Tag: New Zealand music

“Nature, Life and Love” for our time, from the NZTrio

Posted on by Peter Mechen

City Gallery Wellington presents:
NZTrio Art3

Justine Cormack (violin)
Ashley Brown (‘cello)
Sarah Watkins (piano)

Salvatore Sciarrino – Piano Trio No.2
John Zorn – Amour Fou
Leonie Holmes – ….when expectation ends (premiere)
Arnold Schoenberg (arr. Steuermann) – Verklärte Nacht (Transfigured Night)

City Gallery, Wellington

29th October 2014

I did like the NZTrio’s characterizing of its most recent Wellington concert at the City Gallery as “an edgy international exploration” – though further linking the concert to the Gallery’s October exhibition of the work of William Kentridge, a multi-media presentation called “The Refusal of Time” was frustrating, as I hadn’t had the chance to see the latter – apparently a truly “immersive” amalgam of cinematic methodology – animation, live action and pixelated motion. After listening to the NZTrio’s playing in the concert I wished even more that I’d seen the exhibition as well!

With music from the USA, Europe and New Zealand packed into an eventful eighty minutes, the Trio certainly gave value for money. The musicians have played in this venue before, though against the wall behind this audience, last time round that I remember. On that occasion I remembered being partly enchanted, partly distracted by the floor-to-ceiling artwork on the said wall behind the Trio – but this time the art gave out a rather more circumspect aspect, both in itself and its presentation!

But what musicians these people are! Chamber groups vary enormously in terms of what and how they “give out” to their audiences – an obvious example to hand would be a comparison between the present group and the Borodin Quartet, who visited Wellington earlier in the month. While the latter group remained physically undemonstrative while transfixing us with its sounds, the players’ aspect and posture as a group magnificently “contained” as they regaled us with the most superbly-focused tones, the NZTrio musicians compelled as much as by their body language as their sound. There’s something to be said for marrying musical efforts to appropriately organic gestures – within reason, a kind of performance choreography – and the NZTrio thus engaged our attentions on a visceral as well as musical level.

For this reason I never tire of watching the group perform, in particular pianist Sarah Watkins, who throws herself into whatever she’s doing, metaphorical boots and all! A far more connective comparison than with the Borodins, in terms of performance style, would be with the Austrian ensemble, the Eggner Trio, a group that’s frequently visited New Zealand, and which has a similarly engaging concert platform manner.

So, onto the “edgy international exploration”! First up we encountered Italian composer Salvatore Sciarrino’s Piano Trio No.2, music by a composer who’s known for his music’s evocations of silence and transparency of texture, with occasional irruptions of loud sounds – contrasts which demonstrate that a state or condition can be defined as much by its antithesis as by itself.

The hushed, almost ghostly whoops and descents of the communing strings at the outset contained to my ears a number of impressions, amongst them acts of impulse defying darkness, in space, or in the near-impenetrable gloom of great forests or vast oceans – at one point I imagined nascent reminiscences of the Latin plainchant “Dies Irae”; while the violin’s ascents towards stratospheric harmonics again evoked a similar kind of scalic chanting (what else had I been listening to of late?)…..Every now and then the ghostly voices’ mix was “stirred and shaken” by piano interpolations, which led to galvanic descents from the strings, “silvering” the ambience, into which the piano again intruded, with ever-increasing dynamism and coruscation. But the strings kept their energies in check, conversing in glissando-like mode, rather like spent meteorites falling from the sky – it was afterwards that I read the programme annotations which mentioned “ancient whale song and crystal meteors” wondering whether or not the words were the composer’s own……

Whatever suggestions of “bumt-out energy” might have been gleaned from these ambiences were belied by the piano’s “this is it!” reaction to the Dali-like suspensions of energy in time – great shooting-star glissandi and scintillations poured our of the instrument, with the sustaining pedal throwing open the cosmos, rather like a Black Hole operating in reverse! As for the strings, each instrument was transported by frenzied ecstacies/agonies, the work’s concluding exchanges hearkening back to those opening silences by default, the sounds appearing to “blister” from within the very beings of those far-away beginnings, a realization the listener is usually able to savour rather more tellingly via the silence at the end of a recording, than in a concert, with its intrusive(!) applause – now there’s a performance conundrum! – but it’s one that frequently comes to mind, as, of course, we all have our lists of pieces of music which we think really shouldn’t be applauded when they finish……..

Interestingly, both Ashley Brown and Sarah Watkins provided us with some “byplay” at the end of the Sciarrino piece, Ashley Brown explaining that he had to make some “unbeautiful” sounds, i.e., activate his bow to remove excess resin accumulated during the Sciarrino, in order to be able to then make further beautiful sounds. But because I was sitting in a “last-minute-arrival” seat I wasn’t ideally placed to ascertain whether Sarah Watkins was putting on or removing from over her hands protective glove-like covers, “to stop blood from going all over the piano keys” as she put it – certainly the intensity with which she addressed Sciarrino’s keyboard writing towards the end of the Trio suggested that something might well have suffered some attrition as a result!

The Trio reversed the printed program order of the next two pieces, putting John Zorn’s Amour Fou ahead of, rather than following, Leonie Holmes’ …when expectation ends. In retrospect I felt it was to spare our sensibilities rather than the composers’ – instead of having two shortish pieces together, followed by two relatively lengthy ones, the dimensions were alternated. Stylistically, too, Zorn’s discursive explorations of the abysses between impulsive attraction and reflective confusion in love was more appropriate as a counterweight to the abstract brilliances of Sciarrino, than as an equally weighty cheek-by-jowl partner to Schoenberg’s “dark night of two souls”.

Away from the piece’s name and the programme’s suggestion of a universal discourse on love’s nature, I would have given Zorn’s music a dream-like title upon first hearing and characterized the sounds accordingly – it seemed to me that the sounds were presenting realities formulated in spontaneously-occurring ways, viewed in many instances through different lenses of perception or chartered on grids which showed different interpretations, like maps of the same area in an atlas showing different characteristics. But of course the title pushed my receptive sensibilities in a certain direction, and, as the composer probably intended, allowed me some traction in “interpreting” the sounds.

What a beautifully poised, expressionist opening! – plaintive piano chords sounded beneath a shimmering dream-like violin line, whose figures were then acted upon in surreal ways, accelerating, caught in ostinati, haunted by eerie tremolandi – everything seemed dream-like, not of this world. The piano for a while seemed to maintain the line, as the string-characters came and went, piquantly, quixotically, mysteriously, like the sultans in Omar Khayyam’s “batter’d-caravansarai”. The music frequently used repeated notes, chords and figurations  in a hypnotic way, simultaneously creating moving and frozen imagery, indicative of the overall ambivalence of perception/reality. And there were startling contrasts, both of dynamics and of movement – like a world of first impressions and immediate, rather than considered responses, as if consciousness was utterly at the mercy of involuntary impulse. If, as the title suggested, the piece was about love, then the sounds were clearly giving tongue to philosopher and cynic H.L.Mencken’s maxim that it was all “a triumph of imagination over intelligence”.

As the music  continued its fascinating peregrinations the piece seemed to me to increasingly cohere – it felt as though the figurations were extending their impulses and trying to form partnerships, reach out tendrils and forge bonds between groups of material, however disparate. I thought it an endlessly fascinating web of sounds, in places clearly demarcated, while in others characterized by fierce, intense interactions, even if the repetitive nature of a lot of the material still suggested that impulse and spontaneity rather than sense and intellect were driving the responses. And, interestingly, almost right up to the end there was that ambivalence of those disparate forces, presenting alternative states of reality – the cross-rhythms between piano and cello pizzicati hardly displayed a sense of hearts beating together. And was the violin’s final flourish some kind of “cri de coeur”? – John Zorn wasn’t telling!

Earlier this year I had greatly enjoyed reviewing an Atoll CD of Leonie Holmes’ orchestral music for radio, and as a result was looking forward to her new work (a world premiere performance, in fact), called “…when expectation ends”. As with her orchestral writing, Leonie Holmes here demonstrated a feeling for the instruments’ characteristic ambient voices – firstly, a plaintive violin solo, which was answered by widely-spaced piano figurations followed by ‘ethereal ‘cello harmonics – some lovely “cluster-chords” for piano further enabled a “floating” kind of atmosphere – one could imagine the sequence as a state wrought by the mind, which then began to unravel in the face of sterner realities – the instrumental lines started to pursue their own individual ends, occasionally clashing and creating discordant combinations. With the piano as peacemaker, order was momentarily restored, and a second lovely episode sounded out for our pleasure – even if the music’s inherent impulsiveness couldn’t be subdued for long. A string unison led to vigorous and even volatile points of instrumental contact, swirling colourings and textures, in fact excitingly orchestral in effect – marvellous, stirring stuff!

Finally, a sober, dark-browed ‘cello solo was duly comforted by violin and piano, the strings singing of times past, and the piano allowing the stillness to “surge softly backwards” at the end – these were gentle but hard-won tranquilities, stripped of illusion and enjoyed for what they were. Something of the same process in a deeper, darker, rather more fraught form was found in Arnold Schoenberg’s Verklärte Nacht (Transfigured Night), which concluded the program. Written by the composer originally as a string sextet, the work has been more often performed by a string orchestra (the composer’s own arrangement), but there exists also a transcription for Piano Trio (which I had never heard) by the composer/pianist Eduard Steuermann, a pupil, and later a colleague of Schoenberg. Most enterprisingly, it was programmed by the NZTrio for this concert.

