Tag: choral

A dramatic and sharply-focused St.John Passion from Nota Bene and the Chiesa Ensemble at St Mary of the Angels

Posted on by Peter Mechen

JS BACH – St.John Passion BWV 245
Presented by Nota Bene Choir and the Chiesa Ensemble
Directed by Peter Walls

Evangelist – Lachlan Craig / Christ – Simon Christie
Soprano – Nicola Holt / Alto –  Maaike Christie-Beekman
Tenor –  LJ Crichton / Bass: William King
Pilate – Chris Whelan / Servant – Patrick Geddes
Ancilla – Katie Chalmers / Peter – Peter McClymont

Nota Bene Choir (Peter Walls – Music director)
The Chiesa Ensemble (Rebecca Struthers – leader)

St.Mary of the Angels Church, Boulcott St., Wellington

Sunday 14th April, 2019

Of four Scriptural “Passion” settings associated in some way or another with Johann Sebastian Bach, two have been fully “authenticated”, the larger St.Matthew Passion, and the smaller, more intense and visceral St.John Passion – while two others, settings of the other evangelists’ accounts of Jesus’ death, are either spurious or recyclings of lost material. Bach undertook the St.John Passion during his first year as director of church music in Leipzig, and the work was first performed in 1724, though not in St Thomas’s Church where Bach was stationed, but in the St Nicholas Church, it being customary to alternate such services yearly between the two principal Leipzig churches. Bach’s predesessor in Leipzig, Johann Kuhlau, had directed his own St.Mark Passion at St.Thomas’s Church three years before, in 1721, setting in motion a “Leipzig tradition” of presenting such works.

Bach himself heard his work only four times, on various Good Fridays during his tenure as “Thomaskantor” at Leipzig, and, like a good baroque composer, continued to make additions and revisions to the work right up to the last performance he directed, in 1749 – scholarly opinion is that the first (1724) and last “versions” have the closest relationship to one another of the four. The way these presentations were written was to incorporate a sermon in the action as the “high point” of the Good Friday service – though any preacher of the time would have probably viewed his place amid such a magnificent musical framework as Bach provided with mixed feelings – inspiration aplenty, but with awe and even misgiving in the face of such heartfelt, all-pervading expression!

The St.John retelling of Christ’s betrayal, trial, crucifixion and death is shorter, sharper and more brutally told than in the longer, more reflective St.Matthew Passion, (which was written three years afterwards). The earlier work begins more dramatically, too, with the opening chorus bursting in amid piteous instrumental lamentations, calling on God to display his might and glory throughout his suffering and humiliation, before the action hurries towards the scene of Jesus’ betrayal and Peter’s denial of his Master. It’s all vividly characterised, the crowd a howling mob baying for blood, and the Roman Governor, Pilate, vividly prevailed upon by the high priests and the mob to condemn him to death – the interactions between personalities and groups give off surges of energy with the only respite being the occasional aria or chorus, all the more affecting for their quiet wisdom and reflective beauties and sorrows.

In performances of works such as this, I’m always struck by their sense of  “inclusiveness”, brought about through the use of a great range of voices to bring the story to theatrical and dramatic life, as if almost anybody could have been randomly “caught up” in these events of that time. In fact I’m often reminded of numerous Good Friday services of my childhood, during which the Passion story was enacted in spoken form by various clergy and congregation members of the church I attended, all of whom I knew in their “ordinary, everyday” guises, but who were, for those brief sequences, using those familiar voices and gestures to convey something of the essence of these so very archetypal characters in the story – followers, officials, soldiers and onlookers, all indelibly touched by their involvement, however involuntary or otherwise, in these great events.

Each of the voices in this presentation, though varied in tone, timbre, weight and colour, was strongly united in the purpose and direction of conveying the story – and, as we in the audience/congregation were as children listening to an absorbing tale, giving us a sense of their total involvement essential to the task. How important, therefore, were those singers who took the “lessser” roles in Part One, the bystanders and onlookers who were suddenly “drawn in” to the drama, taking each of us with them – Katie Chalmers and Patrick Geddes as servants in the garden where Jesus was betrayed, commenting on Jesus’s disciple Peter’s association with his master, and Peter McClymont as the unfortunate Peter refuting their comments, their voices striking the right note of righteous speculation and subsequent rebuttal, an almost “social-media-like” interaction as an impulse in the drama.

Even more significant and engaging was the contribution of Chris Whelan’s Pilate, throughout Part Two,  the voice strong and sufficiently authoritative, but most importantly conveying the Roman governor’s ambivalence regarding any judgement he felt compelled to make regarding Jesus’ fate, while struggling to maintain what dignity he could – his final rebuff to the Jewish priests of  “Was ich geschrieben habe….” (What I have written, I have written) regarding the “insignia” on the cross above Jesus’s head, effectively silencing further protest.

As for Simon Christie’s authoritative and sonorous Jesus, one felt  from the singer’s very first notes an overwhelming sense of identification with the character’s enormous burden of responsibility, the “sins of the world” as exemplified by the hostility and inhumanity of most of those around him throughout these sequences. His voice was an excellent “foil” for that of the Evangelist’s in this performance, Lachlan Craig, whose spare, lithe tones I found took a little getting used to, but whose ability to vary his instrument’s qualities in the services of the narrative soon won me over. Whatever the mood or mode, his delivery, be it biting and cutting when characterising the crowd scenes, piteous and emotion-laden in conveying the anguish of Simon Peter in the wake of the latter’s betrayal of Jesus, or tender when describing the ministrations of both Jesus’ mother and Mary Magdalene, was equal to the task of bringing to us the essence of whatever “moment” was paramount.

Each of the four singers impressed with their heartfelt identifications relating to the varying moods of their solo sequences. Nicola Holt’s radiant soprano voice created a veritable halo of sound which seemed to me to fill the church’s precincts in glorious fashion, the occasional moment of strain incorporated wholeheartedly in the sound’s tapestry of emotion in heartfelt style – her bright, eager, “Ich folge dir” (I follow thee) exemplified her intense commitment to the words and sense of the music’s burning zeal. Tenor L.J.Crichton used his brightly-focused voice to fearless effect in “Ach mein Sinn” (Ah, my Soul) despite touches of strain in places, singing intelligently and tackling the difficulties with great credit – his later ” Erwäge, wie sein blutgefärbter Rücken” (Consider how his bloodstained back) was more easily and mellifluously essayed, giving notice of the inherent beauty in his tones, and his further potentialities as a performer.

Alto Maaike Christie-Beekman instantly drew us into a world of expressive pity with her “Von den Stricken meiner Sünden” (From the bonds of my sins), her focus riveting, and her tones rich and engaging throughout, the singer’s gift for characterisation coming into its own in the later “Es ist vollbracht!” where her deeply moving tones of resignation were suddenly tossed to one side in a frisson of jubilation at the words “Der Held aus Juda siegt mit Macht” (The Hero from Judah triumphs), before returning to the meditative opening – a great moment! Just as potent and moving in expressiveness was the singing of William King, whose lovely arioso “Betrachte, meine Seel”  (Consider, my Soul) was put across with such sweet and mellifluous dignity, and whose dramatic, haunted rendition of  “Eilt, ihr angefochtnen Seelen” (Hurry, you tormented souls) with the chorus providing thrilling, split-second support, was a highlight of the performance. I liked, too, another “bass and chorus” item, the lullabic (though here a shade too quick for my tastes) “Mein teurer Heiland”, remarkable nevertheless in its expressive power.

That I’ve left the chorus, orchestra and music director Peter Walls to last and all together means that the credit for providing the performance’s tightly-knit and securely-delivered sense of ensemble and finely-judged expressive power can be equally and justly shared. St. John‘s palpable urgency and emotional directness depends upon the singers’ and players’ ability to “give” with focus and precision, and the result when achieved, as here, is sharply moving, both in situ and in the work’s aftermath. The chorus encompassed the work’s incredible range of feeling with total assurance, its depth of sorrow, its anger, its biting fury, its resigned pathos and its moments of beauteous lyricism – and much the same could be said for the work of the instrumentalists and the Chiesa Ensemble, both in the sum of their individual continuo contributions and the band’s whole, sonorous “presence”.

Conductor Peter Walls enabled what seemed to me a stunningly unified presentation which never faltered – I did think a  couple of tempi might have been “driven” somewhat less relentlessly (the very opening, for example), but it was all in line with a conception that enabled the work to speak volumes regarding aspects of humanity and transcendence of everyday existence. It all made for a deeply moving experience to which it seemed all who took part unreservedly participated and all who were present deeply appreciated.

Berlioz, and his “Lelio”, given their dues and more by Orchestra Wellington

Posted on by Peter Mechen

Orchestra Wellington presents:

FANTASTIC SYMPHONIES

BERLIOZ – Symphonie Fantastique Op.14
Lelio, or “A Return to Life” Op.14b

Andrew Laing (Lelio)
Declan Cudd (Horatio)
Daniel O’Connor (Captain)

Orpheus Choir of Wellington
Brent Stewart (music director)
Orchestra Wellington
Marc Taddei (conductor)

Michael Fowler Centre, Wellington

Friday, April 12th, 2019

My first reaction to the news that Orchestra Wellington was planning to give the New Zealand premiere of Hector Berlioz’s  Lelio, or “A return to life” in its properly-ordered place as a sequel to the well-known Symphonie Fantastique was a delightful amalgam of excitement, admiration, incredulity and skepticism regarding the idea. I knew the work from recordings, and it had long seemed to me of the order of something the composer obviously had to “entertain” and get out of his head before progressing onwards to “the next thing” – all more akin to a ritual of private expiation rather than material for a viable public presentation.

I didn’t, however, take into account two things, the first involving the work itself, the extraordinary capacity of Berlioz’s music for generating interest out of its sheer novelty, each part in isolation having its own fascination , but in tandem agglomerating a kind of theatrical through-line entirely of its own, and with idiosyncrasies becoming touch-points! In situ Berlioz’s sheer conviction both fused and propelled the material forwards, in ways that live musical performances often surpass recorded efforts of the same material in sheer spontaneous excitement.

Just as important was the zeal, enthusiasm and energy of the performers giving all of the above the necessary “juice” with which to “fire”. Conductor Marc Taddei was of course at the forefront of the concerted efforts of singers, instrumentalists and actors, as well as choir and orchestra members, bringing about a fruition of their efforts with inspired and unflagging direction. What I’d thought might fatally drag down any stage performance were the spoken sequences, the composer seemingly carried away by his own eloquence in thus anatomising his passions! – but here, a combination of an English translation, judicious editing and fully-committed performance brought those same sequences compellingly to life. With those patches having had their “purple” aspect removed, it suddenly seemed possible that the thing might work!

In “Lelio” the composer’s original stipulation was that the orchestra, chorus and soloists be out of sight on a stage behind a curtain, with only an actor speaking the part of Lelio in front of the curtain before the audience. The six separate pieces that made up the musical fabric of the whole are each  interspersed with a dramatic monologue, after which the curtain is lifted for the “finale”, a Fantasia on Shakespeare’s “Tempest”  for chorus and orchestra. Here, most enterprisingly, mists and atmospheric lighting created a kind of rather more naturalistic curtain for the musicians who, though visible, were most effectively shrouded in mystery. The singers, too, were able to be seen, in each case theatrically lit, with billowing mists heightening the almost Goethean atmosphere of their different evocations. Most pictorial of all was the Brigand Leader, whose swashbuckling aspect and colourful costume, complete with sword, suited his rollicking music to perfection.

The presentation didn’t go as far as following the composer’s instruction to reinforce the “awakening” idea by proceeding straight into Lelio without a break at the end of the Symphonie. Instead, during an interval the stage was reset, with a large couch as the central feature, on which the young artist was cast in a stupor, and behind which the musicians reassembled, as the mists gathered and the strange, eerie lighting was brought into play –  all sufficiently conveying the “do I wake or sleep” ambience required by the composer. As Lelio himself, actor Andrew Laing mesmerically held our attention from his first appearance as the young artist who had “dreamed” the Symphonie Fantastique’s different episodes (that we’d heard in the concert’s “first half” that evening). His monologue describing the dream’s torments gave us the essence of the original, with occasional amendments (checking his cell-phone, for example) and judicious editings supporting and colouring his full-hearted, hypnotic delivery of the words.

