Tag: choral

Kapiti Chorale’s Homage to Haydn

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Haydn: Little Organ Mass 
Excerpts from The Creation and The Seasons
Pieces for Clockwork Organ

The Kapiti Chorale, Marie Brown (conductor), Peter Averi (organ), Janey MacKenzie (soprano), John Beaglehole (tenor), Roger Wilson (bass)

St. Paul’s Anglican Church, Paraparaumu

Saturday, 7 May 2011, 2.30pm

While Haydn is an extremely important composer (1732-1809) and wrote in a great variety of genres, an entire concert of his music, not being one of his oratorios or major masses, may appear a little too much of one man’s music in a single performance.

However, the insertion of the delightful Six little pieces for flute clock lessened the effect of sameness.

The Kapiti Chorale must be the best choir around, certainly of its size, for watching their conductor. The opening of the Little Organ Mass was exemplary from this point of view. Most of the singers appeared to have memorised the opening. However, the singers started a little flat in intonation, and this unfortunate characteristic recurred rather too often through the performance. Not seriously flat, but flat nonetheless, especially the soprano section. The church has a lively acoustic, which makes it difficult to hide any inaccuracies.

The indomitable Peter Averi, this year celebrating 65 years since he first began playing the organ for church services, accompanied throughout, as well as playing a solo work. However, even he could not make a digital organ sound like a pipe organ plus string quartet, the combination for which this Mass was written, either in volume or tone. The bass of this instrument seemed particularly dull.

However, there was good sound from the choir, especially from the women. It must be said that a choir composed primarily of seniors does not achieve the brilliance or firmness of tone compared with one having a greater proportion of members of younger years. That said, the choir does very well. The problem for many choirs, of being weak in tenor numbers (and therefore sound) is not totally redeemed by using women. This does not dispose of the problem, since the register and tone are so different. Nevertheless, they were not totally overcome by the other parts by any means.

This being a short Mass, there was not a lot of repetition of the words; the lovely Benedictus solo for soprano was the only movement with an extended setting. This was beautifully sung by Janey MacKenzie, with warm, assured tone and great clarity, light and shade, and graceful legato. The movement featured an attractive organ solo.

The choir entry sounded rather feeble after such a superb solo. While the forte and mezzo-forte singing was fine, the piano singing was poor; final s’s were all over the place. The altos had the most consistent good tone, but often they could not be heard.

Peter Averi was able to come into his own in the next item: Six little pieces for flute clock, a mechanism made for large clocks by one Joseph Niemecz, an inventor who was librarian at the Esterházy court in 1780. Since the original musical device would have been small, it was well within the capabilities of the digital organ.

The opening allegretto was played with detached notes (as were other movements), appropriately for this music. The second, entitled ‘Gossiping over Coffee’ was very realistic. The fourth, ‘The Quail’ featured high 2-foot sounds replicating the squeaky call of these birds quite delightfully. The last of the six, the March, seemed as amusing a send-up or joke as the other movements. The whole work was utterly charming, and given as good a performance as was possible: this, the digital organ could do, especially in the hands of someone like Peter Averi.

Fittingly, the following item was about birds – the Air from The Creation with the words opening ‘On mighty pens uplifted soars the eagle aloft’ (remember, the first writing pens were quills from birds), and continuing on to characterise the lark, the dove, and the nightingale. Haydn did the most enchanting word-painting in sound of these birds, as of the quail. Janey MacKenzie’s solo here showed that she could make the most of this feature. This, and all the choral items, was sung in English.

The chorus and trio from The Seasons echoed the creation of the world in its words about the plenty of the earth. I felt that the choir knew this music better than they did some of the Little Organ Mass. The three soloists were well-balanced, and their words very clear. Clear too, was Marie Brown’s conducting, and this piece was successful. Throughout the concert, rhythm and tempi were fine.

Further excerpts from The Creation made up the second half. It was good to have the printed words and not have to rely on their being always audible, especially in contrapuntal passages.

Roger Wilson began proceedings solemnly and portentously in declaring the creation of the heaven and the earth. The dramatic chorus that followed contains unison passages which, unfortunately, were not always in unanimity. However, the feeling of drama came over well.

John Beaglehole was thrilling in his first recitative, about the division of light from darkness. His aria was well sung, but there was insufficient phrasing or expression. The choir sang the following chorus very well. The demanding aria ‘The marvellous work’ was exquisitely rendered by Janey MacKenzie.

Roger Wilson was very characterful in the bass recitative and aria that followed, concerning the land and sea. His singing was expressive, clarity of words and pianissimo and especially his lower notes, admirable. The organ part depicted the foaming billows, the mountains, plains and brooks with glorious, and amusing, detail.

The well-known soprano solo ‘With verdure clad’, preceded by its recitative, was most enjoyable. The high notes were refined; the repeat tastefully and appropriately ornamented.

After a jubilant chorus, in which the sopranos sang very well, two bass recitatives and aria aroused amusement with their depiction of the creation of the lion, the tiger, and especially the ‘nimble stag’ with ‘his branching head’, suitably given a fugal treatment in the accompaniment. When it came to the flocks, Wilson made sure they bleated. As for the worm, its ‘sinuous trace’ was slowly revealed on the organ and in the bass’s voice, including what must surely be Roger Wilson’s lowest note.

He revealed also some lovely higher notes in the aria, which was sung with clarity and eloquence. Here, the music caused a smile as the phrase ‘By heavy beasts the ground is trod’ was portrayed.

Tenor recitative and aria followed, telling of the creation of humankind. The captivating ‘In native worth and honour clad’ was sung very competently, but there was a lack character to it, despite some graceful expression and attractive tone.

A final recitative from the bass led to the triumphant chorus ‘Achieved is the glorious work’, sung splendidly by the choir, with the organ at full blast.

The audience greeted this with enthusiasm; the choir should be pleased with its efforts, despite my reservations.

Tudor Consort sings Victoria’s Tenebrae Responsories

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Music for Holy Week

The Tudor Consort directed by Michael Stewart

Tenebrae Responsories by Tomás Luis de Victoria with plainchant interludes from Pange Lingua by Venantius Fortunatus; De Profundis by Pizzetti; Three Motets, Op 110 (Brahms); Crucifixus à 8 by Lotti

Cathedral of St Paul

Good Friday, 22 April, 9pm

When I starting writing reviews for The Evening Post in 1987, I was not particularly au fait with very much liturgical music and even less with its technical vocabulary, having not been brought up in a religious family. Coming to grips with the significance of parts of the liturgy like the Tenebrae responories and their use in the church was interesting….

Let me assume that fewer today, even the nominally Catholic, are very familiar with some of the more arcane areas of the liturgy.

