Tag: choral

Rossini’s “Little Solemn Mass” from the Bach Choir at St.Andrew’s triumphantly reaches towards the stars

Posted on by Peter Mechen

The Bach Choir of Wellington presents:
ROSSINI – Petite Messe Solennelle

Nicola Holt (soprano)
Linden Loader (contralto)
John Beaglehole (tenor)
Roger Wilson (bass)

Thomas Nikora (harmonium)
Douglas Mews (piano)

The Bach Choir of Wellington

Shawn Michael Condon (conductor)

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

Saturday, May 11th , 2019

I was sure I’d heard this work on at least one occasion previously, and more especially once the music had started – from early on in the opening “Kyrie” there were cadences, phrases and sequences that kept on sidling up to me and nudging me in my inner ear’s ribcage as if to say “Oh, you again! – where have you been?” or more cheekily, “Remember me? – ha! you’re stuck, aren’t you?” – and I was “stuck”, indeed, right until the moment I got home afterwards and looked up the Middle C Archive, to confirm that, on November 20th 2010 I had attended a performance of the work at the Hill St. Cathedral of the Sacred Heart, given by the Festival Singers, and directed by Rosemary Russell. What was more, I had actually reviewed it (oh, dear!), with two of the singers in this afternoon’s performance (Linden Loader and Roger Wilson) also having taken part in that earlier presentation. I’m happy to say that, as per the review I enjoyed the performance enormously!

Apart from my lamentable lack of specific recall, I was pleased I had sufficient juice in my memory-bank to be able to make this previous connection, and then, of course, confirm it with renewed pleasure through hearing the work again. Almost ten years after that first encounter my delight in the music remains undiminished – if anything I was even more taken aback this time round by the composer’s unashamed (and uncontrived) boldness in evoking a musical style more readily associated with the theatre than with a church for a work purporting to be a religious statement, and by the elan with which he brought it off. The swaggering rhythms and heroic vocal manner with which the performers here put across the “Domine Deus” section of the “Gloria” added a further dimension to the depth of feeling built up by the opening “Kyrie” and “Christe” sections to the music, each sequence beautifully shaped by conductor Shawn Michael Condon and delivered with a steadiness and luminosity of tone that did the choristers proud.

Each succeeding section of the work here unfailingly conveyed its special character – both piano and harmonium trumpeted and rolled out their excited, jubilant chords and flourishes at the opening of the “Gloria” in a way that suitably galvanised the voices, leaving us in no doubt of the composer’s desire to acknowledge the Almighty with sounds that reflected His glory. The soloists added resplendent tones to their individual strands, beginning with Roger Wilson’s imposing bass delivery of  “Et in terra pax….” then joined by the others over the “Laudamus te” sections, the soprano leaving the remaining trio with the emphatic, oft-repeated reiterations of “propter magnum gloriam tuam” (for Your great glory), Douglas Mews’ piano conjuring both Lisztian sparkle in the flourishes, and poetic serenity in the quieter concluding measures. After tenor John Beaglehole had thrilled us with the energies and high-wire accomplishments of his “Domine Deus” solos we were brought back to our “vale of tears” by soprano Nicola Holt and contralto Linden Loader in “Qui tollis peccata mundi”,  piquant and heartfelt instrumental tones setting the scene for beautifully expressed vicalisings,  both individually and in concerted blendings in places such as the repeated “Miserere nobis” as the sequence came to its end.

Harmonium player Thomas Nikora sensitively coaxed some plaintive modulations from his instrument , bridging the way to the piano’s building up the rhythmic excitement for Roger Wilson’s assertive “Quoniam”, big-boned and heroic, Rossini making something of a meal of this part of the work (perhaps wanting to curry plenty of favour with the Almighty), complete with its Beethovenian-like accompaniment! After a whimsical piano transition, some great, orchestra-like chords from piano and harmonium brought in the choir for “Cum Sancto Spiritu”, first the gleaming-toned sopranos, and then the rest of the choir, a moment whose magnificence was then somewhat disconcertingly energised by the sopranos’ polka-like rhythmic gait which began the fugue, put across by all the musicians with a delicious sense of fun, complete with long, discursively sinuous “Amen” lines that concluded with a reprise of “Gloria in excelsis Deo” and with the “Amens” appearing more assertively and vigorously  than before!

After an interval, the Credo returned us to the fray, amid instrumental flourishes and great cries of “Credo” from the choir, the music settling down to a flow with the soloists joining in, and the choir occasionally reminding us that this was, in fact, a statement of faith, by reiterating the word “Credo”. The soloists wove their lines into and through the momentums of the texture, conductor Shawn Michael Condon allowing the musical fabric to billow out splendidly in places, but keeping an all-important sense of forward motion, right through to the sudden self-consiousness of the words “et homo factus est”.

Soprano Nicola Holt gave us a long-breathed, beautifully-coloured, by turns anguished and inward “Crucifixus”, securely nailing those fiendish entries at the word “passus” with great aplomb, and conveying so very movingly the sorrow and resignation of the message throughout. The choir launched themselves whole-heartedly into the “Resurrexit”, before alternating with the soloists throughout the beautiful “Et ascendit in caelum” and the more vigorous “Et viterum venturis” and “Et in Spiritum Sanctum” sections, during which it was a pleasure to register the strong focus of the male sections of the choir.

