lovers of a later time,  oblivious of the earlier event. The musical settings did not perhaps capture the tone of fatalism though it was hinted through understated musical figures and moods. The sixth poem, Auf dem See by Goethe, expresses in words and music an optimism in the superiority of present life and love over the longings of a dream world, and the choir captured it in fast, joyous triple time.

Mendelssohn’s six open air songs are hardly masterpieces; the settings follow a conventional strophic pattern, in which the last two lines of the text are usually repeated; melodies are pleasant if not especially memorable.

The other Mendelssohn songs were four of his Six Duets, Op 63, and they were scattered through the rest of the programme. They were sung, with Douglas Mews at the piano, by Rebekah Giesbers, mezzo soprano and Ailsa Lipscombe, soprano; the two voices blended very agreeably and the guileless spirit of words and music emerged happily from them. Again, however, the somewhat formulaic pattern of the settings and their avoidance of anything in the nature of tragedy or fatefulness lent them an air of blandness.

So it was a good idea to intersperse them with the three somewhat more profound and complex Brahms songs, taken from different collections, between the late 1860s and 1877, all sung by baritone Rory Sweeney.  The first, Die Mainacht by Hölty, was a bit of a warm-up for the singer, but he dealt very capably with the second and third songs, Feldeinsamkeit and Botschaft, minor poems but both intrinsically more interesting songs than Mendelssohn’s, capturing a more enigmatic mood and Brahms’s gift for illuminating the words. He managed to highlight the quoted words of the message (Botschaft), creating an effective little dramatic scene.

Diedre Irons joined Mews to play three of Brahms’s Hungarian Dances, in the original piano duet form. With the piano lid off, the sound, at least at the start, was rather coarse, and while Nos 3 and 6 were more refined there was an air of spontaneity about the performances.

Finally, the original version of Brahms’s Liebeslieder waltzes, Op 52, with both pianists, and the chorus (the original was envisaged for vocal quartet). Initially it sounded slightly loose in ensemble and articulation but by the third song things were going very well and the whole half-hour sequence was carried off with a panache and delight, an ever-changing spirit as Brahms was inspired by the light-hearted folk-based words with their little dramas and tableaux, that was hardly to have been expected.

With this concert of not altogether great and profound music, as well as other recent outings, the Bach Choir has recovered its position as one of Wellington’s important choirs, which causes one to look forward to their November concert of Handel’s Dixit Dominus and Vivaldi’s Beatus Vir.

 

 

 

 

Psalm settings from Cantoris at St Paul’s Cathedral lunchtime

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Cantoris: a lunchtime concert: ‘Like as the hart’

Anthems based on Psalm texts, by Mendelssohn, Stanford, Howells, Franck and Elgar

Director: Richard Apperley with Janet Gibbs at the organ

Cathedral of Saint Paul, Wellington

Friday 13 July, 12.45pm

The choir of around 30 took an unusual position in the church, arrayed in a semi-circle at the front of the choir, facing the sanctuary, while the audience sat on the choir stalls on either side and on seats placed between the choir stalls, facing the singers and out to the nave.

Since the concert was opened with words from the (I assume) Canon The Revd Jenny Wilkens, and a prayer, I took it to be in the nature of a service about which it would be inappropriate to write a normal review.

What struck me was the manner in which Richard Apperley (assistant director of music at the cathedral) had succeeded in producing performances from what is essentially a secular choir that sounded perfectly apt in spirit, scale and musical understanding, as if from the cathedral choir itself. Seated very close to the singers, one could not tell what the sound would have been like in the nave, but my impression was of singing that was produced effortlessly, that expanded into the huge space with perfect clarity, while also exploiting, almost ecstatically, the long reverberation that can be such a wonderful experience, with the right music from voices handled properly.

The Mendelssohn anthem, ‘Hear My Prayer’, Psalm 55, is in two parts, each providing solos for a soprano. The first, Ailsa Lipscombe, sang with what one has come to think of as a perfectly pure, Anglican choir voice, most attractive, even and very adequately projected, and beautifully balanced with the subtle organ lines.

Apperley got singing from the choir that was crisp, almost staccato in nature, so leaving the job of sustaining the sounds to the body of air in the cathedral.