Holy Week is the busiest period in the calendar of the Christian church, and the commemoration of the events surrounding Christ’s crucifixion supplied the church with the opportunity for an extensive and complex variety of rituals most of which involved, from the earliest times, the speaking, chanting or singing of texts from the Bible; at Easter, that was mainly from the Gospels. And the events in the story provide for the expression of emotions of every kind, of betrayal, persecution, grief, experience of death both by the victim and by others, and the mysteries of the resurrection. The ceremonies that evolved very early to symbolize and represent the story involved extinguishing candles in gathering darkness (though there was no enactment of that in this concert), accompanied by chant and, from the 16th century, polyphonic choral singing of some of the most richly and emotionally charged compositions in the western musical tradition.

The best, straightforward account of the Tenebrae is from the New Grove Dictionary of Music: I paraphrase: the combined offices of Matins and Lauds on Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Holy Saturday of Holy Week. The service is marked by the extinction of 15 candles, one after each psalm. At the end of the canticle Benedictus Dominus all the candles are extinguished and what follows is said or sung in darkness – ‘in tenebris’. The musically significant parts of the ceremony are the first three of the nine ‘lessons’ of the Matins, taken from the Lamentations of Jeremiah, and the responsories that follow each.

The Responsories are just that – responses to each of the readings of lessons at Matins (the equivalent after readings at Mass is the Gradual). It was in the late 16th century that polyphonic settings of the Tenebrae responses became common. Out of the full 27 responsories to the Tenebrae ceremonies, Victoria set 18 of them and just six of those were sung on Friday evening. Each response consists of two parts – the respond and the verse – and the distinction in this performance in terms of voices used and the more hortatory character of the settings, was dramatically rendered.

The choir, positioned between choir stalls and sanctuary, while the audience occupied the choir stalls and seats between, sang with remarkable musical, though less verbal clarity: consonants were often allowed to pass unattended. But the deeply contemplative and grieving mood was wonderfully sustained and the singers grasped every expressive opportunity. In ‘Unus ex discipulis’, dealing with the betrayal by Judas, the descending lines and the highly charged singing described the event and its impact far better than any explicit expression of condemnation or outrage could.

Interspersed between parts of the Responsories and other pieces, were plainchants from the 6th century ‘sequence hymn’ by Venantius Fortunatus, Bishop of Poitiers, Pange lingua gloriosi proelium certaminis. They are chanted during the Adoration of the Cross on Good Friday and so were actually more exactly appropriate to performance on the evening of Good Friday than the Tenebrae Responsories themselves.

This concert included from Pange lingua, the ‘Crux fidelis’, ‘De parentis protoplasti’, ‘Hoc opus nostrae’, ‘Quando venit ergo sacri’, ‘Sola digni tu fuisti’ and ‘Aequa patri filioque’. Long stretches of plainsong I sometimes find tedious, but these were quite brief and, in any case, sung so exquisitely, shared between male and female voices and then together, that they were highly satisfying intercepts.

In addition to the selections from the Tenebrae Responsories and punctuating plainsong from the Pange Lingua, was one of the most remarkable pieces of modern polyphony reflecting the Renaissance style: The De Profundis of Pizzetti. (Pizzetti, 1880 – 1968, 20 years or so younger than his more famous operatic contemporaries, wrote mainly orchestral and vocal music, though he did have some operatic success, for example with his setting of T S Eliot’s Murder in the Cathedral – Assassinio nella cattedralae).

De Profundis, composed in 1937, is drawn from Psalm 130. It emerged as a religious expression of great integrity, bearing essential marks of 16th century liturgical music, but with harmonies and colours clearly post-Brahms, and recognizably of 20th century sensibility, and handling of voices. It was a superb performance; one of those that will drive me to explore more of Pizzetti’s music (though I did see Assassinio nella cattedrale in Rome a few years ago).

Then there was the group of three motets of Brahms, late works. The first and third could be compared with the Pizzetti motet, composed lineally in flowing counterpoint, while the second, ’Ach, arme Welt’, had a clear German chorale character, with vertical harmonies. The choir’s adroit stylistic shift was a further mark of its versatility. 

Another composer was called in to end the concert. Antonio Lotti, who lived from 1667 to 1740, about a hundred years after Victoria, continued to compose in the Renaissance style. Music had changed very considerably from the time of Victoria. As well as writing liturgical music (he was maestro di cappella at St Mark’s Venice), he wrote some 24 operas (though only eight survive) and he spent two years as opera composer for the Elector of Saxony, Friedrich Augustus I at Dresden.

The Crucifixus for eight voices from a Credo in F is a famous and popular piece; in turn it comes from his Missa Sancti Christophori, which was written while Lotti was at Dresden.

For this final piece, the choir was spread out across the full width of the sanctuary; it lived up to its promise, melodically interesting with women’s voices in long descending lines against varied accompaniment by male voices. Though the mass itself is written with instrumental accompaniment, in this section only a continuo line remains, and that was of course dropped from the performance, no doubt making the maintenance of pitch rather more difficult.

It brought a thoroughly enrapturing concert to an end, neatly affording a view of the high Renaissance from a beautiful, backward-looking work of the Baroque period. Once more, this superb, world-class choir which is far more than simply an ‘early music’ ensemble, delivered performances of warmth, precision, wide-ranging expressiveness, beauty and impressive ensemble.

Rewarding concert of choral works by two French organ composers

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

The Bach Choir of Wellington conducted by Stephen Rowley

The Seven Last Words of Christ and Toccata No 3 in G by Théodore Dubois; Messe Solennelle in C sharp minor, Op 16 , Naïades from Pièces de fantaisie, Op 55 No 4 and Berceuse from 24 Pièces en style libre, Op 31 by Louis Vierne

Organists: Douglas Mews, Christopher Hainsworth and Emmanuel Godinez
Bryony Williams (soprano), Thomas Atkins (tenor), Kieran Rayner (baritone)

Church of St Mary of the Angels

Sunday 17 April, 7pm

Two days after Richard Apperley had played Haydn’s account of the Seven Last Words of Christ on the Cross on St Paul’s Cathedral organ, an choral version of the story by Théodore Dubois was sung in St Mary of the Angels. If Haydn’s version saw the New Testament story as offering hope and spiritual renewal for mankind, Dubois’s account of Les sept paroles du Christ, only 70 years later, seemed to remove it from the divine world to a bourgeois world where spiritual ideas and emotions are filtered through a style of music more reminiscent of the theatre and drawing room.

That is not to say that in the eight movements (an Introduction and the seven verses that were compiled in early Christian times from various Gospel sources), there were not episodes in which the composer captured the sense and the emotions of the words and the meaning behind them. ‘Mulier (woman or mother), ecce filius tuus’, is the equivalent of the medieval poem Stabat Mater, set by many composers, and part of which used as the following gloss, there was, through baritone, tenor and soprano soloists, an affecting representation of grief in descending phrases. It was perhaps a pity that the two male singers had voices that were rather similar in timbre so that it was often only when singing at the extremes of their registers that I was absolutely certain who was singing.

All three voices, of current students or recent graduates of the New Zealand School of Music, were bright, splendidly produced and fitted the roles they depicted admirably.