With piano and harmonium returning to the “Et ascendit in caelum” figurations the choir and soloists began “Et unam, sanctam, catholicam”, the choir dominating with their cries of “Confiteor”, racing expectantly towards the “Ex expecto resurrectionem” passages with a sense of great and proper conviction, before plunging into the fugal “Et vitam venturi saeculi” at an exhilarating lick! The choir splendidly took us with them as the music surged unstoppably through the “Amens”, allowing a brief hiatus of murmuring rapture from the voices and instruments before concluding with a final all-affirming shout of “Credo”.

At this point, Rossini inserted a “Prelude Religieux and Ritournelle pour le Sanctus” which, to my ears was played by Douglas Mews, with nary a contribution from Thomas Nikora’s harmonium (throughout I found the harmonium hard to hear in any case as I was sitting over to the right and the instrument was on the platform’s left – and I couldn’t see the player to be able at times to “register” any physical movement)……none of this detracted from Mews’ playing of this very Lisztian episode, the sounds filled with fantasy and fancy. The harmonium did take up the argument just before the voices instigated the Sanctus, the opening beautifully “sounded” by the choir, and “answered” in radiant, declamatory fashion by the soloists. Rossini rang the changes throughout regarding both voices (choir and soloists) and music –  the unfolding of the whole, with its unpredictable juxtapositionings of the different voice-qualities had an almost improvisatory air which enchanted and compelled one’s attention at all times.

Affecting, too, from the very beginning, was the concluding “Agnus Dei”, the piano playing a quixotic Grieg-like opening figure, followed by what sounded almost like an indolent gondola song, over which the contralto, Linden Loader, intoned the famous prayer with every word clearly-focused and precisely-weighted, and the piano/harmonium combination at once remorseless in rhythm and affecting in timbre. The choir’s responses to the soloist in places sounded almost like voices from another world – it seemed to me that the singing beautifully “contoured” the music’s emotional intensities, while the choir’s responses were almost to die for – and what a “frisson” of emotion was unleashed when the voices joined forces for a reprise of  “qui tollis peccata mundi” – as powerful emotionally, I thought, if on a smaller physical scale, as the cataclysmic concluding moments of the “Libera Me” of Rossini’s countryman Giuseppe Verdi, in his “Requiem” – even if the latter, by all accounts wouldn’t thank me for daring to suggest such a thing!

 

Tudor Consort revives ancient Tenebrae rituals marking the stories of Holy Week

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Tudor Consort directed by Michael Stewart

Tenebrae – music for Holy Week
Plainchant, and polyphony by Victoria, Edmund Rubbra, James MacMillan and Gesualdo

Wellington Cathedral of St Paul

Friday 19 April, 7:30 pm

The number of people familiar with the word Tenebrae is probably getting fewer by the year as religious belief declines and the deep-rooted traditions, including the use of Latin, are ‘modernised’. It’s not just a Roman Catholic Easter observance but it is also in the Anglican, Methodist, Lutheran, Western Orthodox and other churches. And since the Roman church ditched the use of Latin in normal services, the spirit of the past is offered in concert settings where the rituals are chanted and sung in Latin.

Tenebrae is a special office particular to Holy Week which used to be observed on the three days preceding Easter Sunday: that is, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Holy Saturday. It has now been reduced to just once or twice, and has generally retreated from performance in the small hours of the morning.

The introduction in the programme book explained that there are two parts of the office of Tenebrae: Matins and Lauds. There are three Matins on each of the three days and each consists of three ‘Nocturns’ which begin with an ‘Antiphon’ followed by Psalms, both in plainchant. The following Responsory settings are in polyphony, drawn from words respectively, in the Book of Lamentations, Saint Augustine’s commentaries and the third from the New Testament Epistles.

They are followed by settings of texts that had come traditionally to form part of the office of Tenebrae before the 1955 reforms of Pope Pius XII. Michel Stewart confined the settings of parts of the service to four composers: justified as being considered by some music scholars as among the greatest composers of liturgical music: TomĂĄs Luis de Victoria, Edmund Rubbra, James MacMillan, and Gesualdo.

Matins, Nocturns, Antiphons, Responsories …
The first ‘Nocturn’, after the plainsong Psalm 2, consisted of five settings by Victoria and Rubbra formed the ‘Readings from the Lamentations, answered by a responsory’, which can be chosen from the 27 ‘responsories’ (three ‘nocturns’ on each of the three days), that have become traditional and have been set by various composers., according to the agendas of particular priests. Victoria’s ‘Incipit lamentatio Jeremiae’ was a beautiful, slow example of Renaissance polyphony, that was splendidly enriched in the Cathedral’s big acoustic; it presents difficulties for more recent music, but seems perfectly adapted to this.

