Tag: New Zealand music

NZ Trio at the City Art Gallery with the typically multifaceted programme

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

NZ Trio (Justine Cormack – violin, Ashley Brown – cello, Sarah Watkins – piano)

Stuart Greenbaum: 800 Million Heartbeats
Samuel Holloway: Stapes (2005)
John Psathas: Corybas (2012)
Anton Arensky: Piano Trio in D minor, Op 32

City Gallery Wellington

Tuesday 27 August, 7pm

Against the background of Shane Cotton’s huge canvases depicting Maori heads and related images, the NZ Trio projected a distinctly more civilized impression. The lighting was vivid white, like the walls, and the air-conditioning, offering a hush that not inappropriately suggested a calm sea voyage, here, in one of the world’s most climatically dramatic capitals.

But the opening piece, by 47-year-old Australian Stuart Greenbaum, spoke nothing of the elements, nothing of the fractionated style of the new avant-garde (which was more emphatically represented by Samuel Holloway’s piece that followed). The title is taken from the notion that life can be measured by heartbeats; a normal life would be accompanied by far more than 800 million heartbeats, perhaps four times as many, but the composer remarks than the ‘actual figure is only nominal’; perhaps ‘artbitrary’ would be a better word.

It opened with quiet, rolling arpeggios on the piano, becoming a steady, quiet ostinato, varied as pianist Sarah Watkins, occasionally leaning into the piano, passed her fingers softly across the piano strings. Violin and cello added faster figurations but did not disturb the basic tempo. The music is unassertive, and gently romantic in character. Listening to music that is new to me, influences usually suggest themselves. The first to occur to me was fellow Australian Ross Edwards, whose humanly lyrical music is attractive and embracing; then there’s American George Rochberg who exiled himself from the then orthodoxy with his rejection of the avant-garde; and various minimalist composers such as the Latvian Georgs Pelecis whose Nevertheless is no doubt somewhat scorned by those of a more rigorous turn of mind.

There was a slow increase of intensity but not of tempo, assisted by canonic treatment, as a modest climax emerged. The trio has just laid down a recording of several of Greenbaum’s pieces, including this one.

Rather more challenging for players and audience was Samuel Holloway’s Stapes. Again, the programme note elucidates: ‘The Stapes (stirrup) is the smallest in the chain of three bones that transmit vibrations from the eardrum to the internal ear’. And it goes on to explain that ‘the players work both together and against each other, in individual and collective struggles for articulacy’.

Thus the sounds are inchoate pizzicati, rumbling tremolo in the piano, whispy harmonics and slithering glissandi that deal in microtones. There’s a ferocious, out-of-control triple forte that sounds like bees swarming; instruments get in each-other’s way, some kind of simulation of what might happen in the ear as chaotic sound gets sense imposed on its journey through the ear’s machinery.

But take away the programme, I wondered, and how does the music rate?  A great deal of today’s music seeks out esoteric concepts, images: non-musical things that might have sounds grafted on to them, but do they please, delight, satisfy through sounds that human beings of today? Even with the varied backgrounds that inform musical experiences of an era when more music of all sorts can be heard every hour of every day that before in history.

While admiring its imaginative sounds and the structures, often with some difficulty, I risk writing what I deplore in others – that further hearings might bring rewards, as I implied in my review of Holloway’s quartet played in Chamber Music New Zealand’s Einstein’s Universe concert in July.

The source of Psathas’s year-old Corybas lies closer to the sort of story or image that the average, reasonably experienced and broadminded musical listener can grasp. The fact that the rhythm was eleven beats to the bar was really of esoteric interest, as fitful attempts to count tended, at least for me, to hear a series of shorter, either three or four beats each. The more interesting and expressive aspect was the varied rhythms, hinting incongruously at tango (it’s based on Greek myth).

Psathas is fortunate in being able to draw on a mythology that was fairly familiar to the moderately well-educated till around the 1960s when the exposure of children to the classical languages, to English and other literatures, began to be banished from school curricula. So that references such as Psathas makes to Jason (Ioson) and Cybele demand recourse to Wikipedia just as most other historical references now do.

However, the music stands on its own feet without any background. It’s arresting and infectious, there are melodies that invite themselves into the musical compendium of the mind. The way the three instruments share the ideas is interesting and allow of being followed, and in often novel ways, a degree of excitement builds up: strings take a turn at handing a syncopated melody while the piano persists with repeated chords that don’t change or accelerate but rise to a pitch and then drops satisfyingly to end with a scrap of an earlier phrase.

Arensky’s well-known Piano Trio was one of the popular pieces played by the short-lived but gifted Turnovsky Trio in the 1990s.  It remains one of the few substantial works by Arensky that is much played. It was popular with the Turnovsky Trio for the same reason, I guess, that the NZ Trio likes to programme it. Melodic, well-made, it finds a way to communicate emotion, here in the form of an elegy in memory of a cellist friend, Karl Davidov (whom Tchaikovsky called the ‘tsar of cellists’. His Stradivarius cello was later owned by Jacqueline du Pré and now by Yo Yo Ma).