Two things above all others surprised and delight me regarding the transcription and its performance here – firstly, the effectiveness of the piano as a protagonist in the work, not only rendering the music of the four displaced strings with absolute surety, but using its own special resonance to bring additional interest to the scenarios. The instrument’s voice created a distinctive ambience in which the two main protagonists, the man and the woman of the original poem by Richard Dehmel, could clearly and unequivocally interact as ‘cello and violin respectively, their thoughts, feelings, words and actions given a unique focus instead of having to compete with additional string textures.

Secondly, though Brahms and Wagner have always been cited as Schoenberg’s major influences in the writing of this work, the transcription’s keyboard writing interestingly brought out the influence of Liszt on the work. Quite apart from Schoenberg’s tendency to put melodic phrases in repeated pairs and near-pairs (as Liszt does throughout most of his orchestral symphonic poems), the figurations assigned the piano bore the stamp of Liszt in a number of sequences. I thought I also detected some of Franck’s influence in Schoenberg’s chromatic leanings when delineating the woman’s confessing to begetting a child with a stranger (and never before have I heard the “theme of reconciliation” sounding so much like that beatific second theme in the opening movement of  Franck’s Symphony!). As well, there are reminiscences of Chopin and his B Minor Piano Sonata’s slow movement, shortly afterwards, during the quietly ecstatic exchanges of accord between the couple.

For these reasons alone I simply loved this version of Verklärte Nacht that we were given – all of it presented with such an amalgam of varied feeling and intensity by the Trio. The work’s final paragraph, depicting the man and woman walking together through the transfigured dawning of their new life together, brought us textures suffused with love, joy and hope, those heartfelt strings floating upon ecstatic piano figurations, before all became as windblown wisps of sound at the end. We were left replete, aglow with warmth but also breath-bated at the fragility of the remaining silences…..

 

 

Two Harps create magic at Futuna Chapel

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Colours of Futuna Concert Series presents: Two Harps

Music by Debussy, Britten, Young, Fauré, Scarlatti, Becker, Scott and Guard

Jennifer Newth and Michelle Velvin, harps

Futuna Chapel, Karori

Sunday, 26 October 2014

The Futuna chapel proved to be an ideal venue for harp music, being small and intimate,  and very resonant, with its timber and concrete surfaces.  There was no difficulty in hearing the quietest sounds, and the resonance of notes after they had ceased to be plucked, was sustained and beautiful.  The occasional raw tone, upon a string being plucked again while still sounding, also stood out, but this happened rarely.

Unfortunately I missed the first item, Debussy’s Pour Invoquer Pan, transcribed for two harps.  A pity, as I am sure in would have been magical.

Jennifer Newth played ‘Hymn’ from Suite for Harp, Op. 83 by Benjamin Britten.  It was a wonderful piece of intricate music, beautifully played, featuring variations on the hymn tune ‘St. Denio’, most frequently sung to the words ‘Immortal invisible, God only wise’.

This was followed by Kenneth Young’s Autumn Arabesque, which revealed a great variety of dynamics.  This was a brilliant performance, full of subtlety.  Lovely timing and shimmering, ecstatic sounds were notable in this delightful work, demonstrating the skill of the composer as well as that of the performer.  The programme note quoted Young as saying that the piece ‘has a bitter sweet nostalgic quality which I often associate with Autumn’.  We were experiencing a chilly spring day, but the tones and gestures of the music were telling.  The resonance of the final note was sustained for an amazing length of time in this acoustic, thanks to the stillness of the audience.

Fauré’s Impromptu had a much more rambunctious opening than did the previous pieces.  This extended work demonstrated the skill of the composer in writing music absolutely apt for the instrument.  Jennifer Newth played it without the score.  The lush tones and varied dynamics meant the playing was always interesting and the sonorities were enchanting

Following Fauré, Michelle Velvin played her bracket, that began with Sonata in A minor, Kirkpatrick 148 of Domenico Scarlatti, which the performer had transcribed herself.  It sounded so straight-forward after the delicacy of much of the Fauré!  It was very apparent how much more light and shade the harp was able to express compared with the harpsichord.  As with the piano or the harpsichord, notes once struck on the harp cannot be sustained except by resonance, unlike the case with the organ or wind instruments, on which sounds can be held by the fingers.  Thus the magic of playing in a small, resonant venue gave a whole new life to this music on the harp.

However, this very feature meant that it was particularly unwelcome in the quiet music to hear the accompaniment of cellophane wrappers on cough sweets being undone.  I have no shares in the manufacturing company, but I always use and advocate for “Fisherman’s Friend”, a cough lozenge that brings no additional auditory effects to a concert.

The next work was by Wellington singer and composer Pepe Becker: Capricorn 1: Pluto in Terra.  I heard this work just over a year ago, played by Helen Webby.  Its astrological significance was not detailed in the programme note this time, but rather the aspects of the Christchurch earthquakes that the composer was evoking.  In her words that were quoted (though not here in quotation marks!) ‘… evoke both gravelly and murky qualities of slowly-shifting earth’.  I enjoyed it even more on a second hearing.  The use of a piece of paper between the strings early in the work, changing the tone; knocking on the soundboard and passages of low humming from the player all added to the other-worldly effects of the music.  Intriguing off-beat rhythms were a feature.  It was indeed evocative, and very effective.

I was struck by the fact that a harpist is so graceful to watch – the movement is like an elegant dance.  Michelle’s playing was a little less incisive than Jennifer’s; it was interesting to be aware of some difference in tonal quality, but the playing of both was skilled and enjoyable.

Crossing Waves by contemporary British composer Andy Scott was a stunningly beautiful piece and very descriptive of its subject matter.  Amazing glissandi from forte to pianissimo were among its delights, depicting the ocean and its moods.  These were followed by a serene section.  The programme note described the work as reflecting ‘the many moods of such a journey [as that taken by solo rower across the Atlantic Ocean, Roz Savage]: apprehension and excitement at the start, isolation and beauty in the mid-ocean, and energy and optimism as the journey is almost over.’

Finally, for something completely different; three short pieces from the Isle of Man, arranged for two harps by Charles Guard, one of the top Celtic harpists – but played here on the orchestral harp, as was the entire programme.  They were titled “Manannan Mac y Lir”, “Slumber Song” and “Flitter Dance”.  The players demonstrated a variety of technical skills, exploiting the versatility of their instrument in these colourful pieces.

We are fortunate to have such skilled harpists in Wellington, thanks to the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra’s harpist, Carolyn Mills – obviously an outstanding teacher.  And of course to the dedication and hard work of the soloists, whose musical accomplishment it was a pleasure to hear.

Yvette Audain and friends “in the groove” – a new CD

Posted on by Peter Mechen

YVETTE AUDAIN
GROOVES UNSPOKEN

Featuring Yvette Audain (saxophone)
With: Hong Yul Yang (piano)
Katherine Hebley (‘cello)
Damon Key (soprano sax)
Donald Nicholls (tenor sax)
Nicola Haddock (baritone sax)
Zyia-Li Teh (tenor sax)
Andrew Uren (baritone sax)
Anthony Young (conductor, “bulletproof petals”)

Tracks: Grooves Unspoken / Hazine (Treasure) / Meditations upon Nasreddin Hoca
Hold Fast / An Irksome Vengeance / bulletproof petals / A Charleston Kick With Steel Caps

The CD launch at “Meow”, Edward St., Wellington

Featuring Yvette Audain (soprano sax, clarinet, recorder, Irish whistle)
with Jonathan Berkahn (piano and accordion)

Sunday, October 19th, 2014

Yvette Audain modestly commented beforehand that what would make her night would be at least TWO people in the audience for the launch of her CD “Grooves Unspoken”. Well, she got her wish and more, besides – not a great deal more, but those of us who were there were caught up in the creative and recreative web and waft of the music and its performance. And with the surroundings and amenities available at “Meow” in Edward Street in Wellington, we wanted for nothing as we listened to and grooved along with both Yvette and her fellow-performer Jonathan Berkahn – the latter had told me before the performance that he was still getting to grips with some of the material, but to my ears this wasn’t evident in his playing, versatile musician that he is!

The two musicians pretty well replicated the first four tracks on Audain’s CD, Jonathan Berkahn “filling in” more than adequately for the pianist featured on the CD, Hong Yul Yang in the title piece “Grooves Unspoken” and also the lovely “Meditations Upon Nasreddin Hoca”. The other two tracks featured the composer herself, demonstrating her versatility in playing both saxophone and clarinet. The former instrument evoked plenty of exotic ambience and colour in a piece called “Hazine” (Treasure), while the latter’s tones paid homage to Audain’s own part-Scottish ancestry in “Hold Fast” (the McLeod family’s motto!), mixing plenty of melodic fluidity with equal amounts of rhythmic vitality.

Hearing these four tracks “live” gave oceans of extra atmosphere to my later listening to the CD – the choreography of interaction, the physical gesturing and the direct contact with the tones and timbres of the instruments in question came back readily to my subsequent listening sessions. The CD had been planned beautifully as regards order, the sounds  of each track seeming to effortlessly give way to each instance of organic flow or marked contrast as it happened. Most appropriately the album (as did the evening) began with a piece of unashamed homage to a past giant, whose music Audain acknowledged as a formative experience – this was Dave Brubeck, whose signature album “Time Out” had obviously made a telling impression, judging by the “echoes” present in Audain’s beautifully-constructed piece, very appropriately named “Grooves Unspoken”.

From this we were taken elsewhere, to places replete with Middle-Eastern flavours and gypsy-like impulses. This was the aforementioned “Hazine”, a patient, measured and evocative creation whose character gradually shed its rhythmic carriage in favour of freer, more ambient sequences of figuration – spaces opened up via long-breathed notes and occasional pitch-bending, all of which conjured up a real sense of time passing, almost Omar Khayyam-like, into oblivion.

