choral – Page 6

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

Posted on 16/12/201831/12/2018 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 08/12/201813/12/2018 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 8^th 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 24/11/201827/11/2018 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 23/11/201827/11/2018 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 9^th 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 10/11/201815/11/2018 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 10^th 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.

Choral concert to celebrate new digital organ at Cathedral of Saint Paul

Posted on 13/10/201817/10/2018 by Rosemary Collier

⌂Home
Mail
News
Weather
Finance
Sport
TV
Lifestyle
Entertainment
Travel
TV Guide
Answers
Tumblr
More⋁
- Flickr
- Mobile
- Events
- Horoscopes
- Messenger
- All Products

Yahoo New Zealand Mail

⌂ Home
👤ROBIN L H
- Signed in as:lindistaylor@xtra…
- Sign Out

⚙ Help
- Account Info

Press ? for Keyboard Shortcuts.

Close ad

Mail
Contacts
Calendar
Notepad
Messenger

Press Esc or click anywhere to return to Mail.

on

by

Wine

Nice and tidy.

Singular, well-conceived recital by male four-voice ensemble, reaching far and wide

Posted on 22/09/201826/09/2018 by Lindis Taylor

Aurora IV: Dark Light, To mark the Spring Equinox
‘Exploring darkness and light and the shadows in between’

Toby Gee (counter-tenor), Richard Taylor (tenor), Julian Chu-Tan (baritone), Simon Christie (bass)

Music from 500 years ago to five years ago, by Lassus, Sheppard, Jean Mouton, Schubert, William Harris, Andrew Smith, anonymous plainchant and two poems (Emily Dickinson and Anne Glenny Wilson)

Pukeahu National War Memorial, Hall of Memories, Carillon, Mount Cook

Saturday 22 September, 8 pm

The beautiful, and acoustically excellent Hall of Memories carved into the bottom of the Carillon is one of the loveliest places for music in the city. It’s a wonder that it’s not more used for music recitals.

My previous musical experiences here have been by choirs: The Tudor Consort, Nota Bene; and just three months ago, Peter Mechen reviewed a concert by Baroque Voices.

Aurora IV have moved around. Their last concert was in the TGIF series at the Cathedral of St Paul’s, and my last hearing, in November 2017, was at St Andrew’s on The Terrace with a programme that was nearly as wide-ranging at this was.

The Hall was lit by a dozen candles on the floor and others on ledges on the side walls. It created a strangely spiritual atmosphere that was generally appropriate to the sense of the music. However, it made the reviewer’s task tricky, for it was not possible to read the titles of the pieces, and so there was a certain amount of guesswork, later, in fitting my sketchy notes to the works listed on the programme; which was otherwise excellent, offering words of each piece, in English. Ideally, it’s also nice for the original language to be supplied as well… but you can’t have everything.

The programme, of sixteen pieces, with all the words ran to three pages. Though being advertised as being about an hour, it seemed improbable at the outset, but the timing was indeed right.

The theme of the concert, the Equinox, when hours of light start to exceed those of the dark, drew on music, and some poetry, that touched on the transition from darkness to the light, which lends itself to symbolic references, both religious and secular.

The major element was parts of a Requiem Mass by Orlando de Lasso (here Orlandus Lassus), late 16th century.

After the lights went down, distant sounds of singing emerged from behind us, as from nowhere: a plainsong setting of a verse from the Lamenatations of Jeremiah. Sung by a solo tenor – presumably Richard Taylor – it seemed to float into the high vault of the chapel.

There were also pieces by Oslo-resident British composer Andrew Smith. I was intrigued later as I read my notes alongside the programme to find that I’d remarked on the Renaissance sounds, alternating with distinctly contemporary passages; it turned out to be Smith’s Flos regalis virginalis, and was relieved to read that this was the composer’s style: “his modern harmonic twists cast sparks of light against the darker, mystical tones of plainsong and medieval polyphony“.

Furthermore, it created a sound image of more than four voices. Which was a characteristic of their singing that impressed me many times: I was hearing both the richness of a small choir, but of one whose perfect ensemble gave the impression of single voices.

Other Andrew Smith pieces were a Magnificat. Once again I found its nature enigmatic and my notes bore the cryptic word ‘language?’; it must have been Latin. However, I enjoyed the echoey, complex harmonies, along with touches of plainsong. Their third Smith piece was And Surrexit Christus (I’m not sure whether that is usually known as ‘Hodie Christus natus est’). Again, not being able to read the programme, I scribbled ‘wide harmonies evolving into more dissonant’ music. Aurora IV have recently given the New Zealand premieres of all his pieces performed in this concert.

The Introit, ‘Requiem aeternam’ of Lassus’s Missa pro defunctis, was the first of three excerpts; later we heard his setting of Psalm 23, as a Responsory, commonly used in the Mass, then the Sanctus, and near the end of the concert, the Lux aeterna. My note in the dark about the first of Lassus’s excerpts remarked ‘perfectly blended voices’, each sounding of similar impressive quality’, and later that the bass, Simon Christie, sounded ‘clearly of international stature’. That section included ‘Te decet hymnus, Deus, in Sion, Et tibi reddetur votum in Jerusalem’ and then the Kyrie.

