âHome for the Winterâ
Liam Wooding (piano) and Hannah Darroch (flute)
Music by Jasmine Lovell-Smith, Henri Dutilleux, Lachlan Skipworth, Aaron Copland and Lili Boulanger
Bedlam and Squalor â Level 1, 18 Garret St,. Te Aro, Wellington
6:00 pm, Thursday,15th May, 2025
Things were âswinging awayâ in great end-of-the-day style at âThe Rogue and Vagabondâ, the watering-place right next to central Wellingtonâs Glover Park, as I made my way, a little tentatively, just around the corner and further along Garret St, to where there stood, self-assuredly in its own modest way, the entrance to âBedlam and Squalorâ (ah, thought I – a first cousin to âThe Rogue and Vagabond!) â but I was straightaway taken by the contrast of the sombre doorway (of the âabandon hopeâ sort) with the profusion, above and besides this entrance, of coloured-pencil like horizontal stripes one might have correlated to a kind of urban kindergarten or some sort of art-gallery where the Hogarth-like images Iâd entertained of âBedlam and Squalorâ were in reality reverse-euphemisms for âfun and gamesâ, and obviously nothing worse than âmadness and merrimentâ.
Up the stairs I went, leaving those around-the-corner jollities earthbound as I ascended, finding myself in a quiet, comfortable and welcoming space not unlike a bar itself, but with tables and chairs set up in a rounded area at the roomâs end, where there was a piano, beside which the two artists, Hannah Darroch and Liam Wooding, were discussing aspects of the music they were about to perform, and greeting us (myself included) as we came in. Pleasantries completed I had just settled down, finding a seat next to an acquaintance whom Iâd made at previous concerts and always found most agreeable, when I discovered that, in my haste at leaving home Iâd snatched up one of my notebooks, but had forgotten to bring a pen! Help was at hand in the shape and form of a bartender, who was greatly amused by the piquancy of the plight of a music critic who had come without a stylus, but who kindly brought my agony to an end by producing one â I was happy to have thus contributed a âstorm-in-a-teacupâ strand of incident to the proceedings now that things had been resolved!
So! â here were Hannah Darroch and Liam Wooding, formally welcoming us (we were a small but appreciative audience in that relatively intimate space) and telling us about what they were going to play for us, beginning with a piece which had give the whole recital its name, âHome for the Winterâ, a piece written in 2020 for Hannah by Jasmine Lovell-Smith, and whose title was inspired by the âhomewardâ move made by many New Zealanders in response to the Covid 19 outbreak. The sounds seemed coaxed from out of the air, firstly for the piano, and then for the flute, the lines having a natural, organic kind of flow as if wrought by impulse, a feeling for the actions of wind and water all around â having been brought into being these elements seemed to take human form in song, which became a sort of minstrelsy, a chorus that rose up as the piano intensified the exchanges, before breaking off and leaving the opening resonances as a memory.
Having proclaimed a kind of âthis is where we areâ introduction, Hannah and Liam took us next to more peopled terrain, with a work by French composer Henri Dutilleux. Though it was one Iâd not heard before, I knew and had already been enchanted with pieces by Poulenc, Francaix and Ropartz, and this proved, to my delight, similar kind of territory. I was almost straightaway disarmed by the opening piquancies (mysterious piano octaves echoed and gracefully âdanced all aboutâ by the flute) â and I loved the âPeter and the Wolfâ opening dialogues of the second movement between the pianoâs predatory wolf and the fluteâs frightened but intrepid bird, and the following rhapsodic exchanges between the two, suggesting something of a singular âentente cordialeâ.
A sudden escalation of energies (brilliant âmolto perpetuoâ playing from both musicians) seemed to clear the air of menace, entirely, and give the scenario over entirely to the pleasures of tit-for-tat exchange, our sensibilities being given plenty of air and space in places by some soaring lines before being returned to the dance! Towards the end, a cadenza-like episode from Hannahâs flute took us to a Ravel-like place not unlike Daphnis and Chloeâs enchanted grove, before the pair rejoined forces for an ever-accelerating coda, exhilarating for us all in its shared energies and pleasures.