Not quite as overtly exotic, but as suggestive regarding different moods and realms was “Meditations Upon Nasreddin Hoca”. The work was made up of a number of ritualistic exchanges between piano and saxophone (again, Hong Yui Yang was the CD’s excellent pianist) – voices striving to unite but separated by distance or circumstance. A wide-eyed opening evoked a soul contemplating “the inverted bowl we call the sky”, one that was partly delighting in, partly despairing at the star-clusters and their loneliness. Whatever answer it was that came from the lonely spaces took the form of an invitation to dance and exult, which piano and sax did, revelling in the interchanges, before again seeming to part company. I loved the smoky lower register of Audain’s instrument, even if she very briefly seemed to lose her line to breathiness on a single high note, but recovering almost immediately and taking up with the piano once again. Throughout the two instruments would contrive to separate, join and separate again, bringing something new to each exchange after tasting their individually-wrought moments of disjointedness. The final exchange, an Eastern-flavoured dance, by turns sinuous and angular, re-established the “together but different” character of the interactions throughout, concluding with an exciting and confident flourish.

“Hold Fast” took its name from the motto of the Scottish McLeod clan, to which the composer’s grandmother belonged. The opening sounded a kind of clarion call, perhaps a summoning of the said clan, replete with Scottish snap and pipe-skirl, the declamations occasionally giving way to startling moments of rhythmic impulse, complete with occasional foot-stampings. One of Audain’s earliest compositions, the piece aptly honoured a tradition of both song and dance.

I loved the title “An Irksome Vengeance” and thought the combination of clarinet and ‘cello most splendidly explored the ensuing timbral concoctions, as well as staying true to the composer’s aim of keeping a basic pulse to the fore. I can’t really speak for musical currencies such as “post-grunge” and “progressive rock”, but thought that the music’s dynamism and knees-and-elbows angularities were, to say the least, arresting. And I thought the liveliness of the exchanges didn’t let up, even through the more lyrical sequences. Fantastic playing by both Audain and the ‘cellist Katherine Hebley – the ending itself was a treat, a masterpiece of po-faced comedy. One assumed the “vengeance” in question had by that time been wrought, or, alternatively, tossed aside as too “irksome” for any further consideration!

All three of the final trio of pieces on the CD seemed to me to particularly command the attention – the second piece, “bulletproof petals”, scored for a quartet of saxophones, sounded an outlandish note at the beginning, before taking a five-note figure and “deconstructing” it with no little glee. A wistful phrase was solemnly passed around the group, though like children told to be serious, splutters and giggles ensued. The wistful phrase returned, this time more formally and contrapuntally, and just as it seemed something imposing and grand was welling up out of the growing confidence, the splutters and giggles returned – one was left with unanswered questions, such as, “Was the “thick skin” of the composer’s explanation of the piece too easily penetrated?” and “Did the creative resolve buckle under the weight of derision too soon?”

But my favorite piece on the album had to be the final one, “A Charleston Kick with Steel Caps”, a piece that never let up in its “swing”, through different tempi and rhythmic trajectories – in fact, so involved was the CD’s “live” audience with the performance that they were ready to applaud at the first hint, midway through, of a final cadence, all too ready to deprive themselves of a wonderfully raucous buildup to a characteristically upbeat throwaway ending. I thought the music had the spirit of the times – a trifle Kurt Weill-ish in places, even, as well as its composer’s fingerprints on things like the derivation of the accompanying rhythms of the final section of the dance from earlier in the work – organic thinking which involved all of the instruments in melodic, or motivic as well as harmonic contributions to the whole.

Briefly, I thought the disc’s contents a happy amalgam of “entertainment” and “provocative” pieces – in this respect I thought particularly well of the last three works on the CD, culminating in, for me, a piece that seemed to sum up Yvette Audain’s achievement in making her playing such a gift to all kinds of sensibility. This is not to under-appreciate the other, earlier pieces, just as bagatelles, divertimenti and serenades are the sunnier sides of deeper purposes. “Grooves Unspoken” is a delight, an uninhibited and unashamed self-portrait of creative impulse that Audain can be justly proud of.

(Visit Yvette Audain’s website at www.yvetteaudain.com for further information)

Tests of character – Wellington Chamber Music recital from Ludwig Treviranus

Posted on by Peter Mechen

Wellington Chamber Music 2014 presents
Ludwig Treviranus (piano)

PAUL SCHRAMM – Nine Preludes
MAURICE RAVEL – Miroirs (Reflections)
SERGE PROKOFIEV – Three Pieces from “Romeo and Juliet”
MODEST MUSORGSKY – Pictures at an Exhibition

Wellington Chamber Music Concerts 2014
St Andrew’s-on-the-Terrace, Wellington

Sunday 28th September

Midway through pianist Ludwig Treviranus’s recent St.Andrew’s recital I was ready to tell anybody who would listen that this was shaping up to be a concert in a thousand – the Paul Schramm Preludes represented for me a major pianistic discovery, and I’d never heard parts of Ravel’s Miroirs played better by anybody, in concert or on record.

Of course, I needed at that stage to bear in mind one of the exchanges in Carl Sandburg’s anecdotal poem The People, Yes – the one where the city slicker asks the farmer, “Lived here all your life?” and the farmer replies “Not yit!” – that there was, at the half-way point, still a lot of musical  water still to pass under the pianistic bridge, and that I had better, like Carl Sandburg’s farmer, remain circumspect until all had run its course.

As it turned out, I thought the young pianist wasn’t able to recapture the “first fine careless rapture” of those first-half items after the interval – in  contrast to the elegance, finely-wrought detailing, deep evocation and well-tempered exuberance of the Schramm and Ravel items, neither the  Prokofiev “Romeo and Juliet” pieces nor Musorgsky’s epic traversal of an intense friendship, “Pictures at an Exhibition” seemed to my ears  sufficiently “owned” by Treviranus, despite some wonderful moments in each of the works.

So, I thought it was very much a “concert of two halves”, with the pianist seeming to give his all right from the start, and then, faced with the  complexities of the programme’s second half, perhaps running out of steam a little. It appeared also as though the post-interval items were  here prepared less thoroughly and meticulously than were the Schramm and Ravel works. The Musorgsky in particular lacked surety in places –  not only were there a number of finger-slips and lapses of memory but some of the sequences weren’t focused, weren’t “held” with enough through-line to fully transport us into the world of the particular impressions of time, place and the composer wanted to convey.

I was somewhat surprised that “Pictures” didn’t have the whole of the second half to itself, as it’s of reasonably “stand-alone” length and has a wide range of expression, needing nothing to act as either filler or foil. Generous though Treviranus was in giving us the scenes from Prokofiev’s “Romeo and Juliet, I thought their back-to-back positioning with “Pictures” actually detracted from our concentration and focus upon the latter. It’s a work that, I think, cries out for “stand-alone” placement in any concert, especially as it’s really a kind of ritual, with an inevitability of advancement shared by all great works of art. Part tragedy, part celebration, it’s a unique amalgam of descriptions and emotions, gathered together by the circumstance of one individual’s painful and debilitating loss of a friend.

Enough! – various pianists of my acquaintance have testified as to their own love of excess when young, armed with energy to burn, with generosity of nature, and with oceanfuls of delectable, mouth-watering repertoire to play and enjoy. As the conductor Sir John Barbirolli once said, referring to ‘cellist Jacqueline du Pre’s whole-hearted, super-charged music-making – which he loved, but which some critics found too fulsomely expressed: “When you’re young  you should have an excess of everything!” Sir John adding, “you have to have something which you can pare off and refine as you grow older….”

So – there we were at St.Andrew’s Church, in the company of the personable Ludwig Treviranus, smilingly welcoming us to the recital and telling  us his thoughts about each group of pieces he was about to play. This was all very much of a piece with his music-making, delivered as if it  were the most natural thing in the world to do. Particularly interesting to hear about was his discovery and advocacy of the Paul Schramm  Preludes, a project derived from his involvement with a collection of New Zealand piano pieces in a volume “Living Echoes – The First 150  Years of Piano Music from New Zealand”, researched and edited by Wellington teacher Gillian Bibby.

Paul Schramm, along with his wife, Diny, arrived in New Zealand in the late 1930s as refugee émigrés from Germany. Making their home in the  capital, they brought considerable musical skills to Wellington, Paul as a performer and Diny as a teacher – activities which the war years all but curtailed, treated as they were like aliens by the establishment for the duration. Paul left New Zealand for Australia after the war, where he died  in 1953;  but Diny remained in Wellington and continued to teach here for many years afterwards.

Schramm’s Nine Preludes reflected his own musical tastes, influenced as the writing was by Prokofiev, Debussy, Ravel, Bartok, and  Scriabin. It seems the pieces were conceived as a set of nine, or perhaps even ten, though “Number One”  was missing when the original discovery of the music was made in the Alexander Turnbull archives. A later search turned up another Prelude – perhaps the missing one, perhaps another altogether – so that today we got the original number of pieces, whatever the origins of the first of the set.

Though derivative in style and content, each of the pieces, with Ludwig Treviranus’s vividly-projected and sharply-focused advocacy, sparkled with the glint of rediscovery and impinged their essences upon the memory. Analysis of each piece and its performance  would fill a book, so I’ll content myself with remarking on a couple of the pieces and their juxtapositionings. First came the the imposing and  impressively-wrought “Biblical rhetoric” of the writing in the opening Prelude “On the Death of a Great Man: FD Roosevelt 12th April 1945”,  complete with echoes of “The Star-Spangled Banner”. It was a piece whose direct appeal to the emotions contrasted immediately with the  following “Satyr’s Dance”, a mischievous, spikily-harmonised part-waltz-part-scherzo, the pianist making the most of the interplay between  massive, Prokofiev-like momentums and Ravelian delicacies.