After this, each of the different pieces (all sung in French, except for the final chorus) followed their own spoken introductions, beginning with the setting of Goethe’s Ballad Le Pêcheur (The Fisherman) for tenor voice and piano, here beautifully and ardently delivered by Declan Cudd (from my seat I couldn’t tell which of the two wonderfully adroit pianists, Rachel Thomson or Thomas Nikora, was playing here). At one point here the music was interspersed with a poignant, dream-like remnant of the Symphonie’s “idée fixe” the melody associated with the composer’s beloved which appeared in different guises throughout the work.

Then followed  various free-ranging changes of scenario and mood – firstly a magnificent Choeur d’ombres (Chorus of the Shades), inspired by the “ghost” scene in “Hamlet”, and introduced by the brasses with lugubrious, sinister-sounding tones, the Orpheus Choir’s delivery of the words spookily evocative, certain parts reminiscent of the Prince’s invocation to the warring families at the beginning of the composer’s “Romeo and Juliet” Symphony, and everything brought into atmospheric play by the interaction of light, mist and darkness on the stage – wonderful!

The poet then castigated society in general for bringing the lofty ideals of Shakespeare into disrepute, before enjoined all artists to turn their backs on such besmirchment and  become brigands instead – introduced by a vigorous orchestral passage,  baritone Daniel O’Connor looked, sang and acted the part to perfection in the Chanson de Brigands, vigorously exchanging blandishments regarding the life of a brigand with the chorus’s male voices, and moving towards the front of the stage to great theatrical effect, to the strains of tremendously rollicking and abandoned orchestral playing!

Emotions wildly fluctuating, the young poet then imagined far-away music resembling the voice of his beloved, and sank into a reverie, as tenor Declan Cudd and his accompanying harpist Madeleine Crump joined with the orchestra to perform a Chant de bonheur (Song of bliss), the effect positively celestial, the voice again sweet and pure and the harp an ideal blissful companion. From this the poet further conjured up the idea of an Aeolian Harp strung across the branches of an oak tree besides his grave, a tree  through whose branches the wind would sound the ongoing strains of his dying happiness in the arms of his beloved – the tremulous sounds that emanated from the strings and a solo clarinet were breathtaking in their evocation of the beauteous power of the composer’s imagination!

Having thus considered his “options” the poet then announced he would embrace life, and celebrate the intoxications of music, his “faithful and pure mistress” by plunging himself into a work which he’d already planned as a sketch – a Fantasy on Shakespeare’s “The Tempest”. What followed was almost Brechtian in its theatrical manipulation, the poet suddenly becoming the self-appointed “producer” of the performance about to take place, freely dispensing advice to the musicians, chorus and orchestral players alike! Along with a few moments of engaging bombast, the work had some exquisite sequences, particularly the opening scintillations of piano duet and twinkling of winds accompanying the women’s voices, calling to Miranda (the text here in Italian rather than French). The strings then began a swirling, agitated section which conjured up a fierce storm underpinned by the timpani, then after some “Le Carnaval Romain”-like instrumental passages, the voices again called to Miranda, farewelling her from the isle, after which the orchestra exploded in a kind of ferment of agitated farewell. There was praise from the poet for the players of “Orchestra Wellington” at the end! – and then – from out of the silence came the same remnant of the Symphonie’s “idée fixe” as before – to which the poet murmured, “Again, again! – and forever…..”

Of course, these sound-reminiscences were reaching right back to the evening’s beginning, with the orchestra’s performance of the work that had started the whole process, the Symphonie Fantastique. Having not been able to resist the temptation to dive immediately into the intricacies of something unfamiliar and our of the ordinary, I now propose to make amends re the concert’s first half by declaring that the performance here of what is probably Berlioz’s famous work was no less remarkable than that of Lelio. In fact, conductor and players seemed to me to sound the work’s opening as if THIS music was the hitherto undiscovered or neglected treasure we had come to hear this evening.

Every phrase of this introductory sequence seemed to me to contain some “clue” as to what would follow, as if we were being asked to fit the pieces of some vast puzzle together, and that eventually it would cohere – the rapt concentration with which these sound-impulses were made was remarkable, with even the brief, dancing string passage catching and drawing itself back in, the detailing by the winds and the horns adding to the wonderment of each moment. I loved the horn-playing in the passage leading up to the strings’ growing excitement at the approach of the famous “idée fixe”, the long-breathed string motif Berlioz used to characterise his “beloved”. Here it was playful, capricious and tender all at once, and was received by the rest of the orchestra with joy, interest and longing – and who would not want to repeat the sequence straight away after such a reception?

The repeat allowed us to focus on something different a second time, the impulsive, grainy-textured lower strings accentuating the melody’s qualities, but maintaining an outstanding orchestral sensitivity – I thought the focus on what every instrument was doing remarkably detailed!  When we reached the oboe’s subsidiary melody I felt the focus and feeling of the strings “wandering” chromatic accompaniments brought out the music’s sinister undertow, a brief but telling antithesis of the bright nervous energies which we’d heard the instruments express so well in the movement thus far.

The big “tutti” was beautifully “voiced”, the excitement shared among the different orchestral families as the music gathered even more momentum – I felt that perhaps the accelerandi might have been just a shade less controlled and a bit more “animal” (easier said than done, of course!) – but the ending was superbly brought off, sounding just like a “prayer”!

The second movement, Un bal grew nicely from out of the swirling mists, the tune articulated beautifully and the detailing a joy – here the “idée fixe” was dovetailed in as deftly as I’ve ever heard it done, and the trumpet (cornet?) made a lovely florid impression over some of the dance’s measures, as the composer intended.

Out of the silences came the sound of a cor anglais, its rusticity emphasised by an answering companion oboe somewhere in the distance (beautifully managed!), followed by exquisitely limpid string playing. I thought the different texturings, accentuations and antiphonies of the string sounds throughout this movement stunningly realised. Conductor Marc Taddei didn’t overtly “push” the change of mood mid-movement – I wanted a shade more orchestral tumult, more “panic”, as the fierce fortissimos approached – but the moment still generated considerable impact! And the strings’ ensuing accompaniment of the clarinet solo was a divine moment, epitomising the performance’s romantic sensibility. The famous timpani responses to the despairingly unanswered cor anglais calls at the movement’s end were superbly controlled – one person in the audience, lost in admiration, NEARLY clapped, both forgivably and contrariwise under the circumstances!

Dark, menacing rumblings began the renowned Marche au supplice  (March to the Scaffold), with the bassoons playing up to their capacity for grotesquerie, the brass snarling and blaring, the strings excitable and vehement – the repeat gave us double the impact of the opening, while the climax of the piece gripped the sensibilities and wouldn’t let go until the final crash of the guillotine drowned out all traces of the “idée fixe” and its brief appearance – truly the stuff of nightmares!

If the March evoked Goya-esque imageries, the final Songe d’une nuit du sabbat (Dream of a Witches’ Sabbath) conjured up even more grotesque Hieronymus Bosch-like scenarios, the eerie, air-borne cries and squealings summonsed by harsh, whining wind-calls and subterranean rumblings, the orchestral playing gleefully giving itself over to the macabre and the fantastical! Here the “idée fixe” was transformed into a bizarre mockery of the original, galumphing accompanying rhythms reaching thundering levels before being mocked and ridiculed by the rest of the orchestra – taken up by the clarinets, the distortions become even more marked and awkward-sounding, again laughed to scorn by the rest of the band.

The bell chimes evoked great barren wastes, across which the spectral sounds drifted, answered by baleful brasses announcing the thirteenth-century “Dies Irae” chant.  Cataclysmic percussion set in motion grotesque “dance of death”-like sequences, eerily leading to scenes of total abandonment and dissolution whose aspect grew wilder and wilder, conductor Taddei finally unleashing an orchestral coda whose hair-raising impetus very nearly unhorsed us all, necessitating a wild and grimly wrought “hanging on” until the music’s tumultuous end. Pandemonium!

What more could one say except that it seemed Orchestral Wellington’s “Epic” 2019 season had begun as it obviously meant to go on – with a pair of suitably “epic” performances, that of Lelio an act of “resurrection” in more ways than one! And for Wellingtonians, faced with the further attraction of a night out with the NZSO the following evening, obviously a “bumper” weekend for orchestra enthusiasts here in the capital! In the words of Lelio himself “Encore! Encore! – et pour toujours….” indeed!

Cantoris, with Thomas Nikora, brings life to Faure, and Rutter to life

Posted on by Peter Mechen

GABRIEL FAURE – Requiem Op.48
Cantique de Jean Racine Op.11

JOHN RUTTER – Gloria (1974)

Soloists : Erica Leahy, soprano / Morgan King ,bass-baritone  (Faure)  – Shirleen Oh, soprano / Viv Hurnen, mezzo-soprano / Ruth Sharman, alto (Rutter)
Cantoris Choir
Thomas Nikora (Musical Director)
Jonathan Berkahn (piano and organ)

Wesley Church, Taranaki St.,
WELLINGTON

Saturday 6th April 2019

Gabriel Faure’s Requiem, with its relatively intimate, and gentle, largely non-confrontational utterances receives frequent church performance by non-professional choirs in a version with organ accompaniment (there are various other versions extant of the work, two of which are scored with varying orchestral forces, details of which are too impossibly convoluted to even comment on). I’m mentioning this circumstance because I frequently go away from such performances feeling “short-changed” as to the vital contribution of the “instrumental” parts to the work’s overall effect. In short, I usually find organ-only accompaniments of this music somewhat pallid and unduly reverential, but which, I’m happy to say, wasn’t the case in this latest Cantoris performance of the work.

Here, from the beginning, we were made aware of the organ being a real “player” in realising the music’s expressive capacities, rather than being relegated to a dutiful accompanying role. Organist Jonathan Berkahn’s first, attention-grabbing chord made us prick up our ears at the start, establishing from the outset a kind of vital ebb-and-flow between voices and instrument, even if the player’s tones were momentarily (and uncharacteristically) too loud in places during the opening Introit, during the men’s “et lux perpetua luceat eis” (perpetual light shine upon them), blunting the contrast of the REAL outburst at the end of that section. That moment was, thankfully, the exception rather than the rule – and I was able to enjoy almost unreservedly the many different instrumental ‘terracings” of dynamics and colourings of the tones and textures brought out by Berkahn right throughout the rest of the work.

The choir’s tonal resources were beautifully “shepherded” throughout the Requiem’s course by musical director Thomas Nikora, with the individual voices often clearly audible, though always “complemented” by other voice- strands. And the voices often surprised with their capacities to give more and more, as in the repeated prayer “O Domine, Jesu Christe…” (O Lord, Jesus Christ) in the Offertorium (Faure, incidentally, adding an “O” to the original prayer’s beginning), its repetitions gaining telling weight and increasing urgency each time, the basses beautifully reinforcing the third supplication.

The bass-baritone, Morgan King, continued the supplications with his “Hostias et preces” (We offer unto Thee), true and solid, with the accompanying organ timbres here sounding so “reedy” and right. A slight hesitation marked the singer’s “Fac eas, Domine” (Allow them, O Lord), but apart from a touch of strain in his difficult ascent, he held his line steadfastedly. And what celestial outpourings from the choir at the return of “O Domine”, the sopranos making up for some slight obtrusiveness at their first entries, with some sweetly-realised “Amens”.

After a touch of “Ready, steady, go!” the Sanctus began, the organ notes rippling beautifully and the exchanges between sopranos and tenors accurate and sweet in their tuning, despite the few voice-numbers  – again, at the Hosannas, the sopranos soared truly and sweetly, while the organ mustered its resources to augment the mighty vocal declamations of “Hosanna in excelsis!” – I still wanted more organ “grunt” with the triumphant  horn-call, but otherwise the instrument was a worthy foil for the voices, who were giving it heaps! All most satisfying – one felt that one had certainly been in a “Hosanna” by the end!