The juxtaposition of Victoria and Rubbra seemed to reinforce the impression that their sources of inspiration were very close, only separated, not by any radical compositional transformation such as atonality or serialism, but by a naturally richer sensibility and harmonic freedom. Rubbra’s name is not very familiar today. In the first decades after WW2 his name was better known and I owned (and still might have somewhere) recordings of a couple of Rubbra’s symphonies, as I’d encountered his music on the ‘Concert’ programme of the 1950s (2YC) which was a major part of my musical education. Such programming was far from the narrow and misguidedly ‘popular’ classical music that is broadcast today.

Rubbra’s settings of the ‘Amicus meus’ and ‘Judas Mercator’ might have sounded more angular than Victoria but they were tonal and comparably sombre, though women’s voices became more optimistic towards the end.  Rubbra’s third setting, ‘Unus ex discipulis’ – one of the disciples, deal with the story of Judas…

The second ‘Nocturn’ was based on Psalm 53, and it was followed by both Victoria’s and, instead of Rubbra, James MacMillan’s settings of appropriate Responsories.  It was striking that the 60 or so years from Rubbra to MacMillan sounded far greater than the 350 years between Victoria and Rubbra as a result of the radicalisation of musical language. And his first utterance, ‘Tenebrae factae sunt’ in which Christ calls out ‘God, why hast thou forsaken me?’ was delivered in dense, almost terrifying dissonances that expressed the emotion perhaps more powerfully than any earlier style of composition might have allowed. Not that I under-estimate the power of the musical language of the height of the Renaissance or the most gifted of Romantic composers.

It was somehow most fitting for this tragic, exclamatory phase to be accompanied by the extinguishing one by one, of the 15 candles on the candelabra (or ‘hearse’) at the front of the choir (which, incidentally, made it impossible to read the programme and identify what was being sung). Here was a point at which it was probably a shame for those unfamiliar with the narrative details, to be in the dark… For those unfamiliar; for the non-adherent, or non-believer, its meaning and enjoyment would derive only from the singing.

The third Nocturn began, again with an Antiphon and a Psalm – No 93, rather vengeful in spirit. The Responsories were again from MacMillan (‘Tradiderunt me’ and ‘Jesus tradidit impius’, respectively from the books of Job and Lamentations) and one from Victoria (‘Caligaverunt oculi mei’), about Christ’s betrayal and finally the crucifixion, a piece that expresses the deepest grief.

After the last of the Matins responsories comes the Lauds which were just represented by the ‘Miserere Mei’, Psalm 51, in a setting by Gesualdo, in which verses are alternately chanted and spoken.

By then all candles had been extinguished and the church was in darkness: the final step in the Tenebrae is the Strepitus, or ‘great noise’ which took the form of a fireworks-type blast accompanied by smoke, symbolising the earthquake that followed Christ’s death.

Even in its inevitably abbreviated form, performances of one of the major rituals of the church, dominated by a great deal of wonderful plainchant and polyphony continues to attract good audiences of believers and others. The performance by the Tudor Consort under Michael Stewart was impressively accomplished and deeply moving.

There are times when the use of Latin rather than a vernacular language is a huge advantage. Here we had an admirable programme pamphlet that printed both the Latin and an English translation. Improbabilities of religious tales seem to be far more acceptable sung in Latin (or any other language) than in English where the meaning of words and sentences is unambiguous, and something of the mystery lacking. Even more important is the fact that what we hear when the original language is used, are the very sounds that the composer was setting: his resonse to the sounds, and rhythms of the original language; it’s an important aspect too in arguments about use of the original language in opera and in song recitals.

 

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

Posted on by Peter Mechen

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

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

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

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

Sunday 14th April, 2019

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Posted on by Peter Mechen

Orchestra Wellington presents:

FANTASTIC SYMPHONIES

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

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

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

Michael Fowler Centre, Wellington

Friday, April 12th, 2019

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Posted on by Peter Mechen

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

JOHN RUTTER – Gloria (1974)

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

Wesley Church, Taranaki St.,
WELLINGTON

Saturday 6th April 2019

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

 

 

 

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

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Alleluia: Resolution through Celebration

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

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

Wellington Cathedral of St Paul

Saturday 23 March, 7:30 pm 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

The Tudor Consort directed by Michael Stewart

Chansons d’amour

Renaissance Love Songs

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

Khandallah Town Hall

Saturday 16 February, 7 pm

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

 

 

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

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

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

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

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

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

Saint Mary of the Angels

Sunday 16 December, 2 pm

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Success in opera
Gounod’s real career started in 1849 aged 30, after he had become a friend of the distinguished singer Pauline Viardot. She spoke of Gounod to the director of the OpĂŠra 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 OpĂŠra was on. What an extraordinary stroke for a composer with scarcely any reputation! Fortunately it was well received, mainly by the critics rather then the public, including Berlioz, at its first run in 1851. Though an aria, ‘O ma lyre immortelle’ is much anthologised, the opera itself didn’t survive.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

Posted on by Peter Mechen

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

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

Michael Fowler Centre, Wellington

Saturday 8th December 2018

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

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

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

Wellington Cathedral of Saint Paul

Saturday 24 November, 7:30 pm

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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