I particularly liked the “Ritual Dance of a Javanese Warrior”, a dark-hearted waltz flecked with glinting colours, cruel in its “snapping” figurations  and remorseless harmonies, its effect made all the greater in retrospect through being followed by “Hommage a Scriabine”, with its  shimmering textures and insinuating modulations. Perhaps along with the Debussy-like “Glittering Thirds” it’s the most unashamedly imitative,  as Schramm’s titles, of course, do readily suggest. I admit I did wonder about Treviranus’s performance of the Seventh Prelude, “Distortion of a Viennese  Waltz”, though, as Schramm’s original subtitle for the piece (quoted in the programme) was “arrogantly performed by a German General Staff  Officer”. As played here, I thought the pianist largely ignored this directive – the performance was far too musically sympathetic and lilting in  manner to evoke any kind of arrogance or brutality!

From these marvellous pieces we went on to Ravel’s “Miroirs”, where more pianistic riches awaited our ears! – Treviranus brought out almost  everything one could wish for in the music – the opening of “Noctuelles” (Night Moths) all impulse and feathery excitement, the textures wrought of magic, and the subsequent evocations of night sublimely realised, the darkness suggestive rather than sinister. “Oiseaux tristes” featured a different kind of ambience, the pianist able to tellingly “place” the birds’ calls in the silences, stressing the solitariness of the listener’s experience.

But I thought the performance’s most sublime moments were in the following “Une barque sur l’ocean” (A boat on the ocean)  – Treviranus conjured from his piano some of the most beguiling keyboard sounds imaginable, the playing suggesting as readily the oceanic depths as the surface play of light and air on the waves, everything – even the glissando – gorgeously “touched in”. He brought out Ravel’s utterly seductive interplay of melody and figuration in a finely-activated liquid flow, and with almost lump-in-throat delicacy as the ship passed by, leaving only impressions on the memory.

That same delicacy of utterance and feeling for atmosphere was evident in the final piece of the set as well – “La Valée des cloches” (Valley of the Bells). Pianist Robert Casadesus was quoted in the programme notes as having been told by Ravel that “the piece was inspired by midday bells in Paris”. However,  the music has never seemed that way to my ears – nor, I think to those of Ludwig Treviranus, judging by the almost crepuscular ambience he wove with and around the sounds. These bells were more nostalgic and dreamlike than real, middle-of-the-day angelus-bells, activated by deft stroke-making on the part of the pianist, the oscillations continuing to enchant the imagination’s ear long after the actual sounds had ceased. I thought it simply lovely playing.

No, I hadn’t forgotten the jester and his morning song (Alborada del gracioso)! – we got some exciting playing from Treviranus, just missing, I thought, the last ounce of rhythmic “swagger” through a shade too quick a tempo, but still capturing plenty of thrust and volatility of the opening, and enabling a great flourish at the end of the first section. But the expressif en recit of the middle section was where I would have liked a more marked contrast with the livelier outer sequences, a freer, deeper, canto-jondo-like feeling of a singer caught and held by some deep emotion, interrupted by the physicalities which come back at the piece’s end. But I realise that I’m quibbling, here – it really was marvellous playing!

Still, after these stellar feats of re-creation, I sensed that the pianist had begun to tire, and his focus lose its edge. Prokofiev’s famous “Montagues and Capulets” sequence from the “Romeo and Juliet” ballet certainly strutted its stuff with real menace, arrogance and swagger, and the ghostly ambience of the trio section was well-caught, as the disguised Romeo and his friends sneaked into the Capulets’ Ball. But the impish fun of “The Young Juliet” needed a lighter touch throughout to REALLY scintillate, and the opening “Folk Dance” had some untidy figurations in-between the episodes of young-braves’-bravado from both of the warring families.

Following this came Musorgsky’s “Pictures at an Exhibition” – and there were moments from Treviranus of brilliance and rapt insight into a unique world of contrasted expression. These were flung, teased and dragged across the surface of a creative canvas with great panache – the opening picture, Gnomus, for one, gave off a gorgeously volatile and unashamedly malicious aspect, one whose acerbities set “The Old Castle” into rich, darkly-lit relief. I also thought “Samuel Goldenberg and Schmuyle” a pair of vividly characterized gentlemen, one assertive and overbearing, the other wheedling and pathetic. And, as a double-whammy kind of crowning conclusion to the work, the witch Baba Yaga’s wild rides were savagely and outlandishly celebrated, her music spectacularly disintegrating against the bulwarks of “The Great Gate at Kiev” with its pomp, splendor and introspective moments of ritualistic piety.

However, it was, I thought, for the pianist, still a work in progress – a number of uncertainties inhibited the kind of breathtaking identification with the music that had characterized Treviranus’s earlier playing of “Miroirs” and the Schramm pieces. Just to take one example – I’m certain he will, in time, delve more deeply into and relish the stillness that marks the transition from those stark, remorseless structures of “Catacombs” to the mystical revelations of “Cum mortuis in lingua mortua” – the place where the composer was, for a few moments, reunited in quiet ecstasy with the spirit of his dead friend, Victor Hartmann, the artist of the “Pictures”.

Of course, Musorgsky’s tragedy was that, even while celebrating his friend’s memory he was on a downward path to an alcohol-soaked oblivion which put a premature end to his own life and creative career – sobering (sic) thoughts indeed, and especially with which to conclude this celebration of a major pianistic talent here in Wellington.

 

SMP Ensemble – Sound Barrel a “lucky dip” for this listener!

Posted on by Peter Mechen

SMP Ensemble presents:
SOUND BARREL

Music by:
CHRIS CREE BROWN, HIROYUKI YAMAMOTO,
JASON POST, GIACINTO SCELSI,
BEN GAUNT
Graphic Scores by:
TOM JENSEN, LYELL CRESSWELL,
SCILLA McQUEEN

Special guest artist:
KANA KOTERA (euphonium)

SMP Ensemble:
Karlo Margetic, Richard Robeshawe, Reuben Jellyman
Cordelia Black, Tabea Squire, Sam Vennell
Chris Wratt, Anton Killin, Jason Post

Adam Concert Room,
Victoria University of Wellington

Friday 26th September 2014

That enterprising and congenitally provocative performing group, the SMP Ensemble presented a characteristic program for our delight and fascination at the Adam Concert Room last Friday evening.

Every piece on the program brought its own specific amalgam of spontaneity and thoughtfulness to bear on both the recreative process and the audience’s receptivity – a kind of “expect the unexpected” ethos whose attendant challenges, bewilderments and satisfactions truly “spiced up” the evening’s music.

I must admit to a certain level of self-generated bravado in writing these words, gobsmacked as I was by the effect of some of the sounds that I heard, experienced and watched being made throughout the evening. Particularly thought-provoking were the items featuring graphic scores, each of which was displayed clearly and spaciously (excellent and audience-friendly visual displays were a feature of the concert), giving us some unique insights, both cerebral and instinctive, regarding that mysterious, often nebulously wrought “womb of interactivity” that exists between composer and performer – and, of course, by extrapolation, each listener.

It was very much a case for me of being faced with music for which I had relatively little previous reference in terms of being able to make judgements and draw conclusions based on what I saw and heard. I found myself going back to points of revisiting of my own “formative responses” to sounds, well before my current ostensible crop of expectations relating to conventional classical music. I was reminded, again and again, by what I heard the SMP players do, of my first encounters with things that were world-enlarging, both in terms of timbre and colour and texture, but also in terms of structure and organization and juxtapositioning.

In short, I was “undone” to a large extent by the concert, and this is a record of the ensuing impressions I received from the music while in that partly delightful, partly precarious state.

The concert began with a piece by UK composer Ben Gaunt, one whose basic idea interestingly “resonated” within me – that of “Sympathetic Strings”, ambiences created by material that resonates as a consequence of other materials being “played” – of course stringed instruments do have this very particular on-going quality, whether intentional or incidental. Gaunt carried this idea over to having sounds generated by performers whose creative imaginations “resonate” as a result of what they hear other performers do. The performance was directed by Jason Post, whose own music was to make an appearance in the concert’s second half.

The Ensemble’s formation at the beginning visually expressed a kind of Newtonian “action” and “reaction” process, with clarinet, double bass and violin to the right of the performing area, and an accordion, violin and percussion set antiphonally to the left. The music began with beautifully-floated, nocturnal-like lines from clarinet, double bass and violin, occasionally punctuated by irruptions from the left, as if worlds were colliding and rubbing along each other’s edges. Of a sudden all hell seemed to break loose, in particular from Karlo Margetic’s clarinet, which seemed to be expressing some kind of musical apoplexy, a process which led to the player actually collapsing and having to be revived by a violinist – was this a mere theatrical touch, or an organic consequence of the “sympathetic” pressures brought to bear on the performer by the music?

Christchurch composer Chris Cree Brown’s “Sound Barrel” gave its name to the concert, but amply characterized the music we heard, scored for euphonium and fixed media playback. We were first introduced to the guest soloist, Japanese-born Kana Kotera, obviously a virtuoso of her instrument, judging by the timbal and coloristic command she was able to exert upon the euphonium’s sounds, ranging from cavernous, tuba-like grunts and galumphings to honeyed-tone croonings. “Elephantine Dreams” could as well have been the piece’s title, as the fixed media playback gave a definite “narrative” context for the soloist to muse upon Quixotic-like adventures, alternating between the fantastical and the extremely visceral.