The famous “Pie Jesu” (Merciful Jesus) solo was here delivered affectingly and truly by soprano Erica Leahy, the words slightly “covered”, and the organ here and there a wee bit over bearing – but the notes were truly and sweetly floated and held for our pleasure and wonderment, everything most easefully directed by Nikora. After this I thought his “Agnus Dei” (Lamb of God) a wee bit brisk – though perhaps he was wanting to re-activate movement after the “heavenly stasis” of the “Pie Jesu”. The tenors did sterling work, here, holding their line truly, the organ, though momentarily “jumping the gun” with the registrations for the choir’s anguished repetitions of “Agnus Dei”, certainly conveying in tandem with the voices the turmoil of the human soul in begging forgiveness for “the sins of the world”.

The sopranos kept their “held” note beautifully as the music began the slow chromatic harmonic descent at “Lux aeterna luceat eis” (whose motions always remind me of Wagner’s depiction of Wotan’s kissing his daughter Brunnhilde’s eyes shut towards the end of Act Three of “Die Walkure”) – we heard beautiful organ colourings of the textures as the music sank resignedly then rose again in supplication – very dramatic! A great outburst from the organ, and the Requiem’s opening made its reappearance, the voices confident and full-toned, the cries of “Luceat eis” making a heartfelt contrast with he serenity of the organ postlude.

“Libera me” (Deliver me) opened with baritone Morgan King’s strong, focused voice, conveying the foreboding of the text with  great feeling, the choir’s tremulous responses at “Tremens factus” (With fear and trembling) leading to a tremendous outburst of fear and anguish with “Dies illa, dies irae” (That day, the day of anger), building their tones excitingly, and then just as effectively “hollowing” their voices when reprising the “Libera Me”, the organ contributing a suitably bell-tolling backdrop to the choir’s unison, and the baritone reliably completing the echoing supplication. Finally came the “In Paradisum” (the words lifted from  the “Order of Burial” by the composer) – a quickish tempi set by Nikora resulted in the textures bubbling rather than floating, but the effect was just as magical and celestial. I thought the sopranos “carried the day” here with their pure, angelic voices, aided by the lower-toned support of the rest of the choir, and concluding with their murmured replies of “Requiem” at the work’s end.

A popular “coupling” for the Requiem on recordings has always been the comparatively brief but mellifluous Cantique de Jean Racine, given here as a kind of first-half “epilogue” to the larger work. Written much earlier (1864-65), Faure named the piece after the famous writer, who, in 1688 had written a text in French paraphrasing the original Ambrosian-style Latin Hymn Consors paterni luminis (O Light of Light), the young composer’s efforts winning him a prize at the school he was currently attending in Paris. Like the Requiem, the Cantique exists in different versions, having been arranged with various instrumental acompaniments by the composer, including orchestral forces – here a piano joined forces with the organ to complement the voices.

I thought the performance quite lovely, the piece’s long-breathed melodies and gradually-accumulated waves of sound admirably voiced by all sections of the choir, the undulating textures supporting some impassioned moments alongside ever-resonating transparent textures, beautifully-floated soprano voices working in tandem with the deeper sounds of the remaining singers. I thought the singers’ chording towards the piece’s end especially rich and satisfying.

John Rutter’s Gloria I didn’t know before this concert, and I found it an invigorating and rewarding experience. I loved the massively-conceived, almost “Twentieth-Century-Fox” introduction to the work, unreservedly conveying the sense of something grand and mighty about to be visited on all present! The opening words, of course, spoke for themselves in this respect  “Gloria in Excelsis Deo!” (Glory to God in the Highest), the following “Et in terra pax” (And peace on earth) more suitably earthbound, humbler in expression…..both the sopranos and tenors throughout this first part of the music had markedly exposed entries into the “fray”, and each group did so well, everybody true-voiced and keeping their line under Thomas Nikora’s watchful direction, the altos coping especially well with their more angular version of what the sopranos had sung previously, at “Propter magnam gloriam tuam” (We give You thanks for Your boundless glory).  The return of the opening “Gloria” brought out what I thought a Walton-like vigour in the writing, more than a bit “jazzy” here and there – and concluding the first part of the work with a flourish!

Rutter structured the setting in three separate movements each with a specific character – after the joyous energies of the first movement, the second part “Domine Deus” (Lord God), marked andante, saluted the Almighty in calm, gently-expressed birdsong tones from the organ at the outset, almost voluntary-like in its direct lyrical appeal, while serving also as an ambient counterpoint to the voices’ devotional utterances, the men beginning and then joined by the women, in “Domine Deus Rex caelestis” (Lord God, King of Heaven). The movement progressed from quiet simple adoration to joyous acclaim supplication as the music proceeded, the organ moving through its “chorale” in tandem with the avian figurations – a lovely, atmospheric effect. Beginning with a second, and then a third “Domine Deus” which led to the words “Agnus Dei, Filius Patris” (“Lamb of God, Son of the Father”), the voices built the intensities inexorably towards a most joyous acclaim, contrasting the mood vividly and tellingly with the following rapt, withdrawn tones of “Qui tollis peccata mundi” (Who takest away the sins of the world). Shirleen Oh’s clear, steady soprano made a telling effect at “Miserere nobis” (Have mercy on us), as did the solo voices of mezzo Viv Hurnen and alto Ruth Sharman in duet, a few moments later, with “Suscipe deprecationem nostram” (Receive our prayer), adding to the raptness of the ambience.

Even more Walton-like was the third movement’s punchy opening, syncopated and jazzy, piano and organ rollicking along with the voices through the various “Quoniams” as the music drove irresistibly forwards, the music’s angularities setting the different strands tingling with excitement the whole while. The “Amens” began to build towards the inevitable climax, the singers sounding part-purposeful, part free-spirited, kept focused by their music director’s unflagging energy and the organ’s mighty presence! In what seemed like no time at all the “Amens” had crested the hilltop and proclaimed victory, to the delight of the organ and piano, everybody then breaking into a reprise of the “Gloria”, the atmosphere festive and almost crazy in its effervescent joy, the performance’s energies enabling the music to properly catch fire and leave both musicians and audience exhaustedly happy at the end!

 

 

 

 

Alleluia: varied settings splendidly delivered by Inspirare and Schola Cantorum (St Mark’s School) under Mark Stamper

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Alleluia: Resolution through Celebration

Artistic director: Mark Stamper; accompanied by Michael Stewart; director of Schola Cantorum: Anya Nazaruk
Solo voices: Pepe Becker, Matt Barris, Isaac Stone, William Pereira, Ruth Armishaw, Sue Robinson, Garth Norman, Joe Haddow
Instrumental soloists: Toby Pringle (trumpet), Tim Jenkin (tambourine), Dominic Groom (horn)

Settings of Alleluia by;
Keith Christopher, Lyn Williams, Ralph Manuel, David Conte, Thomas LaVoy, Srul Irving Glick, Eric Whitacre, Handel, Paul Basler, Randall Thompson, Beethoven, Leonard Cohen (arr. Philip Lawson), Sydney Guillaume, David Bednall

Wellington Cathedral of St Paul

Saturday 23 March, 7:30 pm 

Best to start with Mark Stamper’s own description of this concert of settings of ‘Alleluia’: “fourteen unique and innovative settings of this glorious text. The selections will come from different musical periods dating back to the Baroque and on through 2019”. There can be few words or phrases that have inspired such generally positive and hopeful music, though there are other memorable phrases in the Mass.

Mark Stamper’s choices were heavily weighted toward the 20th century, in fact some of it of the 21st century. For those who tend to be wary of contemporary classical music, there would have been no reason for discomfort as, unlike the music that many 20th century composers have felt it necessary to compose, choral music has more generally defied that trend. For there is no point in composing choral liturgical music that doesn’t beguile and engage listeners, but risks alienating the them.

The presence of two choirs was highlighted at once with the choir of St Mark’s school ranged in the front, women of Inspirare at the back while the men were lined up on the left aisle. After Mark Stamper’s introduction, a minute’s silence was observed to reflect on the previous week. Then the Cathedral’s Director of Music, Michael Stewart played a piece on the organ, which he named later as Solemn Melody by Henry Walford Davies (one of the worthy British organist/composer/teachers, about contemporary with Elgar)  ….

I will not attempt to comment on each of the fourteen pieces in much detail, but it’s reasonable to mention them all.

The combined choirs made a happy contribution with A Joyful Alleluia by contemporary American composer, Keith Christopher (born 1957 in Portland, Oregon) who teaches in Nashville Tennessee. His piece and its warmly committed performance set the tone through the way the singers were disposed around the cathedral; and with the dynamic variety the two choirs could create made for an engaging performance.

Alone, Schola Cantorum sang Festive Alleluia by Lyn Williams, an Australian composer born in 1963, who runs the Sydney Children’s Choir, and has been much celebrated for her work with children’s choirs. With the choir conducted by its music director Anya Nazaruk, it was a bright and attractive piece, phrases piling one on the other, yet preserving good clarity and liveliness. The Schola Cantorum later sang the Alleluia of David Conte (born 1955, he teaches at the San Francisco Conservatorium), bright high voices again making a splendid impact in this big acoustic, with Stamper here at the piano.

Apart from the last two items, Inspirare sang the rest of the programme.

The Alleluia of Ralph Manuel, born in 1951 in Oklahoma, opened with a string of slowly evolving harmonies, in what might be called a popular style, but an attractive way for Inspirare, alone, to present themselves.  Thomas LaVoy, a much younger composer from Michigan, born 1990, studied in Aberdeen and Wales. His Alleluia, in an unsurprisingly American idiom, expressed itself in straightforward terms, yet increased in intensity towards the end. Srul Irving Glick is Canadian-born, in 1934. His piece was brief, thus not allowing its repetition of ‘Alleluia’ and its syncopated simplicity to outlast itself.

Then came the first composer known to me: Eric Whitacre, who I only recently discovered was only in his forties (born 1970), though very well-known with a solid reputation. His Alleluia did seem to reveal a more interesting handling of the subject, if not as meaning (which might be an absurd expectation) then certainly in musical attractiveness, in the variety of its vocal colours and the sensitive way the choir handled them. (I did not especially notice soloists Pepe Becker and Matt Barris).

Inevitably, I guess, we had the Halleluja from Messiah in which the audience not only stood but engaged itself in.

An Alleluia by Paul Basler, born 1963 in Florida, followed the interval. His background included study or work in Kenya and Wales, and as a hornist himself, there were obbligato horn (Dominique Groom) and drum – here tambourine (Tim Jenkin), with Michael Stewart at the piano.  It was a charming, flowing composition, demonstrating, as does Whitacre, that one can still write engaging and worthwhile music in a tonal idiom.

Randall Thompson (1899 – 1984) was one of the four dead composers celebrated in the concert. Here was an engaging and moving setting by one of the most distinguished 20th century American composers. Slow, mediative with lovely high, clear voices with men here in a secondary, yet conspicuous role.

The Alleluia is the last movement of Beethoven’s Christ on the Mount of Olives, his only oratorio which is not much performed, in New Zealand anyway. It was sung with organ accompaniment; its character is neither pensive nor pious, as are some settings, but with its lively tempos was performed here, at least, in a spirit of exultation.

Leonard Cohen was one of those musicians whose music has strong appeal to many kinds of audience, so-called popular as well as classical (speaking for myself anyway). This arrangement by Philip Lawson of his moving Alleluia was done for the Kings Singers. Solo singers (Isaac Stone, William Pereira, Ruth Armishaw, Sue Robinson and Gareth Norman) were prominent here, lending a well-integrated yet interestingly contrasted range of voices to this very singular song.

The last two pieces again involved the Schola Cantorum singing alongside Inspirare. First, Alleluia, Amen by Sydney Guillaume, born in Haiti in 1982 and has worked with choirs in several parts of the United States. Rhythmically intricate, it used the two choirs attractively and ingeniously: children in the centre and Inspirare divided on either side. Scraps of melody came from different sections, expressing varying emotions and presenting music of real charm.