Emily Dickinson’s comforting, much loved poem, ‘We grow accustomed to the dark’ followed, seeming to touch emotions very similar to the impact of the preceding music, though written three centuries later. It was admirably read, without a trace of elocuted, ‘poetic’ diction, by Toby Gee who also read Anne Glenny Wilson’s ‘A spring afternoon in New Zealand’ which was very popular in the 1890s. Not a poet I’d come across, and I enjoyed this poem and others by her that I found (inevitably, in these Googling times); quite comparable to Swinburne or Thomas Hardy, Bridges or Drinkwater, and Emily Dickinson if you like, of similar sensibility.

Quis dabit oculis? is a lament on the death of Queen Anne of Brittany by Jean Mouton – 16th century, featuring counter-tenor Toby Gee prominently. The Irish folksong, She moved through the fair, followed, after two of the singers had moved to the sides, conjured such a different aural landscape, in clearly pronounced Irish accents, in the seamless sounds of polyphony. (Was the remote sound of a flute an external coincidence or a part of the performance?).

Schubert’s Die Nacht was the only German entrant in the concert; apart from the distinct sound of the language, I might have been pressed to identify the composer, but the singing was perfectly idiomatic in words by a rather obscure poet of Schubert’s time. (part songs – there are many – by German Lieder composers, seem to be rarely performed).

Another anthem, in English, was William Harris’s Holy is the true light, a typical 20th century, four-part anthem, showing the quartet’s ease in a shift from the Medieval or Renaissance to a musically touching, contemporary idiom, not nearly as saccharine as such pieces sometimes sound.

Another outlier was a Latin motet by John Shepard, English mid-16th century, In Manus tuas, with a dominant tenor line handling the plainchant, between weaving polyphony, written probably during Mary’s reign when it was safe to compose Catholic music in Latin (dangerous not to!).

It ended with plainsong, as it had begun: first, lamenting the fall of Jerusalem, and the last offering the light of everlasting paradise. They were more or less forced to sing an encore: ‘Il bianco e dolore cigno’ by Flemish composer Jacques Arcadelt, which I was driven to find and play several versions of with great delight, on YouTube.

It was a totally admirable concert by four male singers whose voices coalesced in a way that is rare; and as well, they found the appropriate tone and rhythms that coloured the words and their musical settings, with sensitivity, awareness of their era, and just sheer intelligence.

125th Women’s Suffrage Anniversary Concert with Cantoris in Wellington

Posted on 19/09/201807/10/2018 by Peter Mechen

Cantoris Choir presents:
CELEBRATING WOMEN COMPOSERS

AMY BEACH – Festival Jubilate
Hymn – All Hail the Power of Jesus’ Name
ELAINE SHARMAN – Works for piano solo – Fish / Rain / Icicles / Deep Water
GILLIAN WHITEHEAD – Missa Brevis
JENNY McLEOD – Sun Carols

Cantoris Choir

Thomas Nikora, Musical Director

St.Andrew’s-on-The-Terrace, Wellington

Wednesday 19^th September 2018

2018 marks the 125^th anniversary of women’s suffrage in New Zealand. On 19 September 1893 the Electoral Act 1893 was passed, giving all women in New Zealand the right to vote. As a result of this landmark legislation, New Zealand became the first self-governing country in the world in which all women had the right to vote in parliamentary elections.

Cantoris Choir in Wellington presented a concert of works on the anniversary of the actual legislation, a presentation intended to “bring to life and shine a spotlight on women’s achievements in music composition”. This extended offshore, with the inclusion in the programme of pieces by the American composer Amy Beach (1867-1944), reflecting a world-wide women’s movement to achieve recognition as creative artists, both in Beach’s era and leading up to the present time.

Works by two present-day New Zealand composers, Dame Gillian Whitehead and Jenny McLeod, took up the remainder of the programme, and were joined by an unassuming but nevertheless distinctive set of piano pieces by a Wellington composer and teacher Elaine Sharman (1939-2018).

In the case of Amy Beach, her music has had a complex history – fighting contemporary attitudes that women lacked the proper facilities to be creative artists (voiced most influentially, perhaps, by Antonin Dvorak in 1892, to the effect that “….they (women) have not the creative power”), Beach’s works achieved considerable success at first, seemingly against all odds – she was entirely American-trained, and became one of the first US composers whose work was recognised in Europe.

A child prodigy pianist, she made her debut in 1883, also having several compositions published that year for the first time. Upon her marriage she concentrated on composition (at her husband’s request), and produced a vast array of music, among which was her “Festival Jubilate”, a work commissioned by the World’s Columbian Exposition which opened in 1892 (celebrating the 400th anniversary of Columbus’s landfall in the New World).

Cantoris’s programme notes comment that, prior to the first performance of the work at the Exposition the following year a landmark speech concerning women’s rights and equalities was delivered (by the leader of the Board of Lady Managers of the Exposition, Bertha Honore Palmer, the acknowledged Queen of Chicago Society) to an audience of two thousand people. One critic wrote afterwards that Beach’s work was then “a fitting climax to {Palmer’s} address, which was in itself a “jubilate” over the emancipation of women”, while another wrote that the music was “a clarion of triumph – the cry of a Balboa discovering a new sea of opportunity and emotion”.