Poet and composer Cilla McQueen’s work “Rain” added a graphic visual element to the evening’s proceedings, the ensemble “playing” two of the composer’s semi-abstracted “graphic scores” – works of art in themselves, of course! It was a colourful assemblage of instruments indeed! – a ukulele played with a painted stick, a double-bass, bongo drums played with sticks that had soft felt heads, a violin and an accordion – and some kind of tube with a piece of chain attached. The composer/artist’s  second score had a more recognizable kind of contouring, in the shape of a fern frond about to unfold. More obviously rhythmic at the piece’s beginning than was  the first realization, this piece seemed to me more ritualistically or ceremonially conceived than the first one – perhaps a more public as opposed to a previous private acknowledgement of the psychology of weather. Instruments such as a gong advanced a feeling that the second graphic score invited a more structured and kinetic approach to the composer’s own inspiration

Wellington is currently playing host to composer Hiroyuki Yamamoto, from Japan, here on a three-month composer residency – his piece “Ginkgo biloba”, written for solo euphonium set the player a number of technical challenges and difficulties, designed to show off the particular qualities of the instrument, and the virtuosity of the player. Beginning with a kind of definitive euphonium statement of declaration, Kana Kotera seemed to “own the work” – she adroitly moved from her opening “calling card” mode to the piece’s “real” business, setting sostenuto lines against staccato impulses, the music’s momentum gradually building, the animation increasing and the ratio of introspection diminishing.

Some of the composer’s explanations I understood – microtones and multiphonics, for example – but “half-valve” defeated me! – I assumed it was some kind of “shortening” technique used to alter pitch and timbre, and would have been used by the soloist as part of the extraordinary array of speech-like intonations throughout the piece, in which mouthing and tonguing would have had a significant part to play. Her timbral and coloristic capabilities on the instrument were in fact astonishing, the potentialities she unlocked for expression fulfilling almost to excess the prescription expressed by the composer that the sounds needed the kind of inherent ambiguity which suggested and demonstrated their basic instability.

More graphics accompanied Lyell Cresswell’s “Body Music” – appropriately dedicated to Jack Body (who was present at the concert) at the time of his fiftieth birthday (how time flies!) – here were great flourishes of exuberance, the sounds fluid and dynamic, the liquidity of the textures advanced by the use of a celeste. I took from it a kind of celebration of human physicality and impulse, the music shaping form and characterizing movement in sound. The actual graphic score appropriately displayed a human shape packed tightly with notes, a depiction of a truly musical being!

Giacinto Scelsi’s 1976 work “Maknongan” brought back Kana Kotera, eager to explore with her euphonium the Italian composer’s refined, somewhat austere world of limited notes inflected with microtones. Called by one commentator “the most focused and abstract work Scelsi ever composed”, the piece was also one of  the composer’s very last works. The euphonium’s rich sound seemed to me to “humanize” the composer’s characteristic austerities (well, as with the ones I’d previously heard, anyway!), the soloist furthering the process by employing a stylish hat with a paper rose in the hat-band as a kind of “mute” for the instrument! As these things often do, the mere sight of the hat performing this function enhanced the aural effect!

The work, true to the composer’s style, revolved around a single note, the music’s explorations of associated notes (octave-plus-one leaps, various microtonal “shifts”  and numerous timbal contrasts) creating a kind of centre for the work upon which we listeners could focus. As with any sound, constant repetition alone gradually changes the ambient receptivity – this, together with the numerous variants, aural and visual, made for a kind of  micro-journeying of transformation within the piece’s surprisingly short span. The piece was written for “any bass instrument”, thereby inviting further conjecture regarding what kind of sound-world a string bass, for instance, would create – all very intriguing!

More work for Kana Kotera and her trusty euphonium, with Jason Post’s “yatsar”, a work for the instrument and electronics. The composer alerted us to the meaning of “yatsar”, a Hebrew word for fashioning or shaping, as would a potter fashion a vessel from clay, which is, of course, a well-known biblical metaphor for God’s creation of man. This idea was expressed by breath to begin with, the player blowing tonelessly through the interment, while the electronically-contrived ambience suggested pulsations of rhythmic movement amid a kind of “white noise”. The euphonium’s notes seemed to my ears to be recorded as well as played “live” – whether or not “looped” I wasn’t sure. I imagined that the interaction between “real” acoustical sounds and the electronic ambiences might have represented a kind of relationship between creator and the fashioned object.

What to make of Tom Jensen’s “What is it?” which followed, a piece for solo violin played by Tabea Squire? – perhaps the rhetoric of the title is its own best description, given the composer’s own quasi-nihilistic notes regarding (a) the initial creative urge, (b) the self-characterised “chaos” of mind from whence the impulse sprung, © the resulting graphic score, (d) the title-question which arose from the score, and (e) the doubt as to the actuality of that same question (and by extrapolation, every previous step in the process)! And was the work a suitably portentous, grandly-conceived, groaning-under-its-own-weight, aesthetically convoluted series of existential sound-structures, unerring in its progress towards self-annihilation? – after all, JS Bach’s Chaconne from his D MInor Partita, a work also for solo violin, was able to create a whole universe of structured sounds and potentialities.

Perhaps, in direct opposition to Bach’s “order in the midst of chaos” sublimities, Tom Jensen took us on a journey via Tabea Squire’s violin, into the dark heart of disorder – the “toneless tones” of the opening section was almost an “all is vanity” exposition of sounds left to cohere in the minds of the listener, with no direction from the composer as to how this “ought” to be. The sotto voce middle section brought to ear wraith-like voices, whose conflagrations of approximate pitch suggested an order and structure on the edge of day-to-day conventions, the occasional irruptions of tone like flint-sparks in the darkness. This all seemed to intensify in a concluding section whose “do I wake or sleep” disembodied ghostings had, I felt, taken me into the throes of my subconscious – an extraordinary evocation.

It needed John Adams to come to my rescue at the concert’s end, by way of a work called “American Standard” – a deconstructionist approach to popular American music forms. This was the first movement of that work, a March, called “John Philip Sousa” but with none of the celebrated March King’s wonderful tunes and swaggering rhythms – instead, the composer instructs that the musicians employ “a plodding pulse, with no melody or harmony”, in fact the inverse of what Sousa would have intended. The program note quoted Adams as saying that the piece sounded “like the retreat from battle of a badly-wounded army”. So it was a kind of subversion of original intent (like all good parodies, of course), this one being particularly disconcerting in effect, due to its dour, non-celebratory aspect, and its brief displays of angst (the occasional groan/shriek).

As TS Eliot observed, “not with a bang, but with a whimper” came the concert to its end – extraordinary stuff, and definitely not for the faint-hearted in places! I thought the playing used a kind of “unvarnished” quality to an engagingly spontaneous effect. Also effectively managed were the technical aspects of the presentation – I thought the screening of the graphic scores was a marvellous thing to do, indicative of the ensemble’s willingness to put itself out there and communicate its stuff – food for thought for all of us!

 

 

 

 

 

Nota Bene splendidly celebrates its 10th Anniversary

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Nota Bene – 10th Anniversary Concert

Choral music by numerous composers (including a new commission from David Hamilton)

Nota Bene, directed by Christine Argyle
Items conducted by Peter de Blois and Julian Raphael
Emma Sayers (piano), Penny Miles (bassoon)
Geoff Robinson, compere

St. Andrew’s on The Terrace

Sunday, 14 September 2014, 4.30pm

I was sorry that Nota Bene chamber choir chose to sing on a Sunday – Chamber Music New Zealand had that day also joined the Sunday afternoon gang (in the latter’s case, 5pm), so I could not attend both concerts.  Next Sunday (21 September) there are no fewer than five classical music concerts in and around Wellington; Middle C cannot review them all, and to the extent that the audiences will inevitably overlap to some extent, the individual audiences will be smaller than they might otherwise have been.

However, all praise to Nota Bene and Christine Argyle for a wonderfully diverse concert, made somewhat sad by the fact that the latter is giving up her music directorship.  How she has managed to undertake all the activities she enumerated in an interview with Eva Radich on Wednesday, on Upbeat! (RNZ Concert), I do not know.  She is obviously good at both preparation and organisation.

The concert was made up of items from various concerts performed by the choir over the period of its existence.  Some original members are still with the choir, and some of the songs were performed at the first concert.  Some singing in this concert were former members invited to return for the occasion.  After the performance the choir launched its first CD, made up of items from the concerts of the past that had been broadcast by Radio New Zealand Concert, some of the  items being those that were performed on Sunday.

It all amply demonstrated the eclecticism of the choir, its variety of skills and its ability to be flexible and responsive to very different periods, styles and genres.  An innovation was a screen showing colour photos of the choir at the time of each concert from which an excerpt was performed.  Compère Geoff Robinson (former presenter on Radio New Zealand National) told us some of the choir’s history, and related information regarding the works and their performances, along with a few anecdotes, prior to each couple of items.  A tendency to drop his voice at the ends of phrases meant that I did not hear everything he said.  There was a good attendance, the body of the church being nearly full, with a handful of people sitting in the gallery.

Christine Argyle, using a tuning fork, gave the notes for each part prior to each item (most were unaccompanied); a striking feature was that the choir began, and continued, bang in tune every time.

Many of the items were in English, nevertheless all words were printed in the programme, in English, regardless of original language.  The huge diversity of songs ranged from the straight-forward to complex, multi-part items.  Some, like the opening two Flower Songs by Benjamin Britten sounded simple, but as I know from experience, are not so.  Although the choir’s diction was very good, in multi-part items it is inevitable that not all the words will be heard.  Britten chose fine poetry to set, as did others of the composers, so it was good to be able to read it, as an enhancement to understand the musical settings.