Last was An Easter Alleluia by talented English composer David Bednall, born in 1979, who, if you look at his website, has a large range of commercial recordings of his music to his credit. A lovely melody emerges from a series of rising motifs that culminate in a moving performance of one of the most impressive pieces sung in this surprisingly varied programme (considering the superficially limited subject matter treated by these many composers).

So even though the concert’s theme – a single word – might have looked like risking monotony, there was surprising variety in the styles and emotional character. Naturally, one found some more interesting and appealing than others. On top of it all were the clear signs of careful and sympathetic preparation and rehearsal resulting in always colourful and lively performances. A splendid and interesting evening.

 

Tudor Consort opens 2019 season with Renaissance madrigals at summer concert in the sun

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

The Tudor Consort directed by Michael Stewart

Chansons d’amour

Renaissance Love Songs

Composers: Giovanni Gastoldi, Orlando de Lassus, Clément Janequin, Thomas Weekles, John Wilbye, Luca Marenzio, John Dowland, Carlo Gesualdo, Juan del Encina, Henry Purcell, Pierre Certon, Orlando Gibbons, Josquin des Prez, Pierre Passereau

Khandallah Town Hall

Saturday 16 February, 7 pm

The first concert of the Tudor Consort’s year was in a different place and sang music that was different from their normal pattern. Yes, it was from the Renaissance – almost entirely composed in the 16th century, the Tudor age, and the first couple of decades of the 17th. (Purcell was the only one seriously out of place).

And the music was not written for choirs or large ensembles; nor was there any religious music. It was, as advertised, entirely love songs and most of it could be classed as madrigals. Some were pure and chaste, others erotic though never exactly obscene. They had abandoned traditional choral uniform, looking as if they’d just got back from the beach or the garden or reading in the shade or a walk in the park. Michael Stewart’s introduction and remarks on most of the pieces were casual and entertaining; his control of the singers, giving life to the music, as usual, exemplary.

The concert opened with a signature song insisting on the indominatability of love: Amor vittorioso, upbeat and joyous, sung by the whole choir, eleven excluding conductor Stewart who did participate as singer a couple of times later. It signalled, pretty accurately, the happy time we had committed ourselves to, a generally innocent view of love.

Lassus’s madrigal was to French words: Bonjour mon Coeur. Slow paced, rather thoughtful, it was sung by just four singers, and though men were present, the slight lack of bass support, no doubt the way it was written, did not seem to fit its being sung by man to woman.

The third song, Amour, amour, also French, by a composer unknown to me: Clément Janequin, half a century earlier than the first two composers. Only three singers performed this time, in short, pithy song lamenting the conflicting nature of love.

Then a couple of English madrigals, a full century later than Janequin, and it showed: Thus sings my dearest love by Thomas Weelkes and Lady, when I behold the roses sprouting by John Wilbye. The first bright and positive from three women , the second six singers equally distributed. The latter, longer, displayed more elaborate polyphony, but not an unclouded view of love.

The next song, by Luca Marenzio, Tirsi morir volea, tested the moral fortitude of the audience as certain words, even in Italian, specifically morir, are not difficult to decipher; its meaning might have been rather explicit. The distinct lines of harmony rather exposed the five singers; yet in spite of some ensemble difficulties, the challenge was dealt as, one hopes, was its particular amorous meaning.

Dowland’s well known Come again, seemed to suggest a similar situation, with four men singing, covering the vocal range in a very satisfactory way, though a different problem might have existed with four men, without women.

The Schoenberg of the Renaissance and a Spanish revelation
Without dealing with every song, highlights from then included the typically singular motet by Gesualdo, whose exposure with the general exploration of Renaissance music has led to his fame as perpetrator of one of the most famous crimes passionnels. In the discreet words of Wikipedia: “The best known fact of his life is his brutal and violent killing of his first wife and her aristocratic lover upon finding them in flagrante delicto”. Being of the nobility himself he was able to escape punishment. (In the next century, composer Alessandro Stradella became the victim in such an affair). As a result of his remarkably radical and prescient harmonic ventures his music has gained special notoriety in recent years. This madrigal, Mille volte il di, sung by the whole choir, was an excellent, ear-bending example.

The following bracket of madrigals included two by Spanish composer Juan del Encina, the first for four voices, Mi libertad, to an intriguingly subtle poem (the words may have been his own as he was a poet and dramatist too). He lived about a century before most of the other composers in the programme (1468-1530) which also puts him a century ahead of Shakespeare; and the slow, moving quality of the music spoke to me with singular power.

The other madrigal by Del Encina, Señora de hermosura, called for all eleven singers plus conductor Stewart. Soon after it began the choir broke up and we heard in turn, and finally in enchanting ensemble, three groups singing from the front, from the left side and from the small gallery at the back of the hall (no doubt where the projection box was when it was a picture theatre). It made for one of the most delightful performances of the evening.

In between the two Encina pieces were Purcell’s famous If music be the food of love; and another madrigal by Lassus, Mon Coeur se recommande à vous which engaged five voices in a nicely balanced performance.

The Purcell part song is known, partially for its not-quite-Shakespeare words. The first seven words, yes, from Twelfth Night, but then ‘sing on’ instead of ‘play on’ and the rest elaborated and extended for Purcell by one Colonel Henry Heveningham. By the end of the 17th century Shakespeare’s stocks were at a low level, being ignorant of the all-important classical unities; and ‘improvements’ on defective Tudor drama were the fashion. However, it was charmingly sung by the entire group.

Then another name unknown (to me), Pierre Certon and his Que n’est elle auprès de moy was followed by another English madrigal, Ah, dear heart by Orlando Gibbons. And finally two French madrigals: Josquin des Prez’s famous Mille regretz, , and Pierre Passereau – Il est bel et bon, another song delighting in double entendre which brought this highly varied and diverting concert that was especially enriched with a few rather unfamiliar composers, to end in a sparkling and entertaining manner.

 

 

 

Bach Choir celebrates Saint Cecilia, exploring interesting and important music with flair and taste

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Bach Choir of Wellington, directed by Shawn Michael Condon
To St Cecilia and Music

The final concert of the Bach Choir’s 50th year, music from the 16th to 20th Centuries in honour of St Cecilia, patroness of musicians, whose Feast Day is celebrated on 22 November

Nicola Holt (soprano), Jamie Young (tenor), Daniel O’Connor (baritone) and Douglas Mews (organ)

Britten’s Hymn to Saint Cecilia, setting of Auden’s poem
Gerald Finzi: God is gone up with a triumphant shout
Gounod’s Messe Solennelle de Sainte-Cécile
Plus music by Johannes Jeep, William Byrd and Handel

Saint Mary of the Angels

Sunday 16 December, 2 pm

This was a famous concert: not many musical organisations survive for fifty years. In Wellington, only the NZSO and the Orpheus Choir can claim that (and I await outraged contradictions); though it might be possible to add Chamber Music New Zealand, a very important music promoter, which began as a Wellington society in 1945 and spread its reach nationally within a few years.

The Bach Choir has had a distinguished record; founded by organist, harpsichordist, early music scholar and university teacher Anthony Jennings, one of New Zealand’s most gifted musicians, born in 1945 and died tragically young in 1995.

Though Bach has been a pretty constant presence in the choir’s repertoire, he was absent from this concert, which was dedicated to Saint Cecilia, the largely mythical patron saint of music (her day is actually 22 November, which Britten chose as his own birthday in 1913).

The chair of the Choir, Pam Davidson, sketched the choir’s story and explained the way the Saint’s gifts were woven through the concert.

So several of the pieces performed had Saint Cecilia associations. Very appropriately, Britten’s Hymn to Saint Cecilia was here; but perhaps the best known and, for many, the best loved was the Gounod mass.

Renaissance Germany: Johannes Jeep
It began in complete obscurity (for me at least): Johannes Jeep was a Renaissance German composer, contemporary of Scheit, Schein and Schütz, Pretorius, Frescobaldi, Allegri, and in England, Weekles, Gibbons, Campion. He was born and spent his first thirty years in Dransfeld, near Göttingen, NW of Eisenach – and the Bach country, studied in Italy, then Kapellmeister at the court of Hohenlohe (in today’s Baden-Württemberg), then Frankfurt.

With the choir in two parts, half in the organ gallery, Musica, die ganz lieblich Kunst (Music the loveliest art), an a cappella piece, was melodically rather charming and it set the scene for a recital that would be marked by singing of considerable refinement, sensitivity and musicality.

Byrd and Handel
William Byrd’s ‘Sing Joyfully unto God’ was just that, another joyful piece, madrigal-like, with attractive interweaving counterpoint; its huge popularity in the century following its composition was easy to understand.

The piano introduced a chorus from Handel’s oratorio, Solomon, ‘Music, spread thy voice around’, which was another piece that expresses delight in music itself, this time without owing specific indebtedness to God. Now with the choir entirely in front of us, it was harmonically more dense, to be expected in music of 150 years after the previous piece. By this time, I started to pay closer attention to the management of the choir by their director Shawn Michael Condon: his careful ear for balance and integration of parts and matching the sense of the words to singing that made sense of them.

Britten’s Hymn to Saint Cecilia
The substantial item in the first half was Britten’s Hymn to St Cecilia set to a poem that Britten had asked his friend WH Auden to write. Auden complied and Britten worked at it in New York during his three year stay in the United States at the beginning of the Second World War. But it was not performed there and when he sought his exit visa to return to Britain in 1942 US Customs confiscated the score, suspecting it could contain a secret code. Fortunately, Britten had the fortitude to recompose it on the torpedo-infested voyage home and it was given a radio performance later that year (I read nothing of the score’s possible return to the composer later, with humble apologies from the paranoid officials). You can find a short but interesting account of Britten’s and Peter Pears’ American episode in a recent article copied from Gramophone magazine: https://www.gramophone.co.uk/feature/britten-in-america .

The music is quite dense and the church acoustic, generally very sympathetic, allowed it to sound cluttered at times; I think a little modification of the volume, particularly at emphatic moments might have helped. Considering its provenance, and its composition in the middle of the war, it was imbued with delight and optimism – fair enough for a 30-year-old. The dancing liveliness of the second stanza, like a scherzo movement, was brilliantly delivered, and the direct address to the saint at the end of each stanza: “Blessed Cecilia, appear in visions…”, found its contrasting ethereal spirit most successfully.

In the third section, the longest and the poetically and aesthetically most complex, I had the feeling at certain moments that a quite small choir, with most choral parts not far from the effect of solo voices, might produce a more pungent impact. Certainly, the solo parts were among the most joyous elements, though sometimes I wasn’t sure how many voices were involved, not sitting close enough to see who was actually singing. The last part of Section III is simpler, describing individual instruments; it was the most interesting part of this rather enchanting work and the feelings of preciousness that sometimes trouble me with Britten rather fell away (you can tell, I’m not a paid-up Britten groupie).

Poking about on YouTube, I came across a performance of the Britten by Ensemble Vocal du CRR (Conservatoire à Rayonnement Régional) de Montpellier, conducted by Caroline Gaulon; it was sung by small forces, about a dozen by the look of it, with an ecstatic quality and wonderful clarity: pretty good English too: (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DAN-TebgYsA). Associated was a clip that I felt was a singularly enchanting collection of St Cecilia music: from Marc Minkowski’s Les Musiciens du Louvre, with music by Purcell, Handel and Haydn: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0hMzZEdxKC0. Recommended!

Finzi triumphant
The second half opened with Gerald Finzi’s festive setting of words by a 17th century Puritan writer who emigrated to Massachusetts, Edward Taylor, based on verses from Philippians 2:9. This, accompanied by Mews at the organ (‘rather unsubtle at the beginning’, I jotted down) was like a continuous, rhapsodic pean of delight. I felt that the men tended to dominate and unbalance the sound in the early stages, but quickly came to enjoy the enthusiasm that drove conductor and choir. It achieves conventional musical shape by treating the second (last) verse as a meditative, slow, movement and then returning to repeat the first stanza with its ‘praise’, ‘triumphant shout’, ‘sounding trumpets’, ‘King of Glory’, asserting that all is well in this best of all possible worlds.