Despite this and other successes in almost all genres of composition, Beach’s music after her death was neglected until relatively recently. Because of the success she experienced in her lifetime she remained a “presence”, although the neglect was a very real phenomena – and even now her music hasn’t taken its place in the repertory alongside that of somebody like Aaron Copland’s, for example. The work of living female composers is increasingly recognised, but there’s a distinct absence from the repertory of music by women in Beach’s era and earlier.

This evening’s major work by Beach, the “Festival Jubilate” though performed by Cantoris in a version with piano, rather than orchestral accompaniment, made a splendidly full-blooded impression, giving us little inkling as to why the work might have suffered neglect since its composer’s death. A heartfelt, full-throated choral sound at the outset, splendidly sustained in slow, harmonic rhythm and bolstered by a turbo-charged orchestral piano straightaway caught and held the attentions, before the piece flowed into a fugal-like sequence, with different strands clearly and sonorously delivered. I particularly relished what seemed like a Beethoven-like moment at the sequence’s end, not unlike the anticipation created by those repeated cries of “Vor Gott!!” in the latter’s Choral Symphony finale.

Beach’s own documented performances of Beethoven’s piano sonatas occasionally seemed to have “informed” her musical fabric in places, as echoes of passages from these works “ghosted“ the piano accompaniments and transitions linking the work’s sections. Jonathan Berkahn’s playing excellently dominated the sound-picture when appropriate and gave sterling support to the singers at other times while Director Thomas Nikora’s conducting allowed the stratospheric lines of the sopranos as much space and freedom as the basses’ lowest notes which here were “sounded” most impressively. What scintillations and energies there were in the renditions of the cries of “Gloria”, the lines riding on high in suitably ceremonial fashion, with the piano adding both sparkle and energy to the mix! And how sonorously the “Amens” sang out, gladdening the hearts and thrilling the senses of listeners revelling in the composer’s mastery of her forces and presentation of the material!

The “Festival Jubilate” was followed by another work by Amy Beach, a hymn written in 1915, to words by Edward Perronet, a Missionary who worked in India in the Eighteenth Century. Obviously hymn-like, the piece was beautifully sung, with the sopranos again shining with their sweet and true tones, and receiving plenty of support from the choir’s other sections. A third verse was begun softly, in contrast to the rest, while a concluding section grandly and unexpectedly modulated to bring the work to a satisfying end.

After the interval, something completely different diverted our attentions to engaging effect – a mini-recital of pieces written by a Wellington teacher and composer, Elaine Sharman. She studied composition at Victoria University of Wellington with both Douglas Lilburn and David Farquhar, but regarded herself more as an educationalist and advocate for music than a composer or performer. Incidentally, each of the four pieces have been published in recent collections of New Zealand piano music edited by composer-teacher Gillian Bibby, three in an anthology called “Take Flight” and one in another collection called “Sunrise”.

“Fish”, the first piece, alternated quirky, angular rhythms with more smoothly-flowing sets of impulses, while the following “Rain” gave us beautifully-wrought resonances deriving from both downward and upward figurations – a simple, but strongly effective illustrative idea, Debussy-like in effect. The third, “Icicles” evoked rows of stalagtites and stalagmites, strong at the base but delicate and scintillating at their tips.The final “Deep Water” began with subaqueous sounds whose impulses occasionally broke away to represent the play of light on the watery surfaces and the downward refraction of those light-strands, beautifully connecting surfaces and depths with murmuring arpeggiations – all simple, but stunningly effective, and played with real sensitivity by a member of Cantoris, bass

The choir re-entered (from the front, a little disconcertingly, this time) to perform Dame Gillian Whitehead’s Missa Brevis, a work I hadn’t heard “live”, even though it’s one of her earliest compositions. It has been given performances in both London and Chicago, as well as by a number of groups here in New Zealand, and recorded on the excellent “Waiteata Collection” series of CDs of NZ composers’ works.

Begun by the sopranos, the elegantly-shaped lines of the “Kyrie” immediately generated a kind of ritual ambience at once timeless and redolent of medieval music – the altos followed, elaborating on the sopranos’ figurations, the effect spreading through the voices, culminating in a resonant and definite chord of a fifth. Sopranos and altos harmonised in thirds with the “Christe”, tightening the intervals as the men’s voices entered, supported by a solo ‘cello. The men’s voices finished on a unison note. Then, with the “Kyrie’s” return the altos took the lead, the music beautifully flowing from line to line, each group “handing over” the music as the flow continued, again concluding with an open fifth.

A tenor solo began the “Gloria”, reinforcing the ritual once again, before the sopranos led off, combining with anxious intervals of a second in places with the altos, the text praising God, but the music displaying some tensions in the Almighty’s presence, settling down again with long unison stretches up to “Jesu Christe”, before rising in a series of layered pleadings at “Domine Deus, Agnus Dei, Filius Patris” – quite beautiful!