And in the fourth Word, ‘My God, why have you forsaken me?’, perhaps the most challenging theologically, the feeling may not have been utterly despairing and uncomprehending, but its intensity created a small tour de force. It so happened I heard Stainer’s setting of these words in his Crucifixion on RNZ Concert on Wednesday morning (as I was finishing this review). And though I find the work pretty glutinous and religiose, Stainer captured the words with simple honesty.

The entire concert was performed from the choir gallery which proved most congenial in terms of sound projection, detail and balance. Solo voices seemed less subject to any undue reverberation, and the choir’s first entry after short verses from tenor and baritone, was surprisingly powerful; I suspect that both the supportive acoustic and the entire ambience stimulated the Bach Choir to perform at a level of distinction that it has been regaining steadily under the leadership of Stephen Rowley in the past couple of years.

Dubois’s work consists of the ‘Words’, sung generally by one of the soloists, followed by an enlargement of the verse with appropriate liturgical texts, all in Latin and sung by the chorus and/or the soloists. The organ, in Christopher Hainsworth’s hands, added very importantly to the interest and liveliness of the whole work.

The first half of the concert was in Hainsworth’s hands for, as President of the Dubois Society, he had grasped an appropriate opportunity to advocate for him. The society is dedicated to the revival of attention to this neglected composer, as much in France as other countries. He had chosen his exhibit for the court very well. It is interesting to recall that Dubois had been director of the Paris Conservatoire during the time that Ravel was being repeatedly failed for the Prix de Rome, though he actually resigned just before Ravel’s last (unsuccessful) attempt.

He played Dubois’s most familiar organ piece, his Toccata in G, having warned us not to imagine that Dubois had merely imitated Widor: Dubois’s toccata came first. It was a splendid display, employing the organ’s brilliant capacities with a sure instinct for effective registrations.

After the interval there were another two organ solos – by the concert’s ‘other’ composer, Louis Vierne. Thirty years younger than Dubois, Vierne’s music is far removed from the theatre-dominated music of his predecessor: impressionism and fastidiousness are the hallmarks. Douglas Mews played the much anthologized Naïades, aqueous and luminous; and then the Berceuse from Op 31 was played by Emmanuel Godinez, still at secondary school – St Patrick’s College, who was last year’s Maxwell Fernie Trust scholar. His performance of this quiet piece was of course no spectacle, but sensitive and poetic.

Vierne’s Messe Solennelle, written around 1900, was accompanied at the organ by Douglas Mews; it does not include the ‘Credo’. Again, the organ’s part was distinctive and refined, but not without dramatic moments, in which some of the more colourful, occasionally ‘peasant’ registrations, lent interest to a work whose refinement and subtlety might otherwise have deprived it of variety and drama. The choir’s performance was again remarkably confident and robust, though when necessary, as in the ‘Benedictus’ and in the undemonstrative ‘Agnus Dei’, the singing was of a delicacy and calm that brought the concert to a moving conclusion.

If Dubois’s life was fairly untroubled, Vierne’s was a tale of loss and misfortune. He was born near blind; he was deeply distressed by a divorce from his wife; his brother and son were killed in the First World War; he injured a leg in a street accident which took a long time to mend, and he had to relearn his pedal technique at the organ. And though he held the presitigous post of organist at Notre Dame Cathedral, the organ was in a state of serious disrepair through most of his time. And the story of his death during his 1750th recital in the cathedral rests among the strange semi-myths of music.

His recital was to end with two improvisations on submitted themes; he read the first theme in Braille, then selected the stops he would use; he suddenly pitched forward, and fell off the bench as his foot hit the low E pedal of the organ. He lost consciousness as the single note echoed throughout the church, and the story goes that the congregation only realised something was wrong as the note continued to sound. The latter is apocryphal however as his friend Maurice Duruflé was beside him at the time. But he had thus fulfilled his oft-stated lifelong dream – to die at the console of the great organ of Notre-Dame.

Orpheus Choir triumphs with the St Matthew Passion

Posted on by Peter Mechen

JS BACH – St. Matthew Passion

Paul McMahon – Evangelist; Michael Leighton-Jones – Jesus; Jenny Wollerman – soprano; Claire Barton – alto; Andrew Grenon – tenor; Daniel O’Connor – bass
Choristers of Wellington Cathedral of St.Paul; Orpheus Choir of Wellington
Douglas Mews – continuo / Robert Oliver – viola da gamba
Vector Wellington Orchestra
Michael Fulcher – conductor

Wellington Town Hall

Sunday, 10th April, 2011, 6.30pm

From a mere listener’s point of view I invariably approach the prospect of attending a performance of Bach’s most monumental undertaking with keen anticipation tempered by feelings of mild anxiety. The work always astonishes with its capacity (as observed by the redoubtable Professor Frederick Page, quoted in the program notes) to furnish “a glimpse into eternity”; though performances can sometimes suggest eternity in more uncomfortably temporal ways, more especially in church settings where the seating seems designed for the infliction of on-going penance upon listeners, ahead of repose and solace. I’m therefore happy to report that this was a performance whose beauties, energies and overall focus made for an enjoyable and involving musical experience throughout.

Michael Fulcher’s direction of the work’s ebb and flow seemed to me a key element – in his hands the music unfolded with a naturalness of utterance that enabled the music’s essential character at any given moment to shine forth to its advantage. There were two or three moments that I felt worked less well than they might, but in the overall scheme so much seemed right, that our engagement in what was being played and sung never faltered. The work’s very opening, ‘Komm, ihr Töchter’, was splendidly launched by both orchestra and choir, Fulcher’s lilting direction enlivening the lines and textures while encouraging from the musicians plenty of pointed phrasing, the sound-picture both focused and beautifully transparent. Only in the difficult Aria for Alto and Chorus ‘Ach! nun ist mein Jesus hin!’ that opens the second part did I catch a sense of things being slightly out-of-sync, the music’s different elements working hard to try and gell, the various dove-tailings of the lines a truly precarious business.

Above all, there’s a story being told by this music, and in this respect the performance delivered splendidly – I thought the Evangelist Paul McMahon excellent in his dramatic focus, so alive to the text’s possibilities and so fluent a technique as to do his interpretation full justice. The other soloists, including several from the body of the choir taking minor but still significant roles, played their part in realizing the drama and pathos of the story. Perhaps not as visceral and graphic as the exchanges in Bach’s other great Passion, that of St.John, these nevertheless came resoundingly alive throughout the recitatives, giving us a real sense of the work’s inexorable progress towards that mystical fusion of death and fulfillment that accompanies godly sacrifice in Christian and non-Christian cultures alike.