Gounod’s early years
I remember my surprise when I first encountered the Saint Cecilia Mass, from the Wainuiomata Choir under their splendid conductor, John Knox, in the singular setting of the main lobby of the Railway Station (how about choirs negotiating regular performances there, to astonish the communters and promote their gifts to the great unwashed). It was so full of almost secular vitality and tunefulness, not at all the sound of a typical liturgical work. And so I was not surprised that in certain quarters it tended to be denigrated as on the one hand not properly religious, and on the other, too ‘popular’, lacking the seriousness of proper classical music. Those shortcomings were fine by me; not that I don’t love Bruckner and Palestrina too.

Though Gounod had had a mass performed in 1839, aged 20, at the great church of Saint-Eustache just before leaving Paris on winning the Prix de Rome, the eight or ten years after his return were strangely barren as composer; he was a church organist, wrote several other masses, and various songs but nothing that hasn’t deservedly disappeared. Clearly he did not have what one imagines to be the mark of a real composer: music just flowing from his head demanding to be set down. He seems to have sort-of lost the composer ambition and remarked: ‘Je me sentis une velléité d’adopter la vie ecclésiastique’ – he took a fancy to a religious life.

Success in opera
Gounod’s real career started in 1849 aged 30, after he had become a friend of the distinguished singer Pauline Viardot. She spoke of Gounod to the director of the Opéra and he agreed to mounting an opera by him, especially when she promised to sing the title role in the suggested opera, Sapho. Viardot’s suggestion that prominent playwright, Emil Augier, tackle the libretto was again persuasive and suddenly a production by the Paris Opéra was on. What an extraordinary stroke for a composer with scarcely any reputation! Fortunately it was well received, mainly by the critics rather then the public, including Berlioz, at its first run in 1851. Though an aria, ‘O ma lyre immortelle’ is much anthologised, the opera itself didn’t survive.

Another opera La nonne sanglante and incidental music for a play followed, before the Messe solennelle appeared, in 1855. Its Sanctus too has taken a life of its own, shifted from the tenor to soprano – Kiri Te Kanawa among others.

The Messe solennelle – this performance
Finally, I come to the performance itself. The Kyrie opened with beautifully warm, subdued singing by female voices, quickly joined by other sections, with intermittent phrases from the three soloists; sculpted carefully and sounding as if they were deeply involved, though some tonal quality was lost as the singing intensified towards the end. The high soprano voice of Nicola Holt lit the Gloria serenely, joined by the choir in the same reverent tones. Then with the pregnant words ‘Laudamus te’, the full choir brought a totally new spirit of delight to the music, of determination. And the words ‘Domine fili unigenite’ brought a new narrative tone to it, first with solo baritone Daniel O’Connor, then tenor Jamie Young, both revealing voices well cast for the music. Various words that Gounod obviously considered significant continued to get highlighted, such as ‘Dominus Deus’, and the words ‘…qui tollis peccata mundi…’ which most composers clothe in particularly powerful phrases.

Scarcely anyone dares to observe that the best way to distinguish a masterpiece, a popular masterpiece, is almost always through melody. Some great composers get by without a very rich melodic gift, but there’s usually a powerful compensating element like an arresting flair for manipulation of melodic or rhythmic elements, or engaging the listener in a pattern of harmonic and tonal modulations. Try as certain of the severer class of music critics might to denigrate a Rossini or a Vivaldi, a Johann Strauss, or a Gounod, the presence of melodies that hang around long after the performance has ended, is the touchstone, assuming the composer has enough skill and taste to dress them interestingly.

This mass is certainly one of those, and to hear this Credo sung with any conviction tends to elicit the word masterpiece, much as it might sound a little pompous. Gounod breaks certain sections up, so the Credo completely changes its character from the confidence of the first exclamatory part, the grand ‘Deum de Deo, lumende lumine’, going quiet at ‘Qui propter sunt’, and especially ‘Et incarnatus’ with the soloists pianissimo, the singing moving between soloists to choir constantly, and then dealing with Pilate and the crucifixion in severe tones. The music of the beginning returns with the triumphant ‘Et resurrexit’, while the catalogue of beliefs continues with appropriate religious sanctity.

I dare hardly mention the one drawback of the concert: the absence of an orchestra, noticeable in the instrumental Offertory. Yet Douglas Mews created a sensitive and persuasive account of it on the Maxwell Fernie organ, and of the many moments elsewhere where the orchestra makes attractive gestures. And there was no escaping the quality of the singing under the choir’s director Shawn Michael Condon: clearly articulated, dynamically flexible and varied, and simply interesting in its story-telling character.

Gounod wrote the Sanctus for a tenor with intermittent choir. It’s the most popular part, often sung today by a soprano, like Kiri Te Kanawa. Jamie Young delivered a fine calm account of it, and he sang the ‘Pleni sunt coeli’ with a passion, that the organ supported very well.

The Benedictus is no less affecting and the choir and soprano Nicola Holt gave a moving performance of it, with its highlighted ‘Hosanna in excelsis’ delivered resolutely at the end.

It has always seemed to me that the Agnus Dei was a little less interesting than the rest of the mass. While there were lively things and of course it was splendidly sung in spite of small signs of fatigue, there were a few more signs of conventional harmonic shifts and of a composer who was going through the motions rather than breaking new ground (to use a couple of hackneyed figures of speech).

So in all, this was an excellent concert; a rewarding theme that was intelligently and resourcefully explored and exploited, a fine venue – wonderful to have St Mary’s back in good health, while the City Council has wasted several years dithering over the fate of the Town Hall – and finally, performed with taste and considerable skill under capable leadership.

 

A finely-wrought, light-on-its-feet “Messiah” from Nicholas McGegan with The Tudor Consort and the NZSO

Posted on by Peter Mechen

The New Zealand Symphony Orchestra presents:
HANDEL:  Messiah – An Oratorio, HWV 56

Madeleine Pierard (soprano)
Kristin Darragh (alto)
James Egglestone (tenor)
Martin Snell (bass)
The Tudor Consort (director – Michael Stewart)
Nicholas McGegan (conductor)

Michael Fowler Centre, Wellington

Saturday 8th December 2018

Just for interest’s sakes I hearkened back to my “Middle C” review of an earlier Messiah here in Wellington conducted by Nicholas McGegan with the NZSO three years previously, one which I hailed as a focused and characterful performance throughout. There was plenty to wax enthusiastic about on that occasion – McGegan’s very “visceral “ way with some of the music’s more pictorial evocations, such as the frisson of excitement he and his soprano (Anna Leese in that instance) created when, in the Annunciation to the Shepherds, the “Multitude of the heav’nly hosts“ excitingly made its presence felt, the forcefulness of the scourge-blows on Christ’s body at the chorus’s “Surely He hath borne our griefs”, and the sepulchral darkness wrought by the same voices with the words “Since by man came death”, contrasted all the more by the oceanic surge of energy at the immediately-following “By man came also the resurrection of the dead”.

McGegan’s other soloists besides Anna Leese on that occasion played their part in the characterful realisations, an affecting “He was despised” from mezzo Sally-Ann Russell (though the brutal contrasts of “He gave his back” in the piece’s middle section were dispensed with, then – as this time round),  a ringing, prophetic “voice of him that crieth in the wilderness” from tenor Steve Davislim, and a blood-stirring, skin-and-hair festooned “Why do the nations?” from bass James Clayton. And though she’s already had a mention above, I can’t pass over Anna Leese’s ravishing and warmly-assured “I know that my Redeemer liveth”, which, together with a Halleluiah Chorus that really took flight as an expression of exuberant joyfulness, created what I thought felt like some kind of “transcendence” that carried the performance on the crest of a wave right to its final moments.

Lest the reader regard these words as uncritical warblings, I must emphasise that there were a couple of things I felt a tad short-changed by at the time, the aforementioned truncated “He was despised” for one, and McGegan’s non-inclusion of practically every number other than what might be regarded as “standard” fare for the work, thus ignoring two or three of my absolute favourites – “The Lord gave the word” from Part Two’s The beginnings of Gospel Preaching, along with two from the otherwise unrepresented The Victory over Death and Sin section, a pairing of the superbly-wrought duet for alto and tenor “O Death, where is thy Sting?” and its equally wonderful linked chorus “But thanks be to God”. Apart from these quibbles I found the realisation hard to fault, with soloists, choir and instrumentalists inspired by their conductor to infuse such “bare-essentials” content with music-making of “energy, brilliance, warmth and sheer grandeur”.

Three years later, and with different soloists and a smaller chorus, here was Nicholas McGegan once again, looking to not only recapture that former occasion’s “first, fine careless rapture”, but take us further along the road travelled by performers and listeners alike, all wanting to deepen our involvement with a masterpiece such as “Messiah”. Expectations were high, and anticipations brimful with promise, everything further fuelled by the presence of well-known vocal soloists, along with the highly-regarded choral group, The Tudor Consort. Of course, having a specialist “early music” choir was immediately going to make a difference to last time, when the choir was the 56-member-strong NZSO Messiah Chorale – here, with twenty fewer voices the performances’ sound would obviously be quite different – leaner, more incisive, but less grand and resplendent-sounding.

Only the most diehard “authenticist” or the most stick-in-the-mud “traditionalist” would want to hear the work performed in much the same way each time – fortunately the NZSO’s attitude seems to be one of “vive la difference”, judging by the changes that have been “rung” in the presentations of the last few years. Who knows? – though loving and appreciating the “period performance” kinds of realisations, I’m still hanging out for the day when we get a local reincarnation of the remarkable (or notorious, depending on one’s standpoint) Eugene Goosens-orchestrated version of “Messiah” that was famously recorded by Sir Thomas Beecham in the 1950s, a version that some older listeners would have been brought up on via that magnificent recording.

For now, it was the same “standard version” as McGegan used previously, leaving me again bereft of those aforementioned favourites, which included the central section of “He was despised”, and giving rise to a similar feeling of Part Three being, relatively speaking, over in almost a trice. Of course, there being no “absolute” version of the work sanctioned by the composer, one has to fall back on the idea I proposed last time round – that of the work being a “listening adventure”, with nothing about any performance taken for granted (prior knowledge excepted, of course). The other variables are, of course, the different performers – and here every single voice was a different one to that of 2015, making for fascinating and rewarding listening on that score alone.

McGegan got a gorgeous sound from his instrumentalists at the very opening, the winds prominent at first before the strings alone took the melody at the repeat  – a chirpily “pointed” but flowing allegro generated a spacious, out-of-door feeling, well-suited to the declamatory entry of the first of the soloists, tenor James Egglestone, with “Comfort ye”. His fine, ringing voice readily evoked the prophetic tones with telling emphasis at certain points – “and CRY out to her….”, for example – his “ev’ry valley” grew in exaltation with each repeat – and how ear-catching and mellifluous was the combination of harpsichord and organ here, played respectively by Douglas Mews and Michael Stewart.

Egglestone again measured up during Part Two to his almost confrontational role in close alternation with the chorus, the voice bright and sharply-focused for “All they that see him”, and imbued with sorrow and pity at “Thy rebuke hath broken His heart”. Some of the words I wanted him to “spit out” more vehemently, such as in recitative with “He was cut off”, and in the aria “But thou didst not leave” – all dramatic, angular stuff that I thought needed the consonants flung about a bit more dangerously! – however, his focus sharpened again at “He that dwelleth in heav’n” and “Thou shalt break them”, the “potter’s vessel” well-and-truly dashed to pieces by the aria’s end!

Bass Martin Snell pinned our ears back with his magnificently sonorous and arresting beginning to his recitative “Thus saith the Lord”, giving his extended flourishes on the word “shake” terrific energy and pointing his words superbly throughout – “The Lord whom ye seek shall SUDDENLY come to his temple!…”. Just as startling in a different way was his second appearance, in the wake of a  marvellously sinister introduction by the strings heralding “For behold, darkness shall cover the earth…” His voice had an awe-struck quality, which rose in a great arch at “but the Lord shall arise upon thee” before returning to the gloom to begin his aria “The people that walked in darkness”, his tones again flooding both physical and imagined spaces at the phrase “have seen a great light” – tremendous!