“Qui tollis” brought forth a different kind of beauty, long-breathed, tightly-harmonised floating lines sopranos lifting upwards, basses remaining anchored, as if all humanity were inhabiting the spaces in between, the different strands resonating with a beautifully-voiced ”Miserere nobis”, with the “fifth” again in evidence at the end. As if unable to restrain their emotions, the voices burst out with the “Quoniam”, pouring energy into their tones for the three “Tu solus…” acclamations, sopranos and altos encouraging each other in the “In Gloria dei Patris”, and then beginning a lovely elongated “Amen”.

We heard the gentle pealing of bells at the “Sanctus” with the sopranos and altos overlapping to redolent effect, melismatic impulses growing from the pealing bells, and a single-strand soprano “Pleni sunt caeli” similarly rising skyward – a beautiful sequence! The “Hosannas” were more declamatory and florid, making a telling contrast with the previous tintinnabulations. The “Benedictus” featured a near-obsessive downward repetition of a phrase from altos and basses, before the “Hosannas” sprang back into hearing, even more euphoric and florid than before.

After the beauties of the “Sanctus” the “Agnus Dei” was a sobering change, the vocal textures austere and bleak at the outset, the lines together but pursuing separate courses, the music rising to despairing heights, before the voices came together once more with “Dona Nobis Pacem”, the lines huddling together at first, but gradually opening up and out and risking a unison of hope right at the work’s end.

To conclude the concert we were given Jenny McLeod’s “Sun Festival Carols”, which was a 1983 commission from the Wellington City Council for the city’s “Sun Festival” of that year. On that occasion a women’s and children’s choir performed the carols, alongside various other festivities, including fireworks, to celebrate the beginning of summer.

The piano here returned as accompaniment, Jonathan Berkhan pitching the instrument once again into the fray with the voices, this time engaging with the attractive “Road Music” aspect of the opening carol, “Vulcan”, whose trajectory wasn’t unlike the well-known “Joshua fit de battle of Jericho”. It all worked well with piano, the syncopated rhythms all the more strongly projected and counter-balanced. By contrast the second carol, “Ochre”, was more ritualised and “circular” – the different lines described circles of their own to meet other strands, not unlike “recite and answer” music. A third carol “Azure” began with brilliant piano scintillations and with sopranos and altos exchanging opening lines, with the sopranos having a gorgeous sequence in the work’s middle, singing in thirds, before joining in unison with the other sections for a final, rousing effect.

A piquant rhythmic pattern supported flowing melodic lines in No.4 “Henna”, a gentle “gospel blues” kind of a rhythm, a marked contrast to the trenchant trajectories and melodies of the following carol No.5 “Gentian” – an attractive syncopated filigree moment signalling a contrasting sequence during which the opening was momentarily “transformed” before returning to the grunty opening manner. A single note then heralded No.6 “Indigo I” with delicate lullabic sounds, from “out of the blue” as it were, a soprano being put to the test and emerging with credit, the women’s voices combining beautifully with the music’s more “narrative” sections.

The composer’s impish rhythmic invention brought No.7, “Jade”’s beginning to life, with straightforward meters gradually attenuated, sopranos and altos having the melody and the men the rhythm. The music irradiated joy and exuberance throughout its middle section, the piano’s extended postscript giving us the chance to “climb down” from wherever, once again, perhaps in preparation for the nostalgic beauties of the final carol Indigio II (No.8). Its gentle rhythms and beautiful melodic lines were here exquisitely realised, recalling for this listener something of the wonderment of a child’s Christmas. The central section’s long-breathed lines in particular seemed to activate the gift of recollection of long ago, the piano at the end appearing to trail off into a kind of disappearing world, having worked its magic in tandem with the rest of the performers’ sterling efforts.

Afterwards, while walking back to my car I was suddenly and unexpectedly re-struck by the thought that I had been to a concert whose music had been composed entirely by women – but at the time of listening I’d forgotten entirely about that, and so, probably, had most of the rest of the audience! Our enjoyment of it all was seemingly “driven” first and foremost by the sounds themselves and their performance – a sign of the times? – progress? – even a victory? 125 years AND Jacinda Ardern later, here was this music in New Zealand roaring out its message with no inhibitions or self-conscious restraints! Notable thoughts, and not the least for this day of days!…….

Inspirare’s partnership with Youth Choirs a resounding success

Posted on 15/09/201821/09/2018 by Peter Mechen

ILLUMINATIONS – Inspirare Choir, directed by Mark L.Stamper

PAUL BASLER – Missa Kenya
Richard Taylor (tenor) / Rachel Thomson, piano / Shadley van Wyk, horn
Jacob Randall, James Fuller, percussion
Wellington College Chorale / Men of Inspirare

IMANT RAMINSH – Missa Brevis
Maaike Christie-Beekmann (mezzo-soprano)/Rachel Thomson, piano
Queen Margaret College Chorale / Altissimi, Samuel Marsden Collegiate School, Karori
Women of Inspirare

JOHN RUTTER – Mass for the Children
Pasquale Orchard (soprano) / Daniel O’Connor (baritone)
Orchestra – Rebecca Steel, flute / Merran Cooke, oboe /Moira Hurst, clarinet
Leni Maeckle, bassoon / Shadley van Wyk, horn / Vanessa Souter, harp
Vicky Jones, bass / Michael Fletcher, organ / Grant Myhill , timpani
Jacob Randall and James Fuller, percussion
Wellington Young Voices / Metropolitean Cathedral Boys’ Choir
Inspirare

also featuring:
Z.RANDALL STROOPE – Tarantella
Helene Pohl, violin / Peter Gjelsten, violin
Hayden Nickel, viola / Rolf Gjelsten, ‘cello