The second soprano who entered in the section, ‘O for the wings of a Dove’, was Asha Stewart, surprisingly similar in timbre to Lipscombe’s, though a slightly quieter voice. The balance between organ and choir in this, and throughout the recital, was very happy indeed, and the careful dynamic variations and phrasing was simply admirable.

The pieces were sung in pairs: the second pair opened with Stanford’s setting of Psalm 100, ‘Jubilate Deo’ – ‘O be joyful in the Lord’. Ailsa Lipscombe introduced this and the following anthem by Howells.

Stanford’s piece captured the joyous spirit suggested by the words, and the singing drew my attention to the quality of the men’s voices, particularly the basses.

Howells’s ‘Like as the Hart’, Psalm 42, involved alternating sections by men and women, the latter accompanied by high organ registrations. The effect was ethereal.

The next pair also began with Stanford – Psalm 23 – again with Lipscombe’s introduction which I thought a little too long. But here was another piece by Stanford, with an interesting organ accompaniment, reinforcing a process of revising my feeling about his music, as more and more of his orchestral and chamber, as well as choral music is being heard in good performances.

‘Lift thine eyes’ from Mendelssohn’s Elijah is a setting of Psalm 121. Here, the men of the choir left the semi-circle, allowing the women alone to reconfigure and sing this, now under assistant director Tessa Coppard: familiar Mendelssohn piety, though very nicely sung.

The last pair included Franck’s version of Psalm 150, ‘Laudate Dominum’ or ‘Alleluia! Praise the Lord’, and Elgar’s ‘Give unto the Lord’, Psalm 29.

I was pleased to hear something from outside the English tradition, though the Franck piece, with its almost martial rhythmic character, seems not especially French. The following Elgar anthem was more complex and elaborate, again with something of a martial air.

But whatever the character of the music, prayerful or proselytising, it was the choir’s singing and organ accompaniment, under Apperley that made this a rather unexpected pleasure to have listened to.

 

A Grand Night for Singing – Voices from California, USA

Posted on by Peter Mechen

New Zealand Choral Federation

Association of Choral Directors Inaugural Convention, July 2012 presents:

AMERICAN VOICES

USC Thornton Chamber Singers

Jo-Michael Scheibe (conductor)

ChoEun Lee, Stephen Black, pianists

Brierley Theatre, Wellington College

Thursday, July 12th 2012

After this concert, a pianist friend said to me, at once enthusiastically and (I thought) somewhat resignedly, that “there’s something about the directness of singing that tops everything!” And that was certainly true here, right from the moment at the concert’s beginning when the audience was transfixed by the appearance and solo singing of a beautiful young soprano from the choir by herself on the platform, regaling us with the opening verses of “The Reapers All with Their Sharp Sickles”, a setting of the eighteenth-century American folk-hymn Meditation by Elisha West. The singer was joined by another soloist at the end of the second verse and then by the choir, quietly entering from the aisles and taking up a vocal accompaniment in verse three consisting of cluster harmonies, continuing with verse four and joining in with the last couple of lines with the soloists. The effect was of music gradually spreading through the world, before the first singer again took charge of the vocal line at the end, reminding listeners in the final verse that all shall bring mankind to a day of reckoning with Christ’s Second Coming.

This was how the concert at Wellington College’s Brierley Theatre opened, presented by a choir from the University of Southern California Thornton School of Music. The USC Thornton Chamber Singers group and its conductor Jo-Michael Scheibe were here to give this keynote performance at the July 2012 New Zealand Choral Federation National Conference in Wellington. It was the first of a series of appearances by the group who are undertaking a brief Australasian tour. They’ve since been “across the ditch”, but are flying back from Australia to perform in Auckland at the Holy Trinity Cathedral on Thursday (July 19th), joining the Auckland University Chamber Choir and Choralation (goodness, what a marvellous word!).

Appropriately, the concert was subtitled “American Voices”, indicating much (though not all) of the content as it did the origins of the performers. Two New Zealand works featured, one by David Hamilton, and the other an arrangement of a song Don’t Dream It’s Over by Tim Finn, and other cross-cultural strands included settings of Scottish folk-songs, and anAfro-American spiritual. So there was enormous variety of repertoire and performance style over the evening’s course, which intensified the interest of an audience already held in thrall by the performances alone.