Throughout, the choir had a lovely smooth, blended tone.  The acoustics of St. Andrew’s enhanced the sound more than is the case with some venues in which I have heard Nota Bene.

After a change of mood for Purcell’s complex setting of  ‘Hear my Prayer, O Lord’ sung with almost perfect expression and phrasing and Holst’s ‘Ave Maria’ (in Latin, gorgeously rendered), we returned to English poetry for John Rutter’s setting of Shakespeare’s well known ‘It was  lover and his lass’from As You Like It.  Like most of Rutter’s music, it was a joyful piece, this time in a popular swing style, and given a very fine performance.

A couple of traditional songs followed, one French (Provençal) and one in English.  Geoff Richards’s arrangement of ‘Le Baylère’ (alias ‘Bailèro’) incorporated sumptuous harmony and suspensions.  Whether it was sung in French (as implied by the title) or Provençal I could not tell, but it received a wonderful performance.  ‘Brigg Fair’ arranged by Percy Grainger is well-known.  It featured young tenor soloist Griffin Madill Nichol, a member of the choir.  His voice was right for a folk song, and he did his part well, backed by the humming choir.  Crescendi and decrescendi were beautifully managed.

Now to a less well-known piece: ‘Les Sirènes’ by the talented but all too short-lived French composer Lili Boulanger (1893–1918).  The choral piece was sung by the women (in French) in two physically separate choirs, and contained a solo for splendid mezzo Natalie Williams; it was accompanied by pianist Emma Sayers.  The piano part conveyed the movement of water, with shimmering arpeggios and broken chords.

Ben Oakland’s ‘Java Jive’ brought a complete change of mood, and was sung from memory by a small group, with solos (and repeated at the end of the concert as an encore by the entire choir); it was brilliantly done, its clashes of harmony confidently and resolutely prominent.

Last before the interval was a traditional South African piece, led by Julian Raphael, that buoyant choral supremo, who played a maraca while the choir, singing from memory, incorporated movement in its loud and energetic performance.  The singers managed to sound really like Africans.

After the break, another guest conductor who has directed the choir’s concerts in the past, Peter de Blois, conducted the Kyrie from New Zealander Sam Piper’s Requiem and ‘Song for Athene’ by John Tavener.  The former was a lively piece with good melody lines from the altos in the Kyrie section; focus of the melody changed for the Christe section.  Tavener’s work introduced very fine pianissimo singing – long-breathed lines with a hummed background.  It was a very accomplished performance.  The words were elevated indeed – but not all were printed.

In calm and meditative mood was the ‘Ave Maris Stella’ of Edvard Grieg (sung in Latin).  Only here was I aware of a mid-verse entry where the voices were not together – most unusual. This, and the remaining items, were conducted by Christine Argyle.

Ivan Hrušovský (1927–2001) was a Slovak composer. His ‘Rytmus’, a Latin piece, was very fast, the choir having to spit out the words, but in accordance with the title, there were many emphases and accents.

Now came two New Zealand works: firstly, ‘Ursula at Parakakariki’ (which is on Banks Peninsula) by Carol Shortis.  It began with sea sounds on a special kind of percussion shaker played by one of the choir, and was accompanied by Emma Sayers, interspersed with passages for bassoon.  Both the music and the Fiona Farrell poem were quite delightful, yet complex, with seemingly independent choral lines parting and converging.  Although it was announced along with the next item, spontaneous applause burst out.  The composer was present, and acknowledged the applause.

Present, too, was David Hamilton, to hear the performance of the piece commissioned by the choir for this occasion: ‘Canción de Invierno’ (Songs of Winter), his setting of a text by Juan Ramón Jiménez, was about birds singing from somewhere, despite leafless trees.  It began with syllables only being sounded, then Natalie Williams sang a solo while the choir continued the syllables.  All joined in later to sing about singing.  Superb dynamics built up to an astonishing double forte.  In the final section there were solo voices above a general hubbub.  This was a thrilling performance of an exciting work, despite a little lack of unanimity in the final section for solos.  Someone remarked to me after the concert that other choirs will want to get their hands on this music.

Something completely different was Mendelssohn’s enchanting chorus from Elijah: ‘He, watching over Israel’.  Its wondrous harmonies, modulations and unexpected melodic twists were beautifully realised; in fact, with the wonderful dynamics and expression, I would call this a moving and almost perfect performance.

Finally, two contemporary composers’ works: ‘Lux Aurumque’ by American Eric Whitacre, and ‘The Shepherd’s Carol’ by Briton Bob Chilcott.  The former was a very imaginative piece of choral writing, but quite tricky, with close intervals, while the latter was very melodic, but again with challenging harmony.

This has been a great ten years!  Congratulations to the amateur choir that has it all. It is hard to pick up highlights from such a varied concert with a choir that is a triumph of skill and excellent singing.  May Nota Bene go from strength to strength under a new music director, and full praise to Christine Argyle who has led it, even choosing the programmes when she was not conducting, with flair, imagination and skill.

Eggner Trio and Amihai Grosz win all hearts

Posted on by admin

Chamber Music New Zealand presents:
EGGNER TRIO WITH AMIHAI GROSZ (viola)

Mozart Piano Quartet No 2 in E flat K493
Schumann Piano Trio No 3 in G minor Opus 110
Anthony Ritchie Oppositions
Dvořák Piano Quartet No 2 in E flat Opus 87

Michael Fowler Centre, Wellington

Sunday 14 September 2014

The Eggner sibling trio of Georg (violin), Florian (cello) and Christoph (piano) presented this programme with viola player, Amihai Grosz, Principal Viola of the Berlin Philharmonic and a founding member of the Jerusalem String Quartet.

I had not heard the Eggner group before, but from the very opening lines of the Mozart it was obvious why they are firmly established in the forefront of chamber ensembles today. Viola associate Amihai Grosz melded seamlessly into the mix, and shared obviously in the pleasure they clearly enjoy in making music together.

The phrasing, tone and sensitivity of the melodic conversation that unfolds in the opening Allegro of the Mozart revealed a profound musicianship and impeccable polish that continued to mark the whole work, and indeed the entire programme.  The three movements of the Mozart score give wide scope to display the artistry of the tenderest melody making, for bold tempestuous interplay between competing instruments, for whimsical or thoughtful moods by turn, and the players made the most of every opportunity that this masterpiece offers.

Schumann’s Piano Trio no.3 is a rather turbulent work, where melodic motifs are often brief and frequently interrupted as they are exchanged or developed. The first movement is indeed marked “bewegt” (turbulent) and all three instruments are given the opportunity to participate fully in the dramatic, restless writing. The  tranquil second movement was a wonderful contrast that showcased some glorious melodic playing, before the vigour and strength of the two final movements, where the players explored every turn of the rich colour and variation. One could not fail to sense a level of mutual understanding that has had the chance to blossom in this trio group over many years of family music making.

Anthony Ritchie’s Oppositions was composed in 2005 for the NZ Piano Quartet. The composer’s programme notes explain that “It is in one movement, and is based around the idea of opposing forces, whether they be literal or imaginative. In musical terms, the piano is frequently pitted against the strings………..”. There is a lot of violent, strident, percussive writing, contrasted sometimes with more lyrical episodes, but the work is marked throughout by restless, abrasive tonalities that further heighten the tension and conflict between the various instrumental idioms. There is an outpouring of anger and violence that is clearly intended, and the players threw themselves into it with total commitment.

One felt both mentally and musically assaulted by the clash of the “Oppositions”, but for me the vivid descriptive qualities of the “music” became, frankly, overwhelming. While it was a very effective foil between two highly romantic items, I was relieved when the work ended, ungrateful as that may be of Richie’s acknowledged skills as a composer.

The Dvorak Piano Quartet no.2 is a heroic work in this genre, which the programme notes aptly described: “The work displays a melodic invention, rhythmic vitality and instrumental colour typical of the nationalist Dvorak at his peak……….”  The quartet threw themselves into the music with tremendous vigour and polish, displaying a huge dynamic range across the widely contrasting episodes which stretch from the most wistful delicacy to the almost symphonic proportions of the finale.

It was a riveting delivery that brought huge accolades from the audience, who were treated to an encore of the slow movement from Brahms’ E Minor Piano 4tet. The long opening cello melody was quite breathtaking, and made me wish for an opportunity to hear Florian Eggner in a sonata recital setting, where every note of his masterful playing would be heard. There had been times during the concert when, from our seats, it had been difficult to discern the cellist clearly, even though he had clearly been playing his heart out. It will be good when the Town Hall is again available for chamber music concerts, as such situations might well be taken care of there.

 

Passion and circumspection from the wonderful Faust Quartet

Posted on by Peter Mechen

Chamber Music Hutt Valley presents:
FAUST QUARTET

(Simone Roggen, Annina Woehrle, vioiins
Ada Meinich, viola / Birgit Böhme, ‘cello)

JOHN PSATHAS – Abhisheka

LEOŠ JANÁČEK  – String Quartet no.2 “Intimate Letters”

LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN  – String Quartet in A Minor Op.132

Lower Hutt Little Theatre

Tuesday, 2nd September, 2014

Named after German literature’s archetypal questing figure, the Swiss-based Faust Quartet currently on tour in New Zealand, gave us an appropriately far-reaching programme for their Chamber Music Hutt Valley Concert at the Lower Hutt Little Theatre. Led since 2012 by New Zealander Simone Roggen, the group also has German, Norwegian and Swiss members, its cosmopolitan “face” also reflecting the range and origins of the music presented on this occasion.