Next was a recently-composed (2022) sonata by Australian Lachlan Skipworth, introduced by Liam, and described by him as âvery refreshingâ to play, though adding the proviso that the time signatures in the score with their frequent changes â 20/16, 10/16, 18/16 â certainly posed something a âchallengeâ. From the beginning I found the work a same-but-different experience to that of the Dutilleux, here an almost Gaelic world of exhilaration, with the opening âchaos of delightâ morphing into a folk-dance blend of carefree abandon and strongly-pulsed movement.
The piano breaks off to play a solemn, repeated note-pattern to which the flute adds a lovely, rustic song-like sequence, borne along by its own airiness and spaciousness, hymn-like when the piano intensifies the mood, and seemingly tossed into the play of winds and waves when both instruments dance along the hilltops of the melodyâs liberated lines â entrancing! Just as spell-binding is the dialogue of voices sequence which follows, like a pair of birds enacting a defining of territories, or a courtship ritual, one which leads back to the exuberance of the folkdance â if the conclusion isnât quite of the grand finality one might expect, one might say it has an attractively insouciant âwell, there it is!â manner at the end.
Our âfood for thoughtâ interval was sufficient to process what weâd heard (delightful!) and clear our decks for the next offering, a âdifferent againâ experience promised, which Hannah described for us as âAmericana in musicâ â this was Aaron Coplandâs Duo for Flute and Piano, again something I hadnât heard (oh, the ignorance of some music critics!), and naturally looked forward to an introduction to the piece. The opening movement, marked as âFreelyâ by the composer, takes us straight into the world of the latterâs ballet âAppalachian Springâ with the flute playing solo, a âvoice in the wildernessâ, spacious and nostalgic, with the pianoâs entry contributing to the characteristic, almost unmistakably âopenâ sound. The flute begins the dance, strands of movement varying its trajectories, with the piano amusingly âoom-pahâ at one point just before the big flute solo! Another pronounced âechoâ for me is the similar ambience to the Third Symphony towards the end, a kind of salute to an idealised pastâŠ..but, then, what a quirky kind of conclusion! â those sharply-abrupt chordings are almost amusing in their air of dismissiveness!
âPoetic, somewhat mournfulâ, says the composer at the head of Mvt.II â piano and flute seem to be either looking for or avoiding one another at the start â most of those open harmonies have closed up, and whatever congress the instruments strike, each seems somewhat nonplussed by the other â thereâs a moment of accord in a more animated and heartfelt middle section, but compared to the opening, itâs a bit like the difference between a dream and an awakening (whichever suits which!).The piano returns to its lonely furrow, and the flute raises its head for a heartfelt and sonorous single-note look-around!
Both espy a notice saying âLively, with bounce!â Â – so the piano âbouncesâ and the flute catches on! And what better than a square dance? â lovely, palms-skyward trajectories, with quirky harmonic comings and goings, with the flute occasionally intoning âWhere are you?â as the piano rumbles up and down the stairs! â âBack to the dance!â they both chorus, nostalgically smoothing-over the rhythms here and there, but as quickly resuming their âhide-and-seekâ â suddenly Hannahâs flute espies an open window and with Liamâs piano in hot pursuit catapaults right through it! – freedom!
Has this been music Iâm writing about or some sort of âanything you can do I can do betterâ kind of game? It just seems that way, at times â but whatever the case, we in the audience were tickled to pieces by it all â and just to show that life bears SOME resemblance to art, we were invited by our stalwart artists to return to our lives with a kind of encore, a piece by Lili Boulanger appropriately entitled âNocturneâ, the flute singing a lullabic song over piano octaves, the tones soaring and settling over gorgeous keyboard undulations, while the harmonies coalesce slowly and beautifully.
Hannah and Liam, you and your instruments brought about such delight and contentment for all of us present this evening â any thoughts of bedlam and squalor were forgotten as I took my leave of my companion (deftly remembering on the way out to return the borrowed pen!) and descended those stairs and met with the open air once again, trying to recall what day it was, where I was, where I was going and what the music was that was playing in my head as I walked through streets that bore no relation, it seemed, to any of those soundsâŠ.and I thought it was definitely all part of something well worth rememberingâŠâŠ