Every item had its own intensely-wrought character, whose contrasts the group seemed to relish and readily communicate to us. Some of the composer’s names were new to me (presumably known to choral “buffs”, though two were those of current choir members, Jordan Nelson and Nolan Frank). A work by Abbie Betinis,  Cedit Hyems, was reminiscent in places of Carl Orff (hardly surprising, considering that part of the setting was of verses from the original Carmina Burana Benedictbeurn) Introduced by a flute solo, the piece brought tightly-worked harmonies at the beginning, which energized into Orff-like rhythms and stimulated engaging physical movement – very syncopated, and dramatically contrasted music. Jordan Nelson’s The Snow I Hated mirrored the text’s “haiku” intensities, tight harmonies, frequent repetitions and magnificently-sculptured chordings (both composition- and performance-wise) – intense “wrong-note” harmonies which conveyed single words such as “away” so vividly.

I loved the evocations of memory stimulated by Dale Warland’s Always Singing, the word “singing” repeated and resonated at the start, as if transporting us trance-like to nostalgic realms, music both of comfort and sadness, the voices’ rich blend reaching into the tonal depths in places, suggesting the roots of human feeling suggested by the composer. And though I can’t really remember when and where I last heard David Hamilton’s Veni, Sancte Spiritus, the music’s beautifully-wrought, deeply underpinned flowering from the beginning, and the frisson of its central cascading episodes straightaway reconnected, carrying the momentums as if on air through the concluding array of amens and alleluias.

Another name known to me was Morten Lauridsen, his Lament for Pasiphae a setting which I didn’t know of Robert Graves’ verses, but relished as one would the company of an old friend. The music powerfully conveys the poet’s anguish of lost love and departed joy, the voices clanging like tocsins, obsessively railing against the “dewless and oppressive cloud” which has blotted out the sun, and imploring what is left of the day’s warmth and light to bring some comfort and resignation. Relief from such angst-ridden sounds was forthcoming with Mack Wilberg’s arrangements of Three Scottish Folk-Songs, the Britten-like “O whistle and I’ll come to ye” canonic-like progressions, underpinned by a lovely four-hand accompaniment, one of the basses from the choir joining Korean pianist ChoEun Lee at the keyboard. The second “My love’s in Germany” outlined a tragic story of a soldier killed in the war and mourned by his sweetheart, the singing a full-blooded lament, the accompaniment haunting; while the third “I’ll aye call in by yon town” whirled us all away on energetic reel-like caperings, voicings and accompaniments enjoying themselves hugely.

Samuel Barber’s dark, Prokofiev-like waltz-song “Under the Willow Tree” from his opera Vanessa was performed by a tenor solo, the emotion ready and heartfelt, the tones full-throated at “Where shall we sleep, my love?”, the piece making a startling foil for Eric Whitacre’s little man in a hurry which followed, almost its antithesis, in fact. Whitacre’s setting of characteristically pithy verses by ee cummings fitted the words like gloves – repetitive, molto perpetuo rhythms and syncopated irruptions, all brought off with wonderful control by the singers – a contrasting, more lyrical section characterizes the “little child” before the piece speeds up with a glissando and dove-tailing syncopations, words and phrases flailing in all directions, the pianist’s turbo-charged energy rocketing the piece to its conclusion.

We next enjoyed a truly revivalist Shenandoah by way of preparing for the choir’s take of Neil Finn’s Don’t Dream It’s Over, stunningly sung and played by Nolan Frank, his “freer” guitarist-vocal style extraordinarily fused with the choir’s concerted accompaniments in a wholly spontaneous-sounding way. Last on the program was the invigorating Ride On King Jesus, an arrangement by Stacy V.Gibbs of a traditional Afro-American spiritual, a tour de force of controlled, energetic singing. In a note Gibbs explained how he wanted the soprano line to exemplify the joy and confidence of faith in “King Jesus” – and some extraordinary stratospheric work from the sopranos towards the end certainly galvanized our sensibilities and uplifted our spirits!