As with the group’s previous Wellington concert (reviewed by Rosemary Collier for Middle C), the programme featured two “classics” of the quartet repertoire with a contemporary piece. New Zealander John Psathas’ work Abhisheka began the concert, the focused intensities of the work nicely sharpening our sensibilities and preparing us for what was to follow. Moravian composer Leoš Janáĉek wrote two String Quartets, the second of which, subtitled “Intimate Letters”, was nothing short of a sharply-focused outpouring of almost pure emotion relating to the composer’s love affair with a much younger married woman. The evening was “rounded off” by Beethoven’s renowned Op.132 String Quartet in A Minor, itself a work of great intensity, containing the well-known “Holy Song of thanksgiving from a convalescent to the Deity, in the Lydian Mode” as its slow movement – no rest, it seemed, for either players or listeners!

John Psathas’s single-movement work 1996 work Abhisheka has become something of a classic quartet repertoire piece in this country, one whose qualities seem somehow freshly-minted with each performance one hears. Its exotic, meditative sound-world suggests a kind of ritual, as befits its name, derived from a Sanskrit word for “anoint”. The work’s themes have a definitive Eastern flavour, underscored by occasional pitch-bending on certain notes in the solo lines. There’s drama, too, in the way that some chords (such as at the work’s very opening) seem to come into being from a void of silence, a kind of metaphor for the birth of consciousness, or of awareness of a special state of being,  the “anointing” perhaps associated with the conferring of a state of grace upon the individual’s soul.

Whatever the case, Psathas has, with this work, contrived a unique sound-world, whose utterances draw us deeply into what seem at first like normal divisions of music and silence. However, with each note-clustered crescendo we’re taken further and more strongly into a kind of timeless state of being, where every gesture and its accompanying impulse and associated resonant effect seem to adopt a Wagnerian “time and space are one” quality, freed from movement towards and away from certain points, and having instead a ‘”centre of all things” fullness. The Faust Quartet’s concentrated, transcendent playing enabled us to give ourselves entirely over to the world into which the music had so readily transported us.

In retrospect the intense focus of Psathas’s work had the effect of activating and priming our sensibilities in “controlled conditions” by way of preparation for the scorching blasts of Leos Janáĉek’s fierily passionate String Quartet “Intimate Letters”. This was the second of two quartets written by the Moravian composer, both towards the end of his compositional life. They were inspired directly by his unrequited passion for a younger, already married woman, Kamilla Stösslová, the first quartet, subtitled “Kreutzer Sonata”, appearing in 1923, and the second written in 1928, the year of the composer’s death. Though Kamilla was the inspiration for both quartets, it’s in the second work that Janáĉek explicitly and directly expresses his feelings for her – incidentally, the subtitle “Intimate Letters” was given the work by its composer.

What a work, and what a performance! The players delivered this jagged, volatile, highly emotional, and in places seemingly unstable music at what seemed “full stretch”, employing the widest possible dynamic range and the greatest possible diversity of tones, timbres and colours. I’m sure I sat open-mouthed for much of the time, marveling at the gutsiness of it all, at the group’s readiness to meet the music at its expressive extremes, conveying without hesitation or reserve the unbridled, part-exhilarating, part-disturbing force of the composer’s hot-house bestowment. On this cheek-by-jowl showing, Janáĉek’s music puts even the Cesar Franck Piano Quintet in the shade as regards erotic suggestiveness.

Janáĉek’s penchant for extremes of  showed its hand right at the work’s beginning, with full-blooded declamations followed by whispered pianissimi, after which introduction followed sequences of such tangible physicality paralleled with moments of breathtaking tenderness – the playing of the violist Ada Meinich, in particular, seemed to suddenly underline the incongruity of concert-dress for such abandoned and unconfined utterances. The second movement’s romantic, rhapsodic-like beginning gave our sensibilities some respite, Janáĉek getting his players to bend, stretch, twist, coil and unwind the same melodic fragment  through countless treatments, before too long galvanizing the rhapsodic feeling with some savage, biting accents and manic presto-like scamperings.

Whatever the music did the players were there, pouring out sounds from their instruments that one couldn’t imagine wrought with greater intensity of physical and emotional commitment. The wild, winsome third movement, with its forceful dotted rhythmic trajectory, and the equally fraught finale both were put across to us with what seemed like anarchic force, to the point in the finale where one felt the music was expressing something near to emotional disintegration. Those episodes of vicious tremolandi during the work’s last few minutes sounded so raw, so animal-like, as if all human reason had been lost, and only primordial impulse remained – even more frightening was to encounter these savage gestures in tandem with moments of folkish gaiety and lyrical tenderness!

We certainly needed an interval after these outpourings, and especially in view of the music that was to take up the concert’s second half – Beethoven’s mighty Op.132 A Minor Quartet, known as the “Heiliger Dankgesang” Quartet by dint of its remarkable slow movement. Perhaps it was partly my expectation in the wake of the Faust’s remarkable performance of the Janáĉek work that I felt, increasingly so in retrospect, some disappointment in the players’ delivery of this very part of the work. It could also have been that the group’s concentration had been unsettled by the unfortunate circumstance of Simone Roggen’s instrument breaking a string at the beginning of the movement’s first dance episode, and that the music’s organic flow had been fatally checked – but however it was, the succeeding variants of the opening molto adagio seemed to me not to build in intensity and radiance as I would have expected – falling short of that “life infused with divinity” description, commented on by the program note.

I wondered, too, whether the experience for all of us of hearing the Janáĉek work earlier in the evening put extra onus on the performance of the Beethoven to “atone” in a way for the Moravian composer’s emotional excesses – here were the very different outpourings of two powerful creative spirits responding to tribulations of contrasting kinds. What Janáĉek’s music was depicting was its composer’s wrestling with the unrequited nature of his love for a younger woman – hence the music’s desperate, in places almost deranged aspect. Beethoven’s music had a corresponding kind of power, but of fierce determination and intense triumph over tragedy, and the intensity stemmed from both determination and triumph. I thought the quartet’s playing of Beethoven’s molto adagio sequences needed more of that fierce, intense sense of “being there” thru determination and tragedy, in a sense completing a process that Janáĉek, for all his greatness as a composer, wasn’t by dint of circumstance able to do.

The interesting thing was that the remaining three of the Beethoven work’s movements were given by the quartet one of the finest performances I’ve ever heard, nowhere more so than with the last movement. I’ve waited for many years to hear a reading of the latter that matched in feeling that of the old pre-war recording made by the Busch Quartet, to the extent that this present one did. Here, the players caught the “strut” of the music at the beginning, the theatricality (gothic-gestured in places) of the mad, melodramatic recitative-like section, and the darkness and unease of the subsequent allegro appassionato, the playing superbly conveying its swaying, vertiginous rhythm and haunted thematic material, as the music traverses the “dark wood” of human experience with all its enigmatic and expressionist gestures of dogged progression and determined resolve to “get through”.

How wonderfully the players caught that frisson of energy and thrust at the movement’s end, the accelerando both thrilling and hair-raising, for fear of where it might end, but bringing the music at last out into the sunlight, where there’s relief and circumspection rather than joy and celebration – the end is certain and emphatic without being aggrandized in any way – here it was what Sir Edward Elgar would have called a triumph for “the man of stern reality”, as he described the conclusion of his “Falstaff”. But for the curious want of real thrust and intensity in places in the slow movement, as well as occasional edginess of intonation on single notes in passage work, I would want to call this performance of Op.132 a truly great one. It was certainly, in the context of the whole concert, a memorable listening experience.

NZSO National Youth Orchestra 2014 tackles showpieces with a will

Posted on by Peter Mechen

New Zealand Symphony Orchestra presents:
NZSO NATIONAL YOUTH ORCHESTRA 2014

Conductor: Alexander Shelley
Assistant Conductor: Gemma New
NYO Composer-In-Residence 2014: Sarah Ballard

RICHARD STRAUSS – Don Juan Op.20
SARAH BALLARD – Synergos (World Premiere)
RICHARD STRAUSS – Also Sprach Zarathustra Op.30

Michael Fowler Centre, Wellington, Friday 18th July

ASB Theatre, Auckland, Saturday 19th July

This year the NZSO National Youth Orchestra is fifty-five years young – it’s a Gilbertian kind of paradox that the orchestra seems, with each passing season, just as youthful, energetic, enthusiastic and capable as ever!  Here on Friday evening last week were some of New Zealand’s finest young musicians brought together in the time-honoured manner for a short rehearsal period, before shaping up for their first concert in Wellington’s Michael Fowler Centre. With two famously brilliant late-romantic orchestral showpieces on the programme plus a newly-conmmissioned work by the orchestra’s composer-in-residence Sarah Ballard, the concert was set to be something of a blockbuster.

Things couldn’t have gotten away to a more thrilling beginning with the opening of Richard Strauss’s symphonic poem Don Juan, the first of the two pieces commemorating the composer’s two-hundredth birthday this year. British conductor Alexander Shelley didn’t “spare the horses”, getting from the young players oceans of vigour, colour and red-blooded commitment in realising the music’s infectious excitement and sheer bravado – impressive stuff from a twenty-four year-old composer! Romantic feeling there was a-plenty as well, with several superb solos delivered from within the opulent orchestra textures, solo violin and winds covering themselves with glory.