CRAIG COURTENAY – Ukrainian Alleluia
Arr.JACKSON BERKEY – Cibola
Tejas Menon, TJ Shirtcliffe, guitars / Rachel Thomson, piano

Wellington College Chorale / Men of Inspirare

St.Mary of the Angels Church, Wellington

Saturday 15^th September, 2018

This second concert that I’ve attended which featured the voices of Inspirare, a choir founded by their director, Mark L.Stamper, couldn’t have been more different from the first one (an inspirational performance of Sergei Rachmaninov’s All Night Vigil earlier this year), but was equally impressive in achieving what it had obviously set out to do. In the same venue as where the previous concert had held its audience spellbound, here was something more akin to a true community event, or even a school prizegiving, but with the intent of demonstrating to all and sundry what singers of all ages could achieve in tandem by dint of hard work and inspired direction.

A glance at the credits above will give the reader an idea of the variety of forces involved in this presentation – in itself it’s a tribute to both the organising skills and the visionary scope of Stamper that the different strands worked together so well. Though the audience was made up largely of people connected with the performers, a good many, like myself, were there primarily for musical reasons, drawn by the prospect of hearing repertoire which, if not familiar, certainly looked and sounded innovative and exciting, and especially if performed with a similar level of skill and intensity to that which for me made the Rachmaninov work so brilliantly.

It took but a few seconds of the opening item, a work by Z. Randall Stroope called “Tarantella” (curiously, not the usual 6/8 “spider-dance” tarantella rhythm one usually encounters in music so named), for us to register the performance commitment of the young singers of the Wellington College Chorale, the voices arrestingly full-toned from the beginning, and maintaining the rhythmic energies of the music’s running trajectories with great excitement, aided by handclapping and choreographic body movements, reflecting the adroit angularities of the accompaniments from the string players. I especially enjoyed the singers’ synchronised nodding heads indicating canonic or fugal entries, towards the piece’s conclusion.

We then got some sombre unaccompanied alleluias from the lower voices at the beginning of Craig Courtenay’s “Ukrainian Alleluia”, the tones beautifully hued with no lack of variety – the basses rich and sonorous, the tenors sweet and true. A lovely cascading effect was to be had at certain inner trajectory points (one of them finishing with an unscheduled slamming of a door somewhere that didn’t however disturb the singers’ flow, nor ruffle the harmonic clusters of the lines in the slightest!)….

An arrangement of the song “Cibola” brought out stunning attack on the song’s first note, thrown out by the singers almost defiantly – then, to rolling guitar accompaniments, the word “Cibola” was tossed every which way with remarkable dexterity, accompanied by vocal exclamations which added to the variety of colour and texture. Altogether these three works covered a lot of ground in both vocal and instrumental spheres, reflecting the conductor’s interest in variety and innovation as a means of securing maximum involvement in the music-making.

The same group of voices then prepared to present the first of the three major works on the programme, the “Missa Kenya” by Paul Basler. The composer worked as a teacher at the University of Kenyatta in Nairobi, thus coming into contact with a Kenyan vocal tradition whose elements he incorporated into his work, fused with Western traditions. We thus had a solo singer with chorus using elements such as what theorists term “call and response” and “call and refrain”, with the soloist and chorus sometimes overlapping. One would expect African folk music in general to be rhythmically rich, with rhythms sometimes playing alongside or against one another; and so it was here, particularly so in Basler’s treatment of the “Gloria”.

Originally written for mixed choir, the version of “Missa Kenya” performed this evening was for male voices only, with the Credo and Agnus Dei omitted. A strong unison beginning which had already showed off the strength and richness of these voices in “Cibola” was again employed at the “Kyrie’s” beginning, though broken soon after into different lines, ritualistic and dance-like, and underpinned by the composer’s instrument, the horn, and piano and percussion, though concluding with a return to more declamatory vocal gestures, counterpointed by the horn writing.

The “Gloria” I thought wonderfully “jivy”, the solo tenor and the choir exchanging phrases, and interspersing more declamatory passages. I liked the idea of the tenor (Richard Taylor) being more a “voice from the choir” rather than pushed too far to the front, even if his voice was occasionally swamped – he put across a true and songful account of his phrases, and the exchanges gave a more spontaneous feel to the music’s folk-like style. More ritualistic was the “Sanctus”, here joyful and bell-like, with the voices answered by splendid piano scintillations, the horn joining in with the voices in the raising-up of tones on high, most evident and celebratory in the “Hosannas”! Splendid!