A standing ovation was a “given” in such circumstances, one to which the choir warmly responded with both an encore and a “blessing”, the words of the latter read by the conductor before being sung. It all made for an extraordinarily satisfying and heartening concert of great singing from a wonderful group of musicians.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Varied and various concert from National Boys Choir of Australia

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Bach: Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring
Fauré: Messe basse
Songs by Ennio Morricone, Bruno Coulais, Lionel Bart, Todd McNeal, Peter Allen, John Rutter
Pokarekare ana; Waltzing Matilda

National Boys Choir of Australia, directed by Peter Casey and Philip Carmody, accompanied by Robyn Cochrane (piano) and (in the Fauré) Richard Apperley (organ)

Wellington Cathedral of St. Paul

Monday, 10 July 2012, 5.30 pm

The visiting choir of 42 trebles is the cream of a much bigger enterprise, based in Melbourne, that trains 200 boys in choral singing.  It was founded back in 1964, but this was the choir’s first visit ‘across the ditch’, despite its having visited many northern hemisphere countries, on no fewer than 14 tours.

In addition to producing a fine choral sound and singing all items from memory, the choir had excellent soloists performing in quite a number of the items.

The choir began by singing ‘Jesu Joy of Man’s Desiring’ from the ambulatory, and processed in to take their positions on the chancel steps.  The music was taken at a very fast pace, but the boys produced a gorgeous, unified sound that was well projected.

Unfortunately the same couldn’t be said for the considerable amount of talking to the audience that the two conductors did, as they alternated in the role.  Neither used a microphone, and the second of the two spoke far too quickly than is audible in this size of auditorium, with its very resonant acoustic.  They may have thought that with a small audience (approx. 50), most of whom were near the front, a mike was not necessary.  But it is.  There was considerable interaction with the audience, especially with the few children present, including quiz questions (most of which were too difficult for the children, but fun for the adults).  All of this gave the boys a rest.

The Fauré Messe Basse, or Low Mass, consisted of four of the usual movements, but without Gloria or Credo.  The Sanctus was notable for delicious echo effects.  The cathedral acoustics were not a problem here; the music was written for this kind of building.  The music was quite simple in style, but potent.  Latin pronunciation was absolutely uniform, making for a clean, open sound.

The song River by Morricone (famous for film music, notably that for Chariots of Fire) was accompanied by a drum as well as piano.  The music was quite percussive, the clear enunciation of the Italian words enhancing the effect of the music.

Next were settings of three poems by Walter de la Mare, by Todd McNeal, a contemporary Australian composer.  ‘Five Eyes’ I knew in another composer’s setting, but this was a most effective one.  The boys sang it in a sturdy and clear manner, and conveyed a picture of cats capturing ‘the thieving rats’.  ‘Silver’ was once well-known to primary school pupils (maybe it still is): ‘Slowly silently, now the moon/Walks the night in her silver shoon’.  The setting had a serene, calm feeling, as did I, listening.  These boys know their music and words very well.

The third song, ‘Tartary’, had a grand character, although the setting didn’t allow all the words to be heard.  These were, however, three skilful settings, sung well.

Three songs by Bruno Coulais from the film Les Choristes (two of them sung in English translation) followed.  They were a very pleasing reminder of a heart-warming film.

Six songs from Lionel Bart’s Oliver: ‘Food, glorious food’, ‘Where is love’, ‘Oom-pah-pah’ (sung very heartily), ‘I’d do anything for you’, ‘Who will buy’ and ‘Consider yourself at home’ were performed with feeling, and character appropriate to each song.  Soloists featured in several numbers; most were assured and communicated both music and words extremely well.

Although it was hard to hear all that was being said, I thought I heard New Zealand’s most famous Maori song, ‘Pokarekare ana’ attributed to Te Rangi Pai (or Fanny Rose Porter, Fanny Howie; a woman, not a man!).  However, her famous song was ‘Hine, e Hine’.  Wikipedia says ‘East Coast Māori song-writer Paraire Tomoana, who polished up the song [Pokarekare] in 1917 and published the words in 1921, wrote that “it emanated from the North of Auckland” and was popularised by Māori soldiers who were training near Auckland before embarking for the war in Europe.’

The choir’s Maori pronunciation was beautiful; the arrangement delightful.

This was followed by ‘Waltzing Matilda’, in an arrangement by Philip Carmody, featuring four soloists in harmony, blending their voices with superb tone.  The choir used an appropriate accent, and incorporated whistling.

The choir then moved to the sides of the cathedral, around the audience, to sing Peter Allen’s popular ‘I still call Australia home – this featured a gorgeous pure note a the end – and finally Rutter’s beautiful setting of ‘The Lord bless you and keep you’.  Suddenly, the acoustics no longer got in the way.  The sound was quite lovely and everything was easily heard.  For me, it was the high point of the concert.