I wasn’t altogether surprised by the playing’s brilliant and whole-hearted qualities, having attended a number of concerts from recent years given by the orchestra, and invariably being knocked sideways on these occasions by the sheer impact of the music-making’s elan and range of expression. The 2009 performance of Mahler’s Seventh Symphony, for example, remains for me an unforgettable occasion, the performance as thrilling as I’d ever previously encountered of that work, either “live” or on disc, one most fittingly marking the orchestra’s fiftieth birthday.

But this concert seemed to me to present just as challenging a prospect in a different way – from a listener’s point of view these two Strauss works appear to demand just as much brilliance and energy as does any Mahler Symphony, or orchestral work by Bartok or Debussy, but along with an additional degree of tonal weight and depth that “goes with the territory”. More so than with the other composers mentioned, Strauss’s works are, perhaps along with Scriabin’s, the most sumptuously-orchestrated of his era, requiring players to generously pour forth their tonal resources, and frequently occasioning the command “all you have!” from conductors.

I wasn’t worried by a couple of momentary ensemble spills that accompanied the thrills throughout the concert – but I was concerned that these youthful players would be able to summon up enough breadth and depth of sound to put across the sheer physical impact of this music. It wasn’t so crucial during Don Juan, whose music has for much of the time a volatile, quicksilver urgency that relies on brilliance as much as, if not more than, weight. As I’ve said, these players, guided by Alexander Shelley, threw themselves into the fray and realized all the music’s glittering energy with great elan.

Among those who acquitted themselves splendidly were clarinettist David McGregor and oboist Thomas Hutchinson – the latter in particular made a beautiful thing of his famous solo in Don Juan depicting ‘the red-headed woman, Donna Elvira”, an embodiment of the “Ideal Feminine”, making the Don’s frenetic drive towards a kind of fulfillment seem even more precipitous and his decline and death more shocking – here properly and chillingly realized!

A different kettle of fish was Also Sprach Zarathustra (“Thus spake Zarathustra”), Strauss’s response in orchestral terms to the thoughts and philosophies of Friedrich Nietzsche. A more epic, and longer-breathed work, its textures every now and then pointed to the orchestra’s relative lack of both size and tonal resource. Perhaps the long string-melody soon after the very beginning of the work most obviously illustrated this shortcoming – the first few measures were beautifully negotiated by the solo strings, but the relative smallness of the sound of the full section thereafter stressed a need for more tonal weight and vibrancy.

Happily, these few moments were outweighed by the impact of the playing of the more vigorous passages in the score. The famous opening came off splendidly – despite there being no pipe organ at hand  in the MFC (whomever it may concern, please note the “veiled” reference here to the need for restoring the Wellington Town Hall to circulation as quickly as possible!) Conductor Alexander Shelley kept things moving, allowing timpanist Sam Rich his wonderful moment of glory, while not pressing too hard on trumpeter Matthew Stein and the other brass players, who helped bring off a magnificent musical sunrise. Another heartening and joyous sequence was that of the Dance Song, solo violinist Jonathan Tanner leading the dance with easeful charm (some particularly lovely individual notes from his instrument!) and infectious gaiety.

So, the Strauss works can be said to justly represent another musical landmark in the orchestra’s distinguished history. But what of the concert’s new work, the “world premiere” of Synergos, written by the orchestra’s 2014 composer-in-residence, Sarah Ballard? The short response is that I and my various cohorts at the concert thought the work a brilliant display of descriptive orchestral writing, employing instrumental timbres and colourings to stunning effect. One friend (an experienced concert-goer) went so far as to admit to me that he was prepared to patiently “sit through” the work as a way of getting back to the “real” music afterwards – but to his surprise he enjoyed Sarah Ballard’s finely-crafted collection of orchestral “noises” much more than he thought he would.

This twelve-minute work achieved a great deal in a short time, being a kind of three-part exploration of instrumental timbres and tonal hues associated with each of two colours, red and gold, and of their eventual “synergos” or coming together. I thought the opening of the work extremely kinetic, and very “edgy” as regards the instrumental extremes of timbre and tone being employed. The opening sequences were arresting – scintillations of percussion, strings playing right at the “edge” of their tone, heavy brass growling, winds in a ferment, cackling like witches – a bedlam-like orchestral canvas! Being not particularly colour-oriented in my own thinking, I found myself inclined to characterize what I heard so far as being of a vibrant, active quality – by instinct seeking and forming a “behavioural” more than an “appearance” description.

By contrast I thought the second part of the work had a more open, broader-browed manner, the string-tones seeming to resonate or widen to reveal spacious aspects, the wind notes burning like stars in the ambient firmament, the harp-notes sprinkling showers of gently-scintillated warmth. The figurations sounded at ease with themselves, ready to cohere with whatever timbres or colours might be thus activated – the effect wasn’t unlike the ambience surrounding one of those huge, slowly-revolving reflector-spheres which collect and configure as much as reflect and scintillate.

So the opening scenario drew from the composer’s set of responses to red, or, as she called it “Alizarin”, while this latter sequence explored the contrasting effects of considering gold, or “Aurum”. My younger companion at the concert was delighted at being able to recognize the contrasting features of the two “colours” (she afterwards admitted to being attuned to colour in music, and was thus receptive to what Sarah Ballard’s work was exploring). What I found fascinating was what then followed – the amalgamation of the two parts, the synergos of the piece’s title.

Individual lines, figurations, punctuations and impulses began to push their way through, up and out of the textures, the breathy, toneless brasses awakening the winds, and finding their own voices, the two different ”waves” of occupancy eyeing, shouldering and pushing one another around a bit at first, displaying the prerequisite “attitude” as part of the synergistic process, before finding their places in the new order of things. I was left with a feeling of awe at the work’s conclusion, as if I’d been of some kind of journey which defined the nature of my own temporality in the face of the timelessness evoked by the tinkling glockenspiel at the piece’s end.

Very great credit to composer and conductor and musicians for a remarkable quarter-hour’s music, one which added to the overall enjoyment and fascination of 2014’s distinctive NZSO NYO occasion.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dalecarlia Quintet in a third and different programme in Greater Wellington

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Wellington Chamber Music Trust
Dalecarlia Clarinet Quintet (Anna McGregor, clarinet; Sofie Sunnerstam, violin; Manu Berkeljon, violin; Anders Norén, viola; Tomas Blanch, cello)

Anthony Ritchie:  Purakaunui at Dawn (2014)
Ross Harris: Fjärran (2012)
Brahms: Clarinet Quintet in B minor, Op.115

St. Andrew’s on The Terrace

Sunday, 13 July 2014, 3.00pm

Two New Zealanders resident in Sweden and three Swedes made up the unusual complement of this quintet, come together pretty recently to replace the programmed Antithesis Quintet.

Before we could assess whether this had any effect on the quality of performance, we were treated to a prologue from the Glazunov Quartet, made up of four young people from Hutt Valley schools, who were runners-up in the Wellington Regional final for the New Zealand Community Trust Schools Chamber Music Contest.  These fine young performers (two girls and two boys) played two of the eponymous composer’s ‘Five Novelettes’.

The first was slow and meditative, while the mood of the second was fast and spirited, very rhythmic, featuring pizzicato, but then reverting to the modal tonality and themes of the first piece.  The playing was cohesive, warm, and yet sad.  The players exhibited good tone and balance. There were a few aberrations of intonation and attack, but nevertheless, the performance was very fine.  I was particularly struck by the splendid viola player.  Variations of dynamics were executed confidently and well.  These young people have a bright future ahead of them if they choose to continue with music, and chamber music’s future is in good hands.

Anthony Ritchie’s work was commissioned for this tour.  It describes dawn at Purakaunui, a seaside village near Dunedin and was most effective, especially for the clarinet; the strings were sotto voce much of the time.  It was an evocative and pleasing short work, the clarinet in splendid form playing the part of a bellbird.

Ross Harris’s work, whose title means ‘something far away, elusive, to be understood only in fragments’ was a little more problematic.  The very fact that the musical fragments were not connected made the work so elusive and apparently without shape or structure that it made me think of Yeats’s words “…the centre cannot hold…”.  The composer explained before
the players began that the work used the opening bar from the Brahms quintet.  This link seemed to survive only briefly.

The opening featured lots of disconnected melodic fragments, and plenty of prominence was given to the clarinet, which was beautifully played by Anna McGregor.  The work was much more sombre than Ritchie’s, and more angular, but exploited the agility of the clarinet.  As with much music (not only contemporary), one would need to hear it more than once to fully appreciate it.  It was played with commitment, and absolute rapport between the players.  The tempo was slow in the main, but there were a few quick sections.

There were many interesting phrases and passages, but it was hard to get an idea of structure, or where the music was going.
I felt that the piece was rather too long; the lack of tonal security and structural shape palled for me.  A loud section preceded the pianissimo ending.

What immediately struck me at the opening of Brahms’s wonderful quintet was that this was a performance in which each part could be clearly heard.  The smaller venue than that to which we have been accustomed made this truly chamber music. The delicious harmonic twists had full impact in St. Andrew’s.

Although this is a familiar work, the performance was never predictable; nuances passed between the players, and the gorgeous tone of the clarinet was produced with much subtlety – indeed, this factor was true of the other instruments too.

The opening allegro was robust and spirited, and, in the words of the programme note, was ‘notable for its blending of the instrumental sounds’.  The adagio was rendered in a somewhat more solemn manner than I have sometimes heard it; i.e. slower, and with much delicacy.

The andantino was joyful and sparkling, while in the finale, drama interspersed the beautifully modulated quieter variations
Piquancy gave way to the final variation’s haunting nature, the mood built up by subtly varying dynamics.

Considering that the group have only been together as a chamber music ensemble for  a short time, the blend and unanimity were most commendable.  The audience showed high appreciation at the end of the concert.