The trio played it with unusual power, the cello vibrant with feeling, the violin driving hard, and the piano sustaining a legato and coherent foundation as well as making pungent exclamations. Though this is an example of the arch-romantic in music, an abstract intellectualism was never far away; and this was the sort of performance that lifts a work not of the masterpiece class to a level that demands attention as a serious postulant at the highest of Dante’s circles.

 

NZSM tutors as composers and performers

Posted on by Alan Wells

PREMIERES CONCERT

Works written for New Zealand School of Music Staff

Stephan Prock: Stradivariazioni
Ross Harris: Sunt lacrimae rerum
Martin Riseley: Intermezzo for Lenny
Ross Harris: Three Sandcastle Songs / Shtiklekh

Adam Concert Room, NZSM

Friday, 23 August 2013

The New Zealand School of Music’s last lunchtime concert before the mid-semester break was a recital by NZSM staff members of works especially written for them by current and previous VUW and NZSM staff members.

Stephan Prock teaches composition at the School. His Stradivariazioni was commissioned by Martin Riseley and Diedre Irons for a 2011 Chamber Music New Zealand tour. In effect a suite of six movements, the initial themes (based on musical ciphers) were subjected to five variations, each bearing the name of a Stradivari violin. Le Rossignol (“The Nightingale”) was a contemplative nocturne, with bird-like turns and trills. Firebird was appropriately Stravinskyan. Le Messie (“The Messiah”), named after an instrument that was kept hidden and never seen (and now in a museum, still unplayed), began with a slow introduction, rich in open-pedal resonance, on Irons’s piano. Riseley took up his violin as if to play, then put it down again, and again, and again, tantalising us -will he play? Won’t he? (Did he? I’m not telling!)

Unlike the previous variations, the last two, Red Diamond and Alard, were run together without a break, which was somewhat disconcerting. This finale segment was attacked with great gusto, Riseley straining to get the most from his instrument.

Prock’s genial style here could easily have been that of the nineteenth century. Martin Riseley’s, in his Intermezzo for Lenny (from a violin sonata), was that of the twentieth, with hints of jazz in its witty phrases (a tribute to Leonard Bernstein). It was characterised by lean counterpoint between Riseley’s violin and Jian Liu’s piano, and built up to a strong, late climax.

Ross Harris’s musical language, though of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, seemed timeless in the 2013 Sunt lacrimae rerum. As with many of Harris’s other compositions, it was inspired by tragedy (the Virgil quote, “There are tears in things”, was found in a book on the Holocaust). Inbal Megiddo captured the sense of lament in the falling phrases of the long cello introduction, before Jian Liu added a spare counterpoint on piano. It built, hesitantly, towards a sub-climax before subsiding with a sigh to a bare piano line, the cello silent. This would have made a poignant ending, if it were the end of a shorter piece. This, however, was to prove something more substantial, leading on the a scherzo section with a fortissimo climax before returning, with assured pacing, to cello cantillation and an exquisite high harmonic on which to end.

Like Sunt…, Harris’s Shtiklekh gave the impression of several movements compressed into one, this time celebratory rather than sombre, as rollicking foot-stomping sections were interspersed with more pensive passages. Performed with great aplomb by the trio Galvanised, it was informed by Harris’s experience playing in a Klezmer band. Debbie Rawson’s earthy, pitch-bending soprano sax deputised for the Klezmer clarinet, amplifying Rebecca Steele’s introductory flute line, while Diedre Irons on piano had an almost Satiesque ‘Gymnopedie” moment.

The Three Sandcastle Songs set poems by the Nelson-based Panni Palasti, whose memories of wartime Budapest provided the texts that formed the heart of Harris’s Fifth Symphony (premiered in Auckland in August, and broadcast by Radio New Zealand Concert). These poems spoke of calmer times, of living in Kororareka (Russell) after she had emigrated to New Zealand. The songs were fresh, and sung by a seasoned and sensitive interpreter of Harris’s vocal music (notably The Floating Bride…), Jenny Wollerman.

The first song, Invitation (“Come with me/to the edge of the sea”) flowed and tripped along until it slowed to its elegiac conclusion (“the dead may know what we can’t guess”). The second, Manifesto, featured arpeggios and some discreet word-illustration (“the mad swirl/of deranged particles”) on Jian Liu’s piano. The third, Kororareka Ruins , was more declamatory, and I wondered why it was not placed between the two more melodious songs for the sake of balance and contrast. In Palasti’s book Taxi! Taxi! (Maitai River Press, 2008), the poems appear in the order in which they were performed, but that would not seem to be a compelling reason to keep them that way. Perhaps Harris (who has written some very dark compositions, such as Contra Music and As if there were no God) wanted to leave us with the image of “a cobweb/so ancient/it won’t catch a thing again”, rather than Manifesto’s “surge towards infinity” and the hint of transcendence that ends the Fifth Symphony.