Each of the soloists “entered” his or her roles in complete accord with the proceedings – soprano Jenny Wollerman, though over-tremulous of voice in places, brought her dramatic instincts marvellously to bear in episodes such as her recitative ‘Er hat uns allen wohl getan’ and aria ‘Aus Liebe’, whose sequence, together with some beautiful wind-playing at the beginning made a truly affecting impression. I was also much taken with the voice of the alto, Claire Barton, whose bright, slightly plangent tone-quality gave life and meaning to her utterances, despite some slightly ungainly moments in passagework here and there – obviously a voice to listen out for in years to come. Right from her opening recitative ‘Du Lieber Heiland du’, leading into the aria ‘Buß und Reu’, her tones struck the lines squarely and resonantly, to memorable effect, again supported by on-the-spot instrumental duetting and continuo playing (flutes and solo ‘cello).

Of the men, baritone Michael Leighton-Jones, long-time resident in Australia, made a welcome return to Wellington as a sonorous, dignified Jesus, never over-playing the drama (as befits the role’s god-like dignity of utterance), but often touching this listener with the resonant simplicity of his tones, emphasizing the text’s and music’s humanity and vulnerability. Promising performances came from his two younger colleagues, tenor Andrew Grenon, and bass Daniel O’Connor, each of whom had taxing arias to grapple with, and in both cases emerging with considerable credit. Despite the occasionally strained note, Grenon took to his recitative ‘O Schmerz!’ and aria ‘Ich will bei meinem Jesu wachen’ with real commitment, making something truly heartfelt out of ‘Er solo vor fremden Raub bezahlen’, and bringing real “point” to his interaction with the choir throughout both recitative and aria. I loved the vivid “plodding” quality of the accompaniment to Grenon’s recitative ‘Mein Jesus schweigt zu falschen Lügen stille’, the combination of organ and viola da gamba here and throughout the aria most affecting.

Daniel O’Connor did well negotiating Michael Fulcher’s urgent speeds during the bass aria Gerne will ich mich bequemen, after delivering a well-rounded and sonorous recitative ‘Der Heiland fällt vor seinem Vater nieder’; and again survived the bluster of a spanking pace for ‘Gebt mir meinem Jesum wieder!’
He demonstrated a fine feel for line during all of his recitatives, relishing the beautiful Vivaldi-like pictorial writing for both voice and instruments of ‘Am Abend, da es kühle war’ (a kind of Bachian ‘In the cool, cool,cool of the evening…’!), even if both soloist and orchestra struggled a bit with the ensuing aria ‘Mache ditch, mien Herze, rein’, trying to do justice to the syncopated figures and getting a just voice/instrumental balance. Of the solo voices from the choir, special mention needed to be made of Kieran Rayner’s true-toned Pontius Pilate, and Thomas Barker’s angst-ridden Peter, the disciple who denied his Master three times.

True-toned and eagerly responsive throughout, the Orpheus Choir sang like angels, whether divided into two antiphonal groups or en masse, completely at one with Michael Fulcher’s overall conception of the music. At first I thought the more dramatic choral interjections were going to lack sufficient urgency and bite, as with the choir’s contributions to the soprano and alto duet ‘So ist mein Jesus nun gefangen’, but the immediately subsequent ‘Sind Blitze, sind Donner’ had all the vehemence one could want, as did the accusatory cries of ‘Er ist des Todes schuldig!’ in response to Kieran Raynor’s vengeful High Priest. Elsewhere, the voices brought just the right amalgam of radiance and gravitas to the chorales, as exemplified by the wonderful ‘Wie wunderbarlich ist doch diese Strafe!’ in the “Jesus before Pilate” section of the work; and a winning tenderness to the exchanges with the soloists in the penultimate recitative ‘Nun ist der Herr zur Ruh gebracht’. It was fitting that, in tandem with the orchestra, the choir had the last say, delivering the words with the same focus, fervor and vocal splendor with which the same voices had begun the journey a couple of hours before. Contributing with bright, bell-like tones to the choral sonorities as well were the Choristers of Wellington Cathedral of St.Paul, dressed as for a church service, and contrasting as such with the secular severity of the main choir’s black attire.

Yet another bastion of the performance was the Vector Wellington Orchestra, its playing for Michael Fulcher unfailingly stylish and characterful, whether from the groupings of strings spread across two antiphonally-placed orchestras or among the various combination of winds whose tones enlivened many a texture along the way. Further interest was generated by fine solo continuo playing from both ‘cellist Paul Mitchell and viola da gamba specialist Robert Oliver (though the conductor’s rapid tempo for the bass aria ‘Komm, süßes Kreuz’ resulted in Robert Oliver’s viola da gamba accompaniment sounding uncharacteristically breathless). Organist Douglas Mews as well contributed unfailingly secure support in the continuo role. In sum, the performance was of a concerted splendour, with the music-making’s refulgent glow warming hearts and satisfying intellects alike – an achievement of which the Orpheus Choir and its various cohorts can, in my opinion, be justly proud.

Kapiti choir’s farewell to Guy Jansen: Serenade to Music

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Kapiti Chamber Choir’s Farewell to musical director Guy Jansen

Soloists: Janey MacKenzie, Linden Loader, Michael Gray, Roger Wilson and an orchestra, with Jonathan Berkahn – organ

Haydn: Te Deum; Bruckner: Ave Maria; Duruflé: ‘Kyrie’ from his Requiem; Debussy: ‘Dieu, qu’il la fait bon regarder’; Stravinsky: Pater Noster; Franz Biebl: Ave Maria; Vaughan Williams: Serenade to Music; Handel: three choruses from Messiah (‘Hallelujah’, ‘Worthy is the lamb’, ‘Amen’)

Waikanae Memorial Hall

Sunday 10 April, 2.30pm

Guy Jansen took up the post of musical director of the Kapiti Chamber Choir after founding conductor Peter Godfrey retired in 2007. Now, having become chairman of the New Zealand Choral Federation and becoming more involved in educational activities, he was giving his last concert with the choir.

The hall, which is designed basically for indoor sports, with a high roof, presents difficulties for music, though the recent construction of a recessed stage for chamber groups has been an improvement, at least for those near the players. But it was of no use to a 40-voice choir,  raised on benches, and a 28-piece orchestra, all on the floor; and it wasn’t helped by a curtain that covered the recess, absorbing some of the sound.

The concert opened with Haydn’s Te Deum, employing the orchestra. It comes from late in Haydn’s career, the period of the last half dozen masses. Though it’s not the equal of the best of those masses, the effects of careful rehearsal were evident and it was an arresting start to the concert. Even though one was grateful for the presence of an orchestra instead of an organ, it was the vocal part that was generally more polished and energetic than the orchestra: the brass instruments were not entirely integrated either with the strings or the choir.

In Bruckner’s Ave Maria, an a cappella piece that opened with women’s voices alone, the choir was spread, in groups, out across the full width of the hall, illuminating parts very nicely, and it offered the singers perhaps a better opportunity to shine.

Maurice Duruflé’s Requiem has become popular in recent decades, and it gave the choir the double opportunity – to demonstrate its skill in quasi-plainchant and in a 20th century French idiom; rather restrained at the start, the singers became more lively as it moved along.