Snell’s later contributions were no less telling, firstly in the frenetically-framed “Why do the nations…”, the orchestral playing on fire with energy and fury, the singer venting the words’ spleen in fine style, hurling out the triplets like sparks from a firecracker in both sections of the aria, and then in the well-known “The trumpet shall sound”, the player sounding a shade tentative over the first few bars, but then hitting the proverbial straps, and the singer resplendent of voice and commanding of manner and presence throughout, the overall effect majestic!

I’d heard Kristin Darragh in smaller operatic roles up to this point, commenting then on the dark and powerful quality of her various assumptions – enough to keenly anticipate what she might do with the alto sections of this score. While I wasn’t ideally placed seat-wise for the first part (my partner and myself judiciously changing our location after the interval for a more front-on, better-balanced sound-picture), I still got a sense of Darragh’s fearlessly engaging way with the texts in “But who may abide”, consistently conveying the impression that every word truly meant something. I wished we had been seated more centrally for the “refiner’s fire” section of the aria, so as to have gotten the full impact of Darragh’s sonorous lower register – a very operatic, Verdian sound in places, also in evidence at ”Then shall the eyes of the blind be opened” and its aria, which she shared (to properly startling effect, the voices creating quite different worlds of expression) with soprano Madeleine Pierard.

But it was in one of the score’s defining numbers, the aria “He was despised” (which  I heard from a better-balanced perspective than I did those previous items) that Darragh really demonstrated what she was capable of – here the voice was decked in purple, the emotion conveyed with real pathos (to the point where one almost imagined a sob in one of the descending phrases), then the tones seriously darkened for “A man of sorrows” so that the following words “acquainted with grief” took on incredible poignancy. What a tragedy we weren’t allowed to hear what Darragh would have made of the bitterly incisive lines of the contrasting section “He gave his back to the smiters”, here, as in 2015, not given.

I fancy I’ve witnessed at least three, and perhaps even four “Messiah” performances featuring soprano Madeleine Pierard, each of them displaying the singer’s brilliance and interpretative powers in their varied contexts of the different conductors’ realisations. At her first entrance in Part One she worked hand-in-glove with her conductor in “There were shepherds”, beautifully terracing the growing realisations and excitements associated with the appearances of, firstly, the angel, and then “a multitude of the heav’nly host”, the last depicted by both soprano and players as if transported by ecstatic joy – scalp-prickling stuff! Part One as well featured from Pierard some brilliant, fiendishly euphoric vocalisings expressing the sentiments “Rejoice greatly” – high-energy music-making from both singer and orchestra, the concluding dotted rhythms bouncing notes in every which direction most excitingly! This was followed later by an easeful, soaringly expressive “Come unto Him”, the second part of an aria shared and nicely contrasted with Kristin Darragh’s more visceral, earthy tones.

Pierard was given only one number to sing in Part Two in McGegan’s schema, the plaintive and expressive “How beautiful are the feet”, Handel reserving for the Third Part in this “version” all but one instance of a lighter-toned solo voice, here winningly characterised by the singer. If “He was despised” denoted a kind of “dark centre” of the work, setting the tone for its Second Part (opinions of both such an idea and such a “moment” will vary), then “I know that my Redeemer liveth” from Part Three was surely its antithesis, Handel skilfully characterising each by the use of voices with appropriately weighted tones, the contrast between the respective singers here well-nigh ideal.

I’ve spoken before of Pierard’s absolute identification with the words’ ideas and sentiments, and the sense I get of her instinctive “inclusiveness” when singing, as if her voice and presence were “embracing” every listener in the hall. This time round I caught an emphasis I hadn’t previously noted in her performances, her exquisite colouring of the words “the first fruits of them that sleep”, right at the piece’s end, made all the more telling by her lovely ascent at “For now is Christ risen”. While not a “carbon copy” of that “Messiah” performance here in Wellington I waxed lyrical about in 2014 (in a review that was published in an off-shore online critical magazine, “Seen and Heard International”) Pierard’s singing here certainly had a comparable “charge” to my ears,  and her approach to the music demonstrated a distinctive and well-focused interpretative viewpoint, as do all great performances.

Sitting where I was for the first part of the work I could clearly see the interactive process at work between conductor Nicholas McGegan and his various forces, choral and orchestral. I didn’t care for the conductor’s physical placement of the soloists when not singing, as they seemed somewhat “removed” from the action, two each on either side, sitting in a kind of divided “limbo” outside the orchestral forces, less able to give each other support and acknowledgement and seem “part of the whole”. It did, I suppose, enable McGegan to interact even more directly with the orchestral players, but I thought it gave less physical and psychological”unity”to the performance in general.

Still, The Tudor Consort voices responded to his direction with focused, detailed lines and plenty of variegated tones to their singing. The silvery tones of the sopranos was always a sheer delight, by turns part of a diaphanous web of sound in hushed sequences, and then gleaming throughout the more forthright passages. But each of the sections possessed a similar ability to spin finely-wrought lines, and maintain an “elfin” ambience, as with some of the long runs and contrapuntal passages  in “And He shall purify”.

McGegan encouraged the music’s dynamic contrasts, as with the “For unto us” opening lines and the climactic shouts of “Wonderful” and “Counsellor” in the same chorus, as also with the contrasts in “His Yoke is easy”. But the chorus that electrified me more than any other with its performance was “All we like sheep”, its convivial exchanges and dovetailings of the words “We have turned” making for sheer delight, until suddenly the music seemed to grow a black brow and a grim aspect, as the voices quietly but intensely “loaded” the hushed ambiences with the crushing weight of the world’s own iniquities, the effect being one of profound shock and dumbfoundment – so very theatrical and psychological! It had the same effect in reverse as the Part Three chorus “Since by Man came death”, here also done with great theatrical flair and atmosphere. My preference in the work would still be for a bigger choir, but despite the relative “lesser” numbers the “bite” required in places like “Surely He hath borne our griefs” was still palpable, as was the splendour of the “Halleluiah” and the final choruses.

In conclusion, no praise can be too high for the orchestra players, who responded to their conductor’s every gesture. I thoroughly enjoyed the instrumental characterisations throughout the whole of the “Annunciation to the Shepherds”, the proceedings reaching a frisson of real excitement at the appearance of the “heav’nly host” with its ecstatic “Glory to God in the highest”, and, at the other end of the emotional spectrum, the sepulchral tones of the introduction to “For behold, darkness shall cover the Earth”. Though strings and wind bore the brunt of the workload, the brass and timpani came into their own at the “Halleluiah” – I loved timpanist Laurence Reese’s crescendo roll at “King of Kings” at one point! – and in the two final choruses, the “Amen” in particular being more-than-usually expansive and exploratory, requiring a “filling-out” of measures and tones from all concerned. Players and singers alike delivered in spadefuls what conductor McGegan asked of them, and for our delight brought the work to a rousing finish!

Rutter’s lovely Magnificat accompanied by carols of bells and the Orpheus Choir in sold out concert

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

The Orpheus Choir of Wellington conducted by Brent Stewart
‘Carol of the Bells’

John Rutter’s Magnificat
Carol of the Bells by Mykola Leontovych and Peter Wilhousky (arr. Barlow Bradford)
Vaughan Williams: Fantasia on Christmas Carols
Mozart: ‘Laudate Dominum’ from Vesperae solennes de confessore, K 339
Handel’s Hallelujah Chorus from Messiah

Wellington Cathedral of Saint Paul

Saturday 24 November, 7:30 pm

Though conductor Brent Stewart entertained the audience with his introduction to the unconventional Carol of the Bells, he waited till its end before engaging in his lively promotion of the choir’s next year’s programme, using the choir to sing striking excerpts from Mozart’s Requiem and Carmina Burana by Carl Orff. As well, he mentioned three concerts in which the choir will sing with both Orchestra Wellington and the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra (Mahler’s second symphony and Messiah).

And taking a leaf out of Orchestra Wellington’s highly successful promotional gambit, Brent Stewart drew attention to the offer of their two independent concerts for the price of one: till Christmas Eve, buy the two for $60.

That this concert had the ‘Full House’ sign at the door, should be added encouragement to re-subscribe in 2019.

But the concert had started with Rutter’s Magnificat, the opening part of which rather drew attention to the famous acoustic of the cathedral which tends to protest at loud and complex music, making it difficult to understand words (though in Latin, so no worse for those familiar with it than for those innocent of the language) but more seriously harder to discern the musical details or to hear clearly what instruments were used in the accompaniment. A stripped-down orchestra was employed, of piano, flute, horn, trumpet, trombone and percussion.

I had the feeling I’d heard it before, and so it proved as I searched in the Middle C archive. I had, in fact, reviewed a performance that Thomas Nikora conducted with Cantoris, with Mark Dorrell’s piano accompaniment, in July 2017.

Rutter’s orchestration was quite colourful, even in the composer’s reduced chamber orchestra version, though without any strings, and this ensemble enhanced this lively and radiant work. I think it was wise to leave strings out in favour of winds and percussion, which lent a picturesque note, leaving it to the voices to supply the timbres and the more legato playing that would have been delivered by strings.

So although the acoustics were a bit confused during noisy passages in the opening ‘Magnificat anima mea’ and later in more furious episodes such as the ‘Fecit potentiam’, the joyful spirit and the confidence that infused the opening chorus nevertheless filled the cathedral with splendid enthusiasm, and the intervening gentler passages were clear and beautiful.

Particularly memorable is the haunting setting of the beautiful 15th century poem, ‘Of a Rose, a lovely Rose’ that Rutter inserted. It fitted the spirit of the motet movingly, both in meaning and in musical character, and it offered a proper opportunity to admire the choir’s studied and sensitive singing. In the words of a programme note found on the Internet, it “uses the image of a rose as an allegory for the Blessed Virgin Mary and her powers to intercede for mankind”.

‘Quia fecit’ then set the record straight with its insistence on God’s might, with timpani emphasising the point. Next, at the ‘Et misericordia’, soprano Pasquale Orchard appeared, uttering many repetitions of that word to create a lovely effect: the horn offered warm support. The choir alone handled the ever-more important message, putting down the mighty and exalting the humble and meek, the main message of the ‘Fecit potentiam’.

The soprano, with help from the flute, returned to the front to lead in the gentle ‘Esurientes’ which further expanded on the sadly misleading report that “He hath filled the hungry with good things and the rich he hath sent empty away”. (In my Latin studies I never encountered esurientes – ‘the hungry’, though sure enough, it’s in Lewis and Short) The choir expressed it properly as a lament rather than a triumph and its final pages sung by Orchard, repeating ‘in saecula’, was particularly lovely.

Timpani and winds lined up for an ecstatic rendering of the short ‘Gloria Patri’. Rutter attached the ‘Sancta Maria’ to the Gloria, and here was Pasquale Orchard’s final, beautiful appearance, fading out with a gentle ‘Alleluia’. The Coda as it were, is ‘Sicut erat’, which sounded a bit perfunctory, ritualistic to me, sort-of wrapping it up cheerfully with a good orchestral finale-style peroration.

But that’s not to deny the wonderful musical quality if the piece, such a refreshing corrective to the majority of serious classical being written today.

The balance of the concert included its title-track, Carol of the Bells, a short, oddball work written during the First World War by Ukrainian composer Leontovych, then re-arranged by American Wilhousky for orchestra; it employs the cathedral bells as well as hand bells. It proved a splendid exclamatory piece, delivered with great gusto by all concerned. The Wellington Society of Bellringers were on hand to bring this aspect of the concert to an audience beyond the walls of the cathedral.