There was a “changing of the guard” for the next item, Imant Raminsh’s “Missa Brevis” being sung by various female groups, the Queen Margaret College Chorale, Altissime, from Samuel Marsden Collegiate School, all with the women’s voices from Inspirare, along with soloist mezzo-soprano Maaike Christie-Beekmann, and accompanist Rachel Thomson. Though written for a children’s choir, the work could also be sung by women and children. Beginning with the “Kyrie”, the work opened beautifully with a canonically-repeated “Kyrie” phrase, before the soloist entered with “Christe” – all very impassioned, with the choir supporting the soloist and the top notes made by the children’s group simply breathtaking in effect! When the “Kyrie ” returned with its canon-like phrases, the mezzo-soprano sang a descant-like line in accompaniment.

Contrasting with this was the “Gloria” with its toccata-like piano introduction, generating great expectation and excitement from the voices, rising to a pitch with Glorificamus te. Christie-Beekman’s rich mezzo gave us a heartfelt Gratias agimus tibi, answered by the choir, after which the heart of the movement was laid open with the sombre processional beginning at Qui tollis peccata mundi by the soloist, accompanied wordlessly by the choir up to Miserere, where the choir repeats Qui tollis – all very dark and intensely moving, with the concentration beautifully sustained, and reaching a climax with Miserere nobis, after which the prayer occasioned a brief calm, here, blown away by the attention-grabbing Quoniam, whose agitations led to a dancing fugue at Cum sancto spiritu, the singers exulting more and more vigorously until reaching a joyous Amen!

The Inspirare women’s voices added their strength and colour to the “Sanctus” – all most mellifluously realised, other-worldly in atmosphere, with stratospheric swayings and celestial harmonies thrown into relief by a dancing Hosanna in excelsis. Christie-Beekman’s voice ennobled the “Benedictus”, with Rachel Thomson’s piano practically orchestral in its support, while at the Hosanna’s reprise the music simply “took off”, giving the church’s acoustic a proper workout!

“Agnus Dei” was a properly concerted effort, solemn at the beginning, with the idiom straightforwardly melodic, and, quite unexpectedly, what sounded like a solo oboe accompanying the voices most affectingly at the repeat of the opening. Christie Beekman led the third “Agnus Dei” into Dona nobis pacem, the children’s choir positively radiant-sounding when joining in, contributing to a resounding and moving conclusion from the whole ensemble.

In welcoming us back for the concert’s second half, Mark Stamper reiterated a request for the audience to allow the separate Mass movements of what was to follow to continue uninterrupted, and to save its applause for the end – part of the initial confusion was, I think, having the three separate pieces at the concert’s beginning, which as stand-alone works each deserved audience acclamation, but then got us into an “applaud everything” mode. The message, diplomatically worded, was re-received, and, I think, understood.

So, to the “Mass of the Children”, a work completed by John Rutter in 2003. Associated with the loss of his son in an accident in 2001, the work represented at the time a kind of “return” to the life of a composer, but also a tribute in tandem to his “formative” experience as a pupil of Highgate School chosen to sing in Britten’s War Requiem under the baton of the composer himself. Rutter wanted to create something that might replicate a bringing together of children and adult performers “in a similar enriching way”. This performance thus brought together the Wellington Young Voices, the Metropolitean Cathedral Boys’ Choir and Inspirare with two young soloists, soprano Pasquale Orchard and baritone Daniel O’Connor, and a chamber orchestra.

A radiant, Respighi-like opening to the work brought forth luminously shimmering instrumental textures, introducing the children’s voices, not with the Kyrie, as is usual in a Mass, but with lines from a seventeenth-century hymn written by Bishop Thomas Ken – “Awake my soul and with the sun”, after which the adult choir sang the “Kyrie” – here the flowing lines reminded me in their manner of Faure’s Requiem, with its fluent blending of lyricism and impassioned declamation. The children’s voices sang “Christe Eleison”, with accompaniments I found glittering, and a touch spectral, followed by the return of “Kyrie Eleison” with soprano and baritone joining with the choir, Pascale Orchard’s voice here strong and vibrant, and Daniel O’Connor’s sonorous and steady. At the end the organ made a deep, resoundingly satisfying impression.

Growing in energy and light, the “Gloria” rose from the depths, its rhythmic trajectories enlivening the performers and their words, children and then adults echoing the opening cries, then revelling in the jazzy angularities leading to Et in terra pax with its cherubic bell-like chants for the children’s voices. Soprano and baritone exchanged phrases at Domine Deus Rex caelestis with the music at Filius patris taking on the character of a floating ostinato as the music arched its way through Qui tollis peccata mundi, the lines nicely balanced by the soloists throughout right up to Miserere nobis. A vibrant return to life came with Quonian, the music jazzy and energetic in these performers’ hands, carrying us away with its exuberance to the end.

The gently glowing wind arabesque-like solos brought in the “Sanctus” presented by the choir like a gently-tolling bell, the voices rising to impassioned tones at the Hosannas, and again from the Pleni sunt caeli onwards. What a gorgeous panoply of wind sounds accompanying the children’s singing of “Benedictus”, itself so affecting with those innocent, ethereal tones – such drama in the contrast between adult and children’s voices, here! As the soloists sang the Benedictus as a duet, the instruments provided heart-easing counterpoints to the music’s simple intensities.