One of Debussy’s three unaccompanied choral songs, ‘Dieu, qu’il la fait bon regarder’, might have seemed an odd choice, but it was Guy Jansen’s obvious aim to demonstrate his choir’s versatility. With careful French pronunciation, and conducted by Bridget O’Shanassy, the singing nevertheless showed quite understandable signs of intonation shakiness at certain moments, such was the choir’s conspicuous exposure in this difficult piece.

There was no let-up from the challenging music with Stravinsky’s Pater noster, a coldly powerful piece delivered without much dynamic variation; it had the character of chant in spite of its somewhat stark harmonies.

The conductor introduced the Ave Maria by Franz Biebl, an Austrian-born American composer, as his only composition to have found favour. Its melodic character was clear and the solo parts, beautifully sung by all three – soprano, tenor and bass (Janey MacKenzie, Michael Gray and Roger Wilson) – gave it interesting variety.

If there was some diffidence in the performances in the first half, Vaughan Williams’s Serenade to Music which opened the second, was a more striking demonstration of what they could do. The orchestra opened with very encouraging confidence and good ensemble, and the choir (the piece was originally for sixteen solo voices, but we heard the composer’s arrangement for four soloists and choir) sounded well rehearsed and filled with affection. Here, the soloists were occasionally a bit stretched, but all four, now including mezzo Linden Loader who sang the phrase from ‘Music! Hark!…’ comfortably with special warmth, were individually striking as well as integrating beautifully with the choir and the orchestra. The charming violin solo was beautifully handled by Sharon Callaghan.

The three choruses from Messiah were also vigorous and well sung, particularly the ‘Allelujah’ in which the audience was invited to join. As Guy Jansen stepped aside after long applause, baritone Rodney Macann came forward to sing a spiritual, unaccompanied apart from some gentle intoning from the choir, ostensibly a spontaneous gesture. It brought a very appropriate occasion to a nice conclusion.

Tudor Consort – Prophetic excellence at Lower Hutt

Posted on by Peter Mechen

Settings to music of prophetic writings throughout the ages

Music by Hildegard von Bingen, Orlando de Lassus, William Byrd, Gustav Holst, Alonso Lobo, Michael Praetorius, Alban Berg, Heinrich Schutz

The Tudor Consort, directed by Michael Stewart (Presented by Chamber Music Hutt Valley)

St.James Church, Lower Hutt

Wednesday, 6th April, 2011

What an inspired idea for a concert! – fascinating to collect together a broad chronological range of composers’ responses to prophetic texts to register any commonalities and enjoy the differences. Not surprisingly, these factors were the two most readily prominent features of the concert, namely the power of the texts to elicit a heartfelt response from every composer, and the sharply varied flavour of each individual setting. The result was an evening replete with strongly heartfelt utterances, expressed with a variety of musical styles and modes – in other words, a “best of both worlds” occasion.

The concert couldn’t have begun more appropriately and strikingly than with Erin King’s beautiful singing of music by the twelfth-century composer, poet, visionary and abbess Hildegarde of Bingen. The otherwise excellent program note didn’t directly indicate that the text of the antiphon O pastor animarum was Hildegarde’s own, though it’s very likely part of her renowned “Symphonia armonie celestial revelationum”, her own collection of poetry and music which she assembled and herself enriched throughout her life.

But the work around which most of the concert’s program was constructed was Orlando de Lassus’s Prophetiae Sibyllarum, a visionary outpouring of highly personalized responses to texts that transported his creative sensibilities towards extraordinary flights of fancy. The texts, attributed to various mystic seers, were largely appropriated from antiquity by the early Christian Church, though it’s thought that Lassus himself wrote the words of the Prologue. The various settings were performed by the Consort in groups of two and three, and interspersed throughout the concert, creating interesting juxtapositionings with the work of twentieth-century composers such as Holst and Berg. Although these composers and others featured in the concert used texts from different sources, the shared intensities of both music and performance fused the varieties of eras and styles into what I felt to be a deeply satisfying whole.

Lassus’s settings featured a kind of chromatic restlessness in places, which, allied to marked flexibility of rhythm and pulse, readily created sound-worlds whose mystical realms seemed somewhat removed from ordinary experience, the texts truly sounding as if from remote times and places. I was reminded in places of Italian madrigals and their volatility of utterance, making for unexpected shifts of harmony, colour and rhythm by way of bringing the texts to life. Michael Stewart, director of the Consort, had introduced the composer and the music, characterizing Lassus’s work as “wonderfully weird” – and the group brought out the music’s varied intensities throughout each of the three groups of Prophetiae before the interval, with beautifully-judged gradations of sound and finely-honed intonation. In the Sybilla Europaea’s Virginis aeternum from the first group of Prophetiae after the resumption I thought the bass lines less well integrated with the whole – the rest soared and whispered across a stunningly varied sound-spectrum, the startling modulations and spooky “sotto voce” ambiences of the piece utterly spell-binding. And again, in the following Verax ipse Deus of the Sybilla Tyburtina the men’s voices again sounded to my ears a shade too nasal in effect, compared with the rest of the choir.

Amends were made with the beautifully-turned final group of Lassus’s Prophetiae, the two settings rather more conventional in effect, I thought, apart from occasional modulations which, though unexpected, we had by now come to expect! As a whole, the work was a perfect foil for the rest, William Byrd’s beautiful Ecce Virgo concipiet seeming like balm to our senses, coming as it did in the midst of all of Lassus’s convoluted chromaticisms. Holst’s Nunc Dimittis, too, seemed more “anchored” harmonically, though the overlapping eight-part opening created a frisson of expectation which built unerringly towards a real cathedral-style apotheosis at the final Gloria. And the Spanish composer Alonso Lobo’s Ave Maria had a gloriously rolling-sound kind of perpetual-motion character (the double choir creating something of an inexhaustible voices effect), all beautifully delivered.

In the second half of the concert we were able to enjoy contrasting settings (separated by three hundred years) of the German Advent Carol Es ist ein Ros’ entsprungen, by Michael Praetorius and Alban Berg, the latter here eschewing his Second Viennese School associations for a more late-Romantic tonal setting. Praetorius’s essentially simple, straight-to-the-heart treatment of the words admirably set off Berg’s more extended and somewhat tortured, though still achingly beautiful setting. Concluding what I thought was an evening’s glorious singing was the Teutsch Magnificat of

Heinrich Schütz, set for double choir, and featuring at the outset richly-wrought antiphonal exchanges between the two groups. The composer cleverly varied the word-pointing in places, telescoping the word-pointing and creating a kind of word-excitement which bubbled out of and over the edges of the music – “singing for the joy of singing” was the phrase that came to my mind as I Iistened, caught up in the exuberance and beauty of it all – marvellous!