Like Rutter, Vaughan Williams was one of the long list of religiously sceptical composers who seem to have produced some of the greatest religious music. His Fantasia on Christmas Carols, opened with the new digital organ, then the piano, before women’s voices, humming, emerged. Baritone Joe Haddow joined at the second verse of ‘The Truth sent from Above’, and finally the whole choir entered. Haddow’s diction was exemplary though much of the choir’s texts escaped me – not that this music is about the message conveyed by the words. Men, appropriately, launched into ‘Come all ye worthy Gentlemen’, but equality with the women was soon restored, and it was lively and harmonically opulent. The third carol, ‘On Christmas Night’, attracted contributions from organ, piano, brass, tubular bells and timpani, as well as Haddow, and brought this delightful little anthology to a fine conclusion.

The concert ended with the beautiful ‘Laudate Dominum’ from Mozart’s Solemn Vespers, with Pasquale singing the part famously done by Kiri (and lots of others); if her voice lacked a comparable degree of sustained legato, the whole piece was heart-warming.

And most of the audience saw fit to stand, true to tradition, for the Halleluia Chorus, and they clapped, many remaining standing, for quite a few minutes to offer choir, conductor, soloists and instrumentalists well-earned praise for a fine, varied and greatly enjoyed concert.

 

NZSO in splendid Beethoven: the first and the last, under Edo de Waart

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

New Zealand Symphony Orchestra (led by Donald Armstrong).  conductor Edo de Waart

Beethoven:  Symphony no.1  in C major, Op.21
Symphony no 9 in D minor, Op.15

Madeleine Pierard (soprano), Kristin Darragh (mezzo), Simon O’Neill (tenor), Anthony Robin Schneider (bass), Voices New Zealand Chamber Choir (Music Director Dr Karen Grylls)

Michael Fowler Centre

Friday, 23 November 2018, 6.30pm

Such is the popularity of Beethoven’s Choral Symphony (no.9) that the Michael Fowler Centre auditorium was sold out.  There were two empty seats next to me, but I did not see many others.

The gentle prologue to  Beethoven’s first symphony (the symphony premiered in 1800) almost sounds like an ending, and reminds one immediately of Haydn, the great master of the symphony, who was still around for the first 40 years of Beethoven’s life.

Excellent programme notes needed much more time to read than was available to me before the concert, but, as at other concerts, I couldn’t read them during the performances because of the strange New Zealand custom of dowsing the lights during orchestral and choral performances, as though they were visual spectacles like plays, opera or ballet.  This is not the case in the United Kingdom, where I recently attended concerts at the Royal Albert Hall and London’s Festival Hall – all performed with full auditorium lighting.

Symphony No 1
The first movement soon bounced into its allegro con brio tempo after its andante molto  introduction. There is then a gradual build-up of volume. Fine woodwind and horn interjections arrived.  The orchestra for this work was  much smaller than that employed later for the Ninth Symphony; brass consisted of two horns and two trumpets.

Crisp, articulated playing was the norm.  Sublime oboe and flute playing was a predominant feature. The music included pleasant variations.

The second movement, andante cantabile con moto, had a tuneful, dance-like opening.  All was very classical and orderly, but modulation passages proved a little more adventurous than Haydn perhaps would have been.

Menuetto: allegro molto e vivace – Trio was the tempo marking for the third movement.  Its lively tempo had woodwinds to the fore; the timpani had plenty of interesting work to do, and an unusual prominence for music of the period.  This movement featured some lovely string playing.

The fourth movement began portentously.  After a rather short adagio introduction, which held the audience in suspense,  until a jolly dance broke out. The dance ends, and there is declamation of trenchant chords again.  The dance theme develops, becoming more complex and intertwined with declamation, syncopation featuring also.  Peace returns, then a wind-up to the end.

The Choral Symphony
After the interval, we were treated to a marvellous performance of Beethoven’s 9th symphony. This final symphony, composed between 1822 and 1824, was performed first in 1825 under the great composer’s ‘direction’, although he was by now totally deaf, and another did the actual conducting.  It received a rapturous reception.  A huge orchestra is required; its premiere in Vienna saw a larger orchestra than possibly had ever been assembled there for a symphony concert.  Many more of every section are required here than in the first symphony.

The first movement, allegro ma non troppo, un poco maestoso, begins with only a quiet harbinger of things to come, yet its quietude has an amazing quality in its softness.  Some have said that the opening resembles the sound of an orchestra tuning up.  Then comes the first of many outbursts, demonstrating the composer’s revolutionary use of extreme dynamics magnificent crescendo and diminuendo at various points throughout the work. The trumpets became prominent, adding to the rich colours.  A high level of excitement was engendered, accompanied by magisterial majesty,  Horns were splendid, and the whole orchestra made huge, dramatic sounds.

The second movement (Scherzo: molto vivace – presto) carried on much the same mood,  but with incessant rhythms.  Its great theme somewhat foreshadowed the fourth movement. The trio section introduces trombones into the orchestra for the first time in the work.

The adagio molto e cantabile – andante moderato third movement contains many interesting and entrancing variations.  Some brief fugal treatment ensues; what Tovey describes as ‘…fragmentary counterpoint which enhances the effect…’; the movement has an emphatic outrburst before ending quietly.

The mighty fourth movement, is almost of symphonic length in itself, following the relatively short third movement.  The soloists came on, ready for their contributions, the women both in beautiful red gowns.  It has a graceful, almost tentative introduction to the theme, principally from cellos and basses, and a peaceful, quasi-pastoral passage with lovely variations  Horns took over the theme.  The variation from woodwinds with pizzicato strings was utterly transporting.  Brass did their piece, but never too dominating.  Variation was in dynamics as well as on the theme.  A quiet wind-down, a diversion, splendid flutes, and a gradual rise in tension, especially from the strings followed.  Again, the theme came from cellos and double-basses, with the other instruments taking it up, with variations – but the violins gave it to us straight.

Finally we are awakened by soloists and choir.  Bass Anthony Robin Schneider’s invocation ‘O friends!… Joy!’ was intoned richly and incisively by his superb voice.  (A pity that the translation in the programme, and in Wikipedia, gives the mild ‘Oh’ of exclamation, not the dramatic ‘O’ of invocation).

The choir soon joined in. Their words were taken from the “Ode to Joy”, a poem written by Friedrich Schiller in 1785 and revised in 1803, with text additions made by the composer.  The varied tempi in this movement make for increased excitement, until the last words are hurled out at high speed.  The music became dramatic in its build-up; it always seems to be going somewhere.

There were 60 voices in the Voices New Zealand Chamber Choir on this occasion – quite large for a chamber choir, but needed for Beethoven’s ecstatic utterances.  Their contribution was accurate and sonorous, with clear words, and animation.  The choir’s singing and that of the soloists was thrilling.

Only Kristin Darragh had some rather ugly notes near the beginning – possibly they were rather low for her tessitura.  Elsewhere, in the ensembles she was not easily heard at times; the soprano has the advantage (fully utilised by Madeleine Pierard, the superb soprano) of being at the top, while the bass stands out for being the lowest sound, and the tenor stands out because the .music is high in his voice.  Simon O’Neill had the right voice and volume for this role.

Martial airs came from the orchestra, excellently delineated, adding to the grandeur of the music. More percussion is introduced in this movement; bass drum and triangle both have notable solos.

All parts, solo and chorus, are written high in their respective voices.   I noticed that the soloists, when seated and not performing solo, ‘sang along’ with the chorus parts – a nice gesture.  The choir was absolutely great on the final section; the work finishes triumphantly for them, interspersed with beautiful ensembles for the soloists – but some detail was lost in all that was going on.

This was a wonderfully nuanced performance under the highly experienced Maestro Edo de Waart, and the audience showed appreciation most enthusiastically.

 

World Premiere in Palmerston North of 216 year-old work by English composer Samuel Arnold

Posted on by Peter Mechen

The Renaissance Singers of Palmerston North presents:

A NEW CREATION – Music by Josef Haydn (1732-1809) and Samuel Arnold (1740-1802)

HAYDN:  Oratorio “The Creation” (1798) – Part Three
ARNOLD:  Oratorio “The Hymn of Adam and Eve” (1802) – World premiere performance
(edited and realised by Robert Hoskins and David Vine)

Pasquale Orchard (soprano) , Shayna Tweed (soprano), Jennifer Little (soprano),
Nigel Tongs (tenor), Lindsay Yeo (bass-baritone)

Renaissance Singers (Music Director – Guy Donaldson)
Schola Sacra Choir, Whanganui (Music Director – Roy Tankersley)
Manawatu Sinfonia (Leader – Gillian Gibb)
Conductor: Guy Donaldson

Regent on Broadway, Palmerston North

Saturday 10th November, 2018

Musical history was made on Saturday evening at Palmerston North’s Regent on Broadway, when local forces (the city’s Renaissance Singers and the Manawatu Sinfonia, plus a clutch of home-grown/nurtured vocal soloists) combined forces with Wellington soprano Pasquale Orchard and neighbouring Whanganui’s Schola Sacra Choir, under the inspired direction of conductor Guy Donaldson, to bring into being a world premiere with a difference.

New Zealand being geographically as far away as one can get from Europe, and the UK in particular, it’s surely something of a red-letter occasion when a significant musical work written by an English composer is given its first-ever performance in this country. Last year, an original manuscript, long thought lost, of an orchestral work by Gustav Holst was discovered in a music Library in Tauranga, and given its first performance anywhere for 111 years (since the 1906 premiere), by local musicians to considerable amazement and acclaim – but this present work, “The Hymn of Adam and Eve”, composed by the little-known Samuel Arnold in 1802(!) trumped even that circumstance, having never previously been performed.

There’s more than a whiff of romance and intrigue surrounding Arnold’s birth and heritage, certain sources suggesting he may have been the illegitimate son of one Thomas Arnold, a commoner, and Princess Amelia, daughter of George II and Queen Caroline, a princess who remained unmarried, and was known for her independent spirit. Arnold was educated at the Chapel Royal, making rapid progress in his music studies, and soon earning his living writing both instrumental and vocal works for performance at various London “Gardens”, including operas and oratorios for Covent Garden and other theatres. He eventually became organist and composer to the Chapel Royal, and afterwards organist to Westminster Abbey, as well as becoming the conductor (so early in the history of that profession!) of the Academy of Ancient Music.

Along with all of this Arnold found the time to compose for cathedral service, producing a four-volumed adjunct to William Boyce’s 1790 Cathedral Music, and to undertake the first collected edition of the works of Handel, of which he completed forty volumes, a copy of which Beethoven received during the last weeks of his life, reputedly declaring that “Handel is the greatest composer that ever lived”. Judged by modern standards Arnold’s scholarship was wanting in places (the edition comprises only three-quarters of Handel’s output), but was for its time a notable and ground-breaking enterprise.

While searching for further pieces of information regarding Samuel Arnold to counter my lamentably skimpy knowledge of him I came across a couple of references to his activities as a musician which I thought significant, the first being the touching occasion in 1773 when Oxford University requested a performance of Arnold’s oratorio The Prodigal Son to mark the appointment of a new Chancellor for the institution, in return for which favour the composer was offered an honorary degree. Arnold at first declined, wanting to “entitle himself to it” by the usual academic course, to which end he submitted an exercise for examination – but his score was returned unopened by the music professor, assuring Arnold that it was “quite unnecessary to scrutinize an exercise by the author of The Prodigal Son.”

The other reference I thought telling in that it probably shaped whole generations of opinion concerning Arnold’s music was the entry on the composer in the 1900 edition of Grove’s “A Dictionary of Music and Musicians”, written by Edward Francis Rimbault, to the effect that “Dr. Arnold wrote with great facility and correctness, but the demand upon his powers was too varied and too incessant to allow of his attaining great excellence in any department of his art”. One recalls a similar “put-down” kind of treatment meted out half-a-century later to the music of Rachmaninov by the same publication, words that ring hollow in the light of THAT composer’s subsequent status and popularity.

Dr. Robert Hoskins, former Associate Professor of Music at Massey University and the New Zealand School of Music, “rediscovered” Samuel Arnold’s final and unperformed work “The Hymn of Adam and Eve” while researching the life and work of the composer in the early 1980s. Hoskins’ subsequent judgement of Arnold’s complete oeuvre takes issue with the aforementioned comment in Grove’s Dictionary regarding the composer’s lack of “excellence in any part of his art”, and attests to the best of his music attaining “a certain individuality” resulting in “attractive and dramatically vivid music”. Hoskins also makes mention of the documented popularity of Arnold’s works, which rivalled and perhaps even surpassed that of any of his English contemporaries throughout the last quarter of the eighteenth century.