If the impression thus far was of a composer who preferred light to darkness, the grimmer, haunted opening of the Agnus Dei dispelled the notion for the setting’s duration – the organ’s tones of disquiet, the haunted strings and winds, and the chromatic lines of the voices in their Agnus Dei utterances instigated currents of lament that gradually built to great waves, reinforced by tubular bells sounding a tocsin of gloom – perhaps one might regard the introduction at this point of the children’s choir with an angelic setting of William Blake’s “Little Lamb who made thee?” as much an unsubtle contrast as a masterstroke (critical opinions vary on the topic!), but the very sound of the voices here acted like balm to the sensibilities, irradiating the gloom with light and hope, until the music again darkened as the voices took up the repeated pleas of Miserere nobis.

Came the work’s final section, the “Dona Nobis pacem”, beginning with somewhat Elgarian string-phrases, and a baritone solo (supported by beautifully-turned wind solos), Rutter setting the words of a prayer “Lord open thou mine eyes that I may see” by Lancelot Andrews (1555-1626) to a nicely-turned melody, delivered confidently and strongly by Daniel O’Connor, then enabling the soprano to affectingly carry the melody further with different words, those of a 5^th-century text called St.Patrick’s Breastplate.

The work’s final section featured the adult voices (choir and soloists) reiterating the words “Agnus Dei” and “Dona nobis pacem” while the children’s voices soared above the chant with Thomas Ken’s “Glory to thee, my God this night” set to Thomas Tallis’s well-known canonic melody, the music gently subsiding into silence at the end, everything, as throughout the work, most sensitively balanced and controlled by Mark Stamper.

There could be no doubt as to the commitment and involvement of all the musicians throughout this ambitious presentation, one whose on-going strength of purpose, depth of interpretation and skill of execution represented a resounding and well-deserved tribute to the various choirs and choir directors involved, to the soloists and instrumentalists, and to Inspirare Choir and Mark Stamper, its “inspirational” Music Director.

Excellent choral concert from three young Wellington choirs and the New Zealand Youth Choir

Posted on 09/09/201813/09/2018 by Lindis Taylor

Triple C: A Capital Singfest

Choirs: FilCoro (Wellington Filipino Choir); Wellington Young Voices (children’s choir); Wellington Youth Choir; New Zealand Youth Choir

Music by Richard Rodgers, John Rutter, Bob Chilcott, Stephen Leek, Antonio Lotti, Charles Wood, Ben Parry, Lassus, Leonie Holmes, Brahms, Tuirina Wehi, David Hamilton

Opera House, Manners Street

Sunday 9 September, 3 pm

This concert by mainly young choral singers was promoted as ‘A celebration of great choral and ensemble singing’. Each choir was to sing alone and with one or two other choirs and finally all joined to sing David Hamilton’s Dance-song to the Creator.

The publicity also remarked on the choice of venue: the gorgeous Opera House. And of course I share their affection for one of the few remaining turn-of-the-century theatres, splendid in the detailed and beautiful restoration of both foyer and auditorium; where I had my first teen-aged experiences of live theatre and opera.

The concert began with the Filipino choir, Filcoro, singing an indigenous Tagalog language song rather enchantingly, and then a couple of Richard Rodgers’ loveliest songs, ‘You’ll never walk alone’ (from Carousel) and ‘Climb every mountain’ (The Sound of Music). Under Mark Stamper, they showed they had nothing to learn about singing Broadway musical.

They were then joined by Wellington Young Voices, a delightful group of young singers – aged eight to fourteen – to sing John Rutter’s ‘Look at the World’; voices from Filcoro took the first verse with a delightful air of timidity and all singers joined for the chorus.

As with so much in the concert, here was a fairly slight piece that gained through being taken seriously.

Setting the pattern for comings and goings, the Philippines choir then left and Young Voices alone for two songs by Bob Chilcott: ‘Laugh Kookaburra’ and ‘Like a Singing Bird’, both light, lilting, almost dancing, through tricky harmonies. Composers like Chilcott, Eric Whitacre, Morten Lauridsen and Rutter, among others including several New Zealanders, have brought about a revival of contemporary choral music which for some decades has seemed doomed by avant-garde pressures.

The Wellington Youth Choir, which had the honour of singing with the Orpheus Choir in the previous evening’s Orchestra Wellington performance of Verdi’s Requiem, arrived to sing another challenging song, Monkey and Turtle by Stephen Leek, that also made demands on their part singing.

The Wellington Youth Choir alone, under Jared Corbett, could tackle something even more sophisticated; an eight-part setting of the Crucifixus by Antonio Lotti, a Vivaldi and Bach contemporary, and then a spiritual ‘Get away, Jordan’, another piece that called for well managed part singing, and the choir sounded in extremely fine form.

New Zealand Youth Choir
The New Zealand Youth Choir then joined the Wellington Youth Choir to sing Oculi omnium by Charles Wood, English composer 10 or 15 years younger than Parry and Stanford. The choir did not appear on stage but the conductor drew attention to them in the grand circle, from which the voices gained an ethereal quality.

(My colleague Rosemary Collier has added a gloss about Oculi omnium.

“‘Oculi Omnium’ was a tribute to Peter Godfrey for many years the conductor of the choir,. It was always sung as a grace at choir residential weekends and at the NZCF weekend ‘Sing Aotearoa’ and other functions. And a big massed choir of which I was a part, sang it at his memorial service. It’s a beautiful piece with gorgeous harmonies.)