A litany of Requiems from Nota Bene at St Mary of the Angels

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Herbert Howells: Requiem; Albinoni: Adagio; Schütz: Two choral pieces; Pearsall: ‘Lay a Garland’; Lukáš: Requiem Aeternam; Sam Piper: ‘Kyrie’; Jan Sandström: ‘Sanctus’; Barber: ‘Agnus Dei’; David Hamilton: Lux Aeterna; Fauré: ‘Pie Jesu’ from Requiem in D; Tavener: Song for Athene

Nota Bene Chamber Choir, conducted by Peter de Blois, with Lara Denby (soprano, in Fauré’s ‘Pie Jesu’) and Douglas Mews (organ, in Albinoni and Fauré)

St. Mary of the Angels Church, Boulcott Street

Sunday, 3 April, 2.30pm

In its seven years of existence, Nota Bene has found a particular spot in the large choral firmament that is Wellington: that of a mixed chamber choir with a wide and varied repertoire, singing in a variety of venues. It is marked by accuracy, finesse and elegance.

The sung works on this programme were all Requiems, movements from Requiems, or choral songs which speak of death. That is not to say that the music was entirely doleful or sombre in character.

Herbert Howells’s Requiem began the first half, followed by several other items. In the second half there were 7 movements: Requiem, ‘Kyrie’, ‘Sanctus’, ‘Agnus Dei’, ‘Lux Aeterna’, ‘Pie Jesu’, ‘Alleluia’, by a variety of composers. The major choral Requiems in the repertoire are not consistent as to the movements of which they are made up; the movements chosen for this concert made up a reasonable summary, although there was no ‘Libera Me’ movement. Perhaps the selection was most like that of Fauré in his Requiem of 1887.

While the printed programme gave the dates for some of the compositions, the dates for the composers were not given, which was a pity. With so many composers’ works being performed, it would have been interesting to compare the styles and settings from different periods.

The opening of the Howells, ‘O Saviour of the world’ was serene and lovely; it set the tone for the entire concert. Choral tone and blend could not be faulted. Unlike the case with many choirs, this choir has men’s voices as good and as reliable as the women’s.

This work featured soloists Gillian Bruce (soprano), Maaike Christie-Beekman (mezzo), Patrick Geddes and John Fraser (tenors) and Simon Christie (baritone), all of whom sang confidently and well. The last-named was familiar to Wellington audiences a number of years ago, as a student and after, singing solo, and performing particularly well in humorous operatic roles. I recall him as an amusing Papageno in a university production of Mozart’s Magic Flute.

The second movement of the Howells was Psalm 23. Here, there were strong and accurate unison passages interspersed with the part-setting.

‘Requiem aeternam’ (1) followed. It was peaceful and very beautiful. Next was Psalm 121 ‘I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills’. This featured Christie in a fine bass solo. There was glorious light and shade throughout the movement, from excellent phrasing and well-controlled dynamic variation.

The second ‘Requiem aeternam’ was intensely solemn. Notable was the good forte sound, in this sympathetic acoustic. The final movement was ‘I heard a voice from heaven’ (from the Book of Revelation). It was indeed a heavenly sound, yet with a mourning, wailing aspect to it.

The whole effect of the work was understated mourning, alternating with peace and comfort afforded by the words of Scripture. The music was certainly twentieth century, but gentle and contemplative, discords serving the purport of the words rather than being there for their own sake.

This work was followed by the famous Albinoni Adagio (not by him at all, but by his 20th-century biographer, Remo Giazotto, according to the programme note). It was appropriately solemn to go with the Requiems, given interesting registration and sensitively played by Douglas Mews, with more phrasing than one usually hears it given. But it is a pretty hackneyed piece to play in a concert like this. I imagine its purpose was to give the singers a rest.

Two German settings by Heinrich (the usual form of his name, though the ‘Henrich’ in the programme is another form) Schütz gave the choir an opportunity to sing baroque music in very good German. The quiet passages were exquisitely controlled, while the tone was rich for the most part, although in the second piece, ‘Selig sind die Toten’, the tenor tone was variable, and not always attractive.

On to the nineteenth century now, and Robert Lucas de Pearsall’s quite lovely ‘Lay a Garland’. This madrigal sets words of Shakespeare, and is a favourite of Professor Peter Godfrey, who was in the audience; the National Youth Choir have frequently sung it. (Both Peter de Blois and this choir’s founder, Christine Argyle, are former members, as doubtless are other choir members). Here, Simon Christie’s voice was a little too dominant in the basses. Otherwise, the performance was superb.

The second half commenced with ‘Requiem Aeternam’ by contemporary Czech composer Zdeněk Lukáš. Both this setting and the ‘Kyrie’ that followed were sung by the National Youth Choir on its visit overseas in 1999. The contrasting textures here gave drama and impact, as did the exceedingly quiet ending. The vertical chords employing tonic and dominant were interspersed with close harmonies, and unison passages for one part only. It all made for a most attractive and interesting choral work.

Sam Piper, a former member of the National Youth Choir, wrote his ‘Requiem Aeternam’ for that choir. Nota Bene gave a very satisfying performance of a skilled piece of writing. There was plenty of dynamic contrast, which gave variety to the repetition of musical figures.

‘Sanctus’ by Sandström featured movement from intervals of thirds to seconds, creating a strong effect, and was executed with precision and finesse. It was a short but impressive work.

The prospect of the warhorse that is Barber’s Adagio was mitigated by its being the choral version ‘Agnus Dei’. I have heard this sung in concert quite recently; nevertheless, this was a superb performance. The interweaving lines became quite mesmeric.

Probably New Zealand’s most prolific choral composer, David Hamilton’s work has a sure touch, and is always very effective. The Lux aeterna begins with humming in parts. This had a shimmering quality. After the words are sung, there is a whispered invocation of ‘Lux aeterna’ from the tenors to end.

Fauré’s evocative and well-known ‘Pie Jesu’ from his Requiem was sung by young 17-year-old Lara Denby with organ accompaniment. It was a very accomplished rendition. The voice had sufficient volume, and a lovely quality; vowels were beautifully formed. There was particularly warm and prolonged applause for this item, partly because the performance of the Howells at the start of the concert was dedicated to the memory of her father, who died in December, and was a member of the choir.

The final item, John Tavener’s Song for Athene, is a work of subtly changing harmonies from the upper parts, while the basses sustain a single vowel through most of the piece. There appeared to be additional words that were not printed; these were sufficiently clear to be heard without seeing them. The ethereal and contemplative qualities of the music were fully realised.

Beginning the previous evening, there are at least six choral concerts in a period of two weeks in and around Wellington – is that not too many for the local audiences to take in? Nevertheless, this excellent concert was well-attended and deservedly, warmly received.

The Tudor Consort opens season at the Carillon

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Music from the Sistine Chapel

Gregorio Allegri (1582-1652): Missa ‘Che fa oggi il mio sole’
Felice Anerio (c.1560-1614): ‘Regina caeli laetare’; ‘Ave regina caelorum’ Josquin des Prez (c.1450-1521): ‘Domine, non secundum peccata nostra’
Cristóbal de Morales (c.1500-1553): Andreas Christi famulus
Palestrina (1525-1594): ‘Assumpta est Maria’

The Tudor Consort, conducted by Michael Stewart

National War Memorial

26 February 2011, 7pm

The National War Memorial is a venue that the Tudor Consort has used a number of times over its 25 years. This concert was a free one for 70 or so subscribers who attended, to open its 25th anniversary season.