Arnold composed much of his music in an environment that was very much under the combined spell of two creative “giants” – Handel, whose oratorios had won the hearts of the English public fifty years previously, and, more recently, Haydn, whose “Salomon” or “London” Symphonies had, along with the composer’s own visits to London, stimulated enormous interest in the (by then) venerable composer and his music. Arnold had become steeped in the music of both men – and at the time he was writing “The Hymn of Adam and Eve” he conducted performances in London of  both Handel’s “Messiah” and Haydn’s “The Creation”. It’s no surprise, therefore, that Arnold’s work comes across in places as a kind of “amalgam” of the two, almost as if he was unconsciously paying homage to each of them.

It was entirely fitting, therefore, that we heard as a kind of prelude to Arnold’s work the third and final part of Haydn’s “The Creation”, the two works sharing a similar theme courtesy of John Milton’s “Paradise Lost” – in Haydn’s case, the poetry translated and adapted by Baron Gottfried Van Swieten (who had also provided Haydn with his libretto for “The Seasons”), but here, translated back into English! Conductor Guy Donaldson however began the concert most appropriately with the final Chorus from Part Two, “Achieved is the Glorious Work”, giving the evening’s music-making a most auspicious and stirring beginning, the choral strands strong and firm in their fugal exchanges, the instrumental support full and energetic, with plenty of “schwung” in the rhythms, the whole capped off by wonderful timpani flourishes!

The Part three opening-proper was exquisitely-realised, the flute-playing limpid and “dewy”, and the horns “touching-in” the first rays of sunlight with real poetic feeling. Tenor Nigel Tongs kept a true line for “In rosy mantle”, his tone a tad wheezy in places, but steadily maintaining the musical shape of every phrase, giving his instrumental support plenty of beautiful “echo-material” to relish. Soprano Pasquale Orchard as Eve floated her first ascending phrase beautifully at “By thee with bliss, o bounteous Lord”, her Adam, baritone Lindsay Yeo counterweighting her line strongly and securely, and the oboe completing the “early-morning” scenario with a properly sylvan accompaniment– and how beautifully the chorus “stole” in with almost subterraneous murmurings, almost like the awakening of an “earth-noise”, underpinned in places by the timpani.

It took a little time for the orchestra to “bring together” the catchiness of the rhythmic gait leading up to the baritone’s “Of stars the brightest”, which the singer “opened up” securely – the chorus’s energy at “proclaim throughout vastness” seemed to galvanise the players somewhat, and the soprano’ s “And thou, the solace of the night” was more sturdily supported. Chirpily alert winds decorated the baritone’s next entry, and both soprano and chorus contributed to the infectious excitement and growing energy, finely controlled and gloriously released by conductor Donaldson, as all living creatures were enjoined by the singers to “praise the Lord” throughout crescendo after crescendo.

The singers’ rapport was evident in their exchanges throughout the recitative and duet that followed, both pointing their words and “relating” their trajectories and impulses to achieve a sense of true dialogue. The tenor returned, Nigel Tongs again reliably focused of line and elegant of phrase in his admonition to the couple to be content with what they have, before giving way to the splendour of the concerted forces’ concluding hymn of praise to the Almighty. The choir did itself and its conductor proud in its focusing and dovetailing of the fugal lines with the orchestral punctuations, the brass, winds and timpani suitably splendid of utterance, backed by the strings’ energy and colour – everybody at the piece’s conclusion giving their all, most satisfyingly.

After an intermission came the “real business” of the evening, the “public birth” of Samuel Arnold’s similarly-themed work for soloists, choir and orchestra, the “Hymn of Adam and Eve”, whose emergence from obscurity into the limelight had been lovingly enabled by Robert Hoskins as a result of his researchings. The performance was to also mark the retirement from the music directorship of the Renaissance Singers of conductor Guy Donaldson, after thirty years’ service in the role – so, altogether, the occasion promised a uniquely distinctive combination of a beginning and an ending, with each circumstance adding extra gravitas to the other.

Samuel Arnold fully intended his work to be performed shortly after its completion in January of 1802 – in fact he had planned the work for the Lenten concerts at the Haymarket Theatre Royal that year. His principal soloists were hand-picked for their roles by the composer – the soprano was to be German-born Gertrude Elizabeth Mara, one whose voice had been described as “remarkable for its extent and beauty”, as well as “its agility and flexibility” – it was for her particular abilities that Arnold had written the fiendishly difficult vocal bravura parts we were to hear in tonight’s performance. The baritone was the well-known singer Thomas Welsh, renowned for his voice’s  richness of tone. All was set to begin rehearsals, when the composer was stricken with ill health and was forced to cancel the proceedings.

Arnold died that same year in October, his oratorio unperformed and neglected, and eventually forgotten – fortunately the manuscript was given to the Royal College of Music in London, there to be rediscovered and reconstituted for the present performance, a premiere delayed for 216 years!

Arnold had set the “Morning Hymn” from Book 5 of Milton’s “Paradise Lost”, a passage describing the sequel to a dream of temptation experienced by Eve, and to Adam’s reassurance that she can overcome any such thoughts in her waking life. After an orchestral introduction, the soprano’s (Eve) is the opening voice, praising God and enjoining all creation to do the same – As Part One proceeds the pair join with the Seraphs to address the heavenly entities, beginning with the angels, the “Sons of Light” and including Venus, the brightest star. Adam then attends to the sun, and Eve the moon and the planets, each urging these entities to acknowledge their Creator. In the Second Part, the singers (predominantly the soprano) then turn their attentions to the earth and its attendant elements and various forms of life, concluding with a salutation from Adam to the “universal Lord” and a plea that whatever evil is concealed will be dispersed “as now light dispels the dark”.

I thought, in general terms, the performance was terrific, and largely because of the musicians’ willingness to make the commitment required to address the challenges of some of the writing. In particular, the soprano part (written for the illustrious Mara) was of an order of difficulty that almost beggared belief, and which was tackled by Pasquale Orchard with near-tigerish intensity in places – the only possible response that could have made it really “work”. There was no holding back – we all felt “engaged” by her utter vocal fearlessness, even in the one or two places where the outcomes seemed angular, almost awkward in effect. It all seemed to go with the territory, the visceral stimulus veritably coursing this listener’s blood through the veins at what seemed at times like breakneck speed! – most exhilarating!

In parallel, I did think that Arnold’s writing seemed particularly attuned to the pieces featuring the soprano – which, of course applied to a staggering thirteen numbers out of nineteen! By my count baritone Lindsay Yeo had, in comparison, only three solo opportunities throughout, which did seem a little curmudgeonly of the composer. And, despite some challenging and skilfully-realised writing for the horn, I felt Arnold’s invention wasn’t quite on the same ecstatic level for the baritone in the aria “Sound His praise”, though Yeo did his best to make it “sing”. Better was the final “Hail, universal Lord”, the singer bringing vigour and accuracy to the opening and making a good fist of the difficult coloratura passages.

The work began with an orchestral Symphony, sturdy and Handelian, followed by an appropriately lustrous opening declamation from the soprano, “These are thy glorious works”, Orchard projecting the sound of her voice with radiant character both here, and in the aria “Speak ye, who best can tell”, accompanied by lovely work from the horns and winds, the bassoon-playing particularly eloquent in its support of the singer. The Seraphs’ Duet which followed featured mellifluous teamwork between Shayna Tweed and Jennifer Little, supported faithfully by oboe continuo, and sturdily framed by an orchestral response which worked triumphantly through one or two shaky dovetailings. The somewhat tricky triplet passages were boldly tackled by the singers, with lovely teamwork at the repetitions of “And with songs”. If a strenuous quality occasionally “grabbed” a phrase or two of the figurations, it added to the excitement and colour of the singers’ work.

The Quartet and Chorus “Ye in heaven , on earth join all ye creatures” was introduced somewhat tentatively on the strings, who then seemed to warm to the task in support of the fugal passages, the choral work enlivened by timpani and brass in the middle section, and made very dramatic and theatrical at the end with portentous pauses! A complete contrast came with the delicate play between the flutes wreathing delicacies around and about the recitative “Fairest of stars”, and the soprano making the most of her words – again, with the aria “Praise Him in thy sphere” the winds set the scene most charmingly alternating with the voice, the long-breathed phrases contrasting with the brief, shooting-star-like cadenza at the end.

Adam’s recitative “Thou sun” brought vigorous phrases from the strings and sturdy singing from Lindsay Yeo, which carried over into the subsequent aria – the singer held his line, and gave of his best with the cadenza, even if I sensed a severity about the writing that didn’t quite take flight. What a difference with the following recitative “Moon, that now meet’st the orient sun“, singer and instrumentalists working with their conductor to evoke the grandeur of the “wandering fires that move in mystic dance”, before energising the sounds in praise of the Lord and Giver of Light – the soprano casting caution to the starry firmament with her vocal pyrotechnics and the chorus dramatically plunging into the ferment of excitement, each relishing the exchanges and banishing the darkness with their energies, the singer’s coloratura gripping and breath-taking in its effect.

With Part Two, things “came down to earth”, the opening recitative almost scientifically delineating the biosphere as the starting-point, life deriving from and nourished by “air” – the aria, “Let your ceaseless change”, that followed (both sung by Orchard as Eve, who dominated the proceedings from here on) sounded to me particularly Handelian, the flowing lines steadily and purposefully flowering into realms of great beauty, wrought and relished by the singer and her conductor, with the help of some lovely liquid clarinet phrasings. Even more visceral in effect were the instrumental evocations of the following Recitative “Ye mists and exhalations”, the overtly descriptive texts finding the composer’s imaginative powers equal to the task of rendering the words’ descriptions, culminating in bursts of magnificence from brass and timpani hailing the sun and gentle pizzicato strings suggesting delicate rain.

Again, Handel’s spirit rose majestically skyward in Arnold’s “Rising or falling”, firstly with Orchard’s utterly uninhibited vocal pyrotechnics, culminating in a “knockout” of a cadenza that bordered on the outlandish – what commitment to the cause!! – and then followed by a chorus using the same text to   put across majesty and might with great relish. Arnold’s gift for word-painting came to the fore once again in “His praise, ye winds”, the strings deployed most exquisitely and ambiently, both here and in the subsequent aria, “Fountains and ye that warble”, along with some fetching wind contributions, the singer’s voice floating her line across the gentle dotted rhythms. Next, it was the choir’s turn, a confidently joyous rendition of “Join voices all ye living souls”, the wind writing decorating the voices’ counterpointed lines, the latter sometimes in strongly-shaped thirds and in places very Handelian, the former an absolute delight, and to that end, most mellifluously played.

From things airborne we were then taken to things “that in waters glide” and “that walk the earth” – here was an intensely beauteous declamation, Orchard never letting up the intensities of her expression, just momentarily pushing her tones a shade sharp, but always with a vibrancy that infused the words and notes with a quality of engagement that characterised her work throughout the whole evening – a magnificent performance. She was supported by string playing whose quiet energies brought out something of the music’s own life-force, which I felt was partly derived from the concert’s overall spirit, one which enabled something challenging but within reach, and in the process generating considerable delight and satisfaction.

The work’s final act came with “Hail, universal Lord”, Lindsay Yeo’s Adam managing to get a word or two in at last, singing his lines with vigour and making a splendid thing out of the difficult figurations. Then came a truly overwhelming “all-in” flood of energy and colour from all the musicians throughout the work’s final pages which set the spaces of the venerable Regent Theatre aglow “as now light dispels the dark”. It was all, in a word, magnificent! – and both maestro Guy Donaldson and editor-extraordinaire Robert Hoskins would have been well-pleased with the musicians’ efforts and the audience’s response – as would the shade of Samuel Arnold, after more than two hundred years, able to finally proclaim his “last compositional will and testament” as fulfilled.