The second half was devoted to the NZYC, the most experienced of the four choirs, starting with Ben Parry’s Flame, with men and women separated, right and left. It clearly had a religious significance, suggesting at first a flickering flame, slowly, increasing in intensity and complexity.

I hadn’t heard of Parry. This is what I found on the Internet: Ben Parry (born 1965) is a British musician, composer, conductor, singer, arranger and producer in both classical and light music fields. He is the co-director of London Voices, Assistant Director of Music at King’s College, Cambridge, director of the National Youth Choirs of Great Britain.

And further, Rosemary Collier added: Ben Parry has been to NZ. I rather think he was adjudicator at the Big SIng last year or the previous one.

So, a very appropriate figure to open the NZYC’s contribution at this concert. Conducted by David Squire, its performance challenges were most sensitively handled.

Then came Lassus’s Aurora lucis rutilat, in which the singers divided into two distinct four-part choirs and it was a delight, quite the contrary of the grim, ‘hell-firish’ words (which I looked up).

Leonie Holmes’s ‘Through coiled stillness’ was the first of a couple of New Zealand compositions. Its words were recited in both Maori and English, and the piece involved singing in both languages, in a musical idiom that had only subtle suggestions of a Maori musical influence, and which was neither too traditional nor too avant-garde. It was evidently good to perform.

Then came all four of Brahms’s Vier Quartette, Op 92 They are O schöne Nacht, Spätherbst, Abendlied and Warum?

Those of us who think we know Brahms pretty well (meaning orchestral, piano and chamber music and a dozen of the familiar songs), are always surprised to look at the huge list of his solo songs, part songs, choral works that he composed throughout his life, and I’d never come across these ones. They involved Michael Stewart at the piano; they were varied, though always hard to place in the appropriate emotional context and so not easy to sing. Clearly, they would form one of the choir’s principal repertoire works this year; and the choir demonstrated musical understanding and splendid technical competence.

The bracket ended with Waerenga-a-Hika, a narrative chorus arranged by Robert Wiremu, that tells of the story of the siege of the Waerenga-a-Hika pa, north-west of Gisborne, in 1865. A mixture of sombre chant, and a certain amount of lyrical song, with distinctly contrasting voices in English and Maori that varied between sophisticated melodic singing and traditional, haka-derived performance.

Finally, all four choirs reappeared to sing David Hamilton’s Dance Song to the Creator, syncopated and jazzy, under David Squire, with two pianists (Mark Stamper and Michael Stewart), and percussionist Dominic Jacquemard, accompanying. And they all stayed to sing an encore, the familiar and always rather moving Ka Waiata Ki a Maria (composed by Richard Puanaki).

Though singing has suffered a huge retreat in the last couple of generations, from being a standard activity in both primary and secondary schools, and church choirs, it survives, rather unevenly spread, but the widespread existence of youth choirs and other choirs for young people helps to maintain its visibility – audibility.

But the art of singing and choral activity remain at an awful disadvantage in terms of being known about. The New Zealand Youth Choir and the Secondary Students’ choir can win extraordinary prizes in international competitions and yet be unnoticed by the media; at best given a 3cm paragraph at the bottom of page 8.

And so, it would have been good to see a larger audience for this rewarding and delightful concert.

Tag: choral

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

Sunday 16 December, 2 pm

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

Saturday 8^th December 2018

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

Saturday 24 November, 7:30 pm

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

Friday, 23 November 2018, 6.30pm

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

Saturday 10^th November, 2018

Choral concert to celebrate new digital organ at Cathedral of Saint Paul

Saturday, 13 August 2018, 7 pm

Press ? for Keyboard Shortcuts.

Your request to Fairfax Media is currently in progress, your ticket number is 00238970

0 Attachments

Middle C (2)

0 Attachments

0 Attachments

0 Attachments

Change delivery

0 Attachments

Review: Tudor Consort

0 Attachments

Singular, well-conceived recital by male four-voice ensemble, reaching far and wide

Saturday 22 September, 8 pm

125th Women’s Suffrage Anniversary Concert with Cantoris in Wellington

Wednesday 19^th September 2018

Inspirare’s partnership with Youth Choirs a resounding success

Saturday 15^th September, 2018

Excellent choral concert from three young Wellington choirs and the New Zealand Youth Choir

Sunday 9 September, 3 pm

Sunday 16 December, 2 pm

Saturday 8th December 2018

Saturday 24 November, 7:30 pm

Friday, 23 November 2018, 6.30pm

Saturday 10th November, 2018

Saturday, 13 August 2018, 7 pm

Press ? for Keyboard Shortcuts.

Your request to Fairfax Media is currently in progress, your ticket number is 00238970

0 Attachments

Middle C (2)

0 Attachments

0 Attachments

0 Attachments

Change delivery

0 Attachments

Review: Tudor Consort

0 Attachments

Saturday 22 September, 8 pm

Wednesday 19th September 2018

Saturday 15th September, 2018

Sunday 9 September, 3 pm

Saturday 8^th December 2018

Saturday 10^th November, 2018

Wednesday 19^th September 2018

Saturday 15^th September, 2018