While not quite the Sistine Chapel, this little chapel has a handsomely decorated interior, has superb acoustics for unaccompanied voices, yet is not too reverberant, and is an appropriate size for a small choir – though it has to be said that when in full flight, the Tudor Consort was a shade too loud at times. Some choir members wore (subtle) red with their black, in tribute to those who died and have suffered in the Christchurch earthquake. Michael Stewart announced that the choir would put on a benefit concert for earthquake fund soon.

Most of the items were sung with 14 voices, while one (the Josquin) used only eight. Michael Stewart’s short introductions to the items were informative without overloading us with information. The concert lasted approximately 75 minutes – a good length for this sort of music; longer, and the ear might have become wearied.

The Allegri Mass, like most of his extant music written for the Sistine Chapel Choir, of which he was a member, was broken up to be interspersed between the other items in the programme. The Credo was not sung.

Right from the opening Kyrie of the Mass, attack was excellent, phrases were beautifully shaped, and most of the parts were full-toned and wonderfully varied. In the early part of the program there was a rather metallic sound somewhere in the sopranos in the upper register.

The Gloria presented waves of lovely sound washing over us. The tonal and dynamic contrasts included a soft ‘you take away the sins of the world, have mercy on us’: exquisite delicacy in contrast with the robust, muscular bass singing that followed. The texture was almost always well balanced.

Anerio was a priest-composer who wrote for the papal chapel. His ‘Regina caeli’ demonstrated a more complex style than that of Allegri. For these two items the choir moved to singing antiphonally, as two choirs facing each other on opposite sides. The music brought out some of the very rich voices in the choir, as it contrasted homophonic with polyphonic passages to give an extraordinary effect.

The Sanctus and Benedictus of the Allegri Mass revealed perfect tuning from the choir, and superb cadences.

Josquin, the Flemish composer, spent many years at the Sistine Chapel, and his music continued to be sung long after he died – not something that was common at the time. His piece performed by the choir was written for Ash Wednesday, and was appropriately pure and subdued. The choir was reduced to eight singers for this item.

‘Domine, non secundum peccata nostra’ opened with only the two altos and tenor, whose singing was very fine. This was remarkably smooth and restrained singing, yet there was plenty of sonority and volume when required.

The ‘Andreas Christi famulus’ of the prolific Spanish composer and member of the papal choir, Cristóbal de Morales, was full of lavish sounds, especially at the cadences. The audience luxuriated in the intertwining chords and contrapuntal lines flowing ever onward.

The Allegri Agnus Dei was exquisite; very dramatic, yet graceful and elegant.

Palestrina’s tenure as a choir member was short-lived; he was married, and a change of pope from Marcellus who appointed him in 1555 meant that the rules were more strictly applied, so he had to go. His hymn to Mary featured wonderful word-painting. It was much the most declamatory, confident and exuberant of the items. The confident music was matched by the confidence of the choir, who produced a full, extravert tone throughout, with florid, contrasted dynamics.

The building’s resonance had a curious effect: the pitch of the reverberation was always slightly sharper than the note just sung – only noticeable at the end of items – rather like the effect when a car, train or other vehicle sounding its horn passes one; the pitch after it has passed is higher.

It was a concert of uplifting music, sung with verve, energy and conviction. The choir reached a high level of achievement and professionalism.

Free Concert to mark the Summer School of Choral Conducting

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Choral pieces by American composers, Rossini, Brahms, Lauridsen, Helen Fisher, David Griffiths, David Childs and Anthony Ritchie

Choir of the Summer School in Choral Conducting conducted by three visiting tutors from USA with accompanist, Bronwyn Brown (Australia); Voices New Zealand Chamber Choir conducted by Karen Grylls, with Horomona Horo (taonga puoro)

Sacred Heart Cathedral, Hill Street

Sunday, 2 January 2011

A free concert is always welcome, and Sacred Heart was nearly full for a short choral concert.

The opening bracket of songs were all by American composers, and conducted by tutors at the Summer School of Choral Conducting, the choir being made up of those being tutored: choral conductors and fledgling conductors.

Jo-Michael Scheibe conducted ‘I carry your heart with me’ by David Dickau, with words by e.e. cummings. He explained that there had only been three hours for rehearsal; whether this was for this piece alone or for all three pieces was not made clear. After a tentative start, this was a good performance, though not electrifying, despite one of the headings in the printed programme reading ‘International Summer School in Choral Conduction Inc.’ The choir of over 40 was well balanced, and featured splendid basses. This item was accompanied on the piano by Bronwyn Brown.

The second choral song was a setting of Psalm 121: ‘I will lift up mine eyes’, by Nicholas Mekaig. It was conducted by Christopher Kiver, an Englishman resident in the United States. Again, the opening was a little tentative, and at one point the soprano sound turned into something of a shriek, but there was good unaccompanied singing, and a lovely balanced ending.

These were two beautiful settings, which would be worth local choirs taking up.

The last of the three was accompanied, and opened with excellent unison singing. Most of the choir sang from memory in this item: ‘True Light’ by Keith Hampton, conducted by Mary Hopper. This was a gospel-style number, with the choir eventually swaying to the beat.

The choir made a good fist of unfamiliar music. The conductors were clear in their beats and other gestures, without flamboyance, and produced good results from a group not accustomed to singing together, performing new music.

After a short break while the choirs changed places, Horomona Horo slowly led Voices New Zealand into the Cathedral, as he played taonga puoro. He switched instruments from the conch shell trumpet-like instrument to a long wooden, very loud wind instrument when the choir reached the front of the church.

For a complete contrast, the choir began with Rossini’s ‘Cantemus’, an attractive piece reminiscent of compositions of a couple of centuries earlier. Immediately we were in the presence of a very impressive choir. These are quality voices, singing very effectively with unified tone, excellent enunciation, feeling for the music, which moves forward all the time. Legato singing was graceful, and dynamics superbly graded.

Brahms’s ‘Nachtwache’ and ‘Verlorene Jugend’ from Funf Gesänge followed. Fullness of beautiful tone is what distinguishes this choir and its remarkable conductor, as well as accuracy and attention to detail. For example, all the vowels are made in the same way by every one of the 24 choir members. There is plenty of volume when required. In this piece there were one or two harsh high soprano notes, but this was an isolated occurrence. I am sure Brahms would have been thrilled with this performance.

The noted American choral composer Morten Lauridsen wrote Six Fire Songs. Three were performed, and proved to be very effective music. They were sung with force and clarity. There were difficult harmonies, all executed to perfection.

‘Pounamu’ by Helen Fisher was the only one of the Voices items accompanied: Horomona Horo played the koauau beautifully during this quite lengthy piece. The instrument contributed to a ghostly feeling, as did the long-held notes from the choir. The interval of a second occurred frequently; this was difficult music, and not something that many other choirs could readily tackle.

David Griffiths set poems of Charles Brasch in Five Landscapes, of which we heard two: ‘Oreti Beach’ and ‘On Mount Iron’. This was stark, but interesting music, and the second song particularly featured delicious choral writing. However, from where I sat it was not possible to hear most of the words.

A lovely ‘Salve Regina’ setting by David Childs was exquisitely sung. There were gorgeous harmonies, and the basses particularly were outstanding. A few fuzzy entries did not really detract from a fine rendering.

Last of all was a piece written especially for Voices New Zealand: ‘Olinda’ by Anthony Ritchie. Here, the words were clearer – it may be that the writing of a former New Zealand Youth Choir member (and present Board member of Choirs Aotearoa) lent itself to greater clarity. It was a cheerful item with which to end a memorable concert.

Christine Argyle introduced the Voices items, each of which was received with sustained and hearty applause from the audience.

The four New Zealand compositions were all more adventurous in style than the American ones. This is not to put down the latter – they were all most effective choral pieces, and certainly not without tricky harmonies and rhythms. We were treated to a programme of demanding music, magnificently sung.

The Tudor Consort in a brilliant Christmas Oratorio

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Bach: Christmas Oratorio, BWV 248

 

The Tudor Consort and the Vector Wellington Orchestra conducted by Michael Stewart. Soloists: Anna Leese (soprano), Kate Spence (alto), David Hamilton (tenor), Jared Holt (bass)

 

Wellington Town Hall

 

Saturday 18 December 2010, 7.30pm

 

The Tudor Consort’s courage in hiring the Town Hall for its Christmas Oratorio was rewarded by a good audience and by an absolutely wonderful performance. Anna Leese was no doubt an important draw-card, but in the event the success was achieved through the other three principals, by the choir itself, and very importantly, the superb baroque ensemble drawn from the Vector Wellington Orchestra.

 

Here was just one occasion when this fine orchestra provided an indispensable contribution to a performance. Bach calls for only about 23 players, but these were players who created an accompaniment of such finesse and sensitivity to the Baroque style that I can hardly imagine better in this country, or any other. As he had shown in his work with the choir, Michael Stewart proved an equally gifted orchestral director, as diverting to watch as to hear.

 

Most striking perhaps were the three trumpets, led conspicuously by section principal Barrett Hocking who carried most of the high-lying embellishments. No less beautiful were the four oboes two of which dealt with Bach’s writing for two deep-voiced oboe da caccia; or the accompaniment by solo violin and cello (Matthew Ross and Jane Young) of Kate Spence’s aria in Part III, ‘Schliess mein Herz’, and elsewhere.  The only outside players were NZSO timpanist Larry Reese and bass player Alexander Gunchenko whose playing made consummate contributions too.

 

On its own in the Sinfonia of Part II, all the many strengths of the orchestra, such as beautiful string playing, became most conspicuous.

 

Soprano Anna Leese had, naturally, attracted most of the pre-concert publicity; unfortunately, Bach had misread his brief and offered her fewer solo opportunities than she merited. Nevertheless, her singing stopped the audience in its tracks, as it were, in her first, short offering in Part II, as the Angel, in duet with David Hamilton’s Evangelist: ‘Und der Engel sprach zu ihnen’; again, in Part III, she sang in duet with Jared Holt, ‘Herr, dein Mitleid, dein Erbarmen’, somewhat oddly, many metres apart, at the front of the stage: her voice penetrating, dramatic, agile, and nicely blending with Holt’s.  

 

After a most delightful trio between soprano, alto and tenor, Leese got her big solo in Part VI, ‘Nur ein Wink von seinen Händen’, which only convention prevented the audience from shouting to the rafters: such variety of colour and articulation, such insight into the meaning of every word.

 

(It was interesting to look back at the Mobil Song Quest in 2002: Anna Leese, winner; Kate Spence, second; Ana James, third. The other three finalists were ‘whatever-happened-to’ names: Majka Kaiser, Andrew Conley and the recently returned from Europe and still singing-in-opera, Anna Pierard.)

 

David Hamilton deserved equal billing for his prolonged work as the Evangelist, rich with highly accomplished ornaments, and interpretation of the words in the most lively and sympathetic way. His voice hardly tired, it remained clear and accurate throughout, still singing like a thirty-year-old!  For example, he made an impressive and arresting job of the melodious aria in Part II, ‘Frohe Hirten, eilt, ach, eilet’, adorned with ornaments and charmingly accompanied by flutes.  

 

After her runner-up prize in the 2002 Mobil Song Quest and studies in London Kate Spence had only a short professional career in opera; but she often sings on the concert platform. One has to lament that support of opera in New Zealand has been so poor that a singer of such talent has not been able to stay in the profession. Her voice, a lovely mezzo with characteristic warmth at the bottom, is full of character, projects strongly, a voice that bloomed in the Town Hall acoustic. I commented on her above; and she had several other notable recitatives, arias and ensembles, such as the long aria ’Schlafe mein Liebster’ in Part II, this time attractively accompanied by oboes and flutes.  

 

Jared Holt won the Mobil in 2000 and had a promising career that even reached the stage of Covent Garden; like several other singers, he had equipped himself with the safety-net of a law degree and that is now offering him more security. A strong opera company that can employ a regular ensemble of principals would have kept him away from law. His first substantial aria in Part I, ‘Grosser Herr, o starker König’, was a fine display of his sturdy competence, vigorous and splendidly dramatic: its accompaniment by a brilliant trumpet did his performance no harm at all. And I noted above, his very striking duet with Leese.

 

The oratorio obviously offers great music for the choir itself, with its wealth of lively, often triple-time numbers, and chorales, many of which have a familiar ring since so much of the music was recycled from earlier pieces. Not unusually, the choir’s energy and confidence built through the performance. Perhaps a shade more ecstasy might have driven the opening chorus, ‘Jauchzet, froh locket’, yet it was still among the most polished and exuberant performances I have heard; the subsequent chorales, calmer, enabled the choir to gather its strength for some powerful singing, till a chorus such as the opening of Part V, ‘Ehre sei dir, Gott, gesungen’ was a thrilling exhibition of ebullience and vocal athleticism.

 

Foremost in the thoughts of audience members as they listened to the orchestra’s polished and exuberant playing, must have been the present threat to the orchestra whose existence in at least its existing size and quality is vital to Wellington’s musical life. The behaviour of Creative New Zealand which would deny this orchestra even the modest level of assistance it now receives, seems driven by either vindictiveness, some obscure, adolescent, PC-ridden agenda, or plain ignorance: perhaps all three.

 

I can only hope that those who make boasts about the cultural capital will be able to bring to their senses those who have such destructive impulses.