 

 

Electric music and music-theatre – Nicholas Isherwood

Posted on by Alan Wells

THE ELECTRIC VOICE

Nicholas Isherwood (voice), Michael Norris (sound diffusion)

Isaac Schankler: Mouthfeel / Lissa Meridan: shafts of shadow
Jean-Claude Risset: Otro / Michael Norris: Deep Field
Karlheinz Stockhausen: Capricorn

Adam Concert Room

Thursday, 21 August 2013, 7.30 pm

The Adam Concert Room darkens. Electronic sound wells up like a rushing wind. After several minutes, a tall, gaunt figure mounts a platform at the back. The lights fade up to reveal the futuristically silver-clad spaceman from the Dog Star.

So began Stockhausen’s Capricorn, an adapted segment of his longer work SIRIUS. Low electronic sounds underlying Nicholas Isherwood’s voice gradually rose in pitch over the half-hour (or so) of the piece, with a few exceptions, such as when the bass frequencies returned, heavily amplified (perhaps over amplified) to eclipse the voice at the point of climax. Near the end, a hauntingly naïve tune emerged out of the abstract texture, and Isherwood produced ethereal vocal harmonics (especially written for him by Stockhausen).

In 2009, Isherwood had performed Havona, part of Stockhausen’s last composition, in the same venue. Again, incongruously, I was reminded of Harry Partch. In Havona, it was chintzy synth-sounds that suggested the Partch chromelodion. In the mid-period Capricorn, it was the stylised poses (futuristic here, rather than antique) assumed by the actor-singer.

Isherwood has worked with Stockhausen, and with an impressive list of other 20th and 21st century composers, including Iannis Xenakis, whose La Deesse Athena (“The Goddess Athena”) and Kassandra, he will be performing with Stroma in their “Goddess and Storyteller” concert on Sunday (1 September 2013, VUW Hunter Council Chamber, at 4 pm). Isherwood is also the author of the forthcoming The Techniques of Singing, chapters of which will cover (among other things) extended vocal techniques, and the twelve-odd gradations between the whisper and the scream (yes, he can do them all!).

The first half of the concert consisted of world premieres of four of the six pieces for voice and electronics, that will make up The Electric Voice (the remaining two, I understand, have not yet been completed). As programmes had run out when I arrived (more had been printed by half time), I listened to the first half “blind”, knowing only that there were two New Zealand works (by Michael Norris and Lissa Meridan), and two by unfamiliar international composers (and I had no idea of the order).

The first piece was a tour de force of Isherwood’s extended techniques, such as mouth-sounds, isolated abstract phonemes, deconstructed words (“prrrrroduct”), along with the occasional vocalise. I thought: Swedish sound-text poets, Bob Cobbing, Ernst Jandl, and other sound poets, and Berio’s treatment of e. e. cummings’ poems in Circles. I thought it was not New Zealand, and I was right. Mouthfeel, by US composer Isaac Schankler, was a sort of anti-advertisement for a brand of taco.

The second composition also had something of sound poetry about it, but here there was more vowel content, and some beautiful falsetto singing that was chorused through the electronics. I thought that this, too, was not New Zealand, but I was wrong. It was Lissa Meridan’s shafts of shadow, in which the singer listened to a track through headphones and translated what he heard, vocally.

The third piece made extensive (and effective) use of panning the sound around the loudspeaker array. I thought this might have been Meridan: the bell-like chimes near the beginning reminded me of the gamelan, which Meridan would have heard when she was director of the NZSM Electronic Music Studio, and the French words could have resulted from her now living in France. But no, it was Otre by international composer Jean-Claude Risset (the only piece in this Electric Voice group not a full premiere, apparently being a version of a previous composition).

The fourth work impressed me immediately, even without my knowing that it was by Michael Norris. Deep Field I sets ancient and historical astronomy texts, with Isherwood’s voice weaving freely over sustained, elongated syllables in the live electronic part. The effect is reminiscent of the twelfth century free organum of Leonin, that moment in history when western music stood poised to develop as a single melodic line of rhythmic suppleness and intonational subtlety, over slowly changing drone notes (akin to, although still different from, middle-eastern and Indian classical music). Then Leonin’s successor Perotin added the third voice, setting western music on its path to the forty-part motet and the Symphony of a Thousand.

 

Stroma, with percussionist Claire Edwardes

Posted on by Alan Wells

STROMA presents Event Horizon

Stroma, conducted by Hamish McKeich, with Claire Edwardes (percussion)

Alison Isadora: Cornish Pasty / Gyorgy Ligeti: Continuum
Jeroen Speak: Musik fur witwen, jungfrauen und unschuldige
Gerard Brophy: Coil / Steven Mackey: Micro-concerto

Ilott Concert Chamber

Thursday, 1 August 2013

Stroma’s recent concert featured works by two expatriate New Zealand composers, Jeroen Speak and Alison Isadora, both past graduates of Victoria University.

Speak, based in England, is currently in the country with his partner, Dorothy Ker, who holds the 2013-14 Lilburn House residency (Ker’s own […and…11] is scheduled for performance by Stroma at its next concert on 1 September). This August concert, Event Horizon, was named after Speak’s mini-concerto for piano and three percussionists, which in its turn was inspired by the stark paintings of Wang pan Yuan, Taiwan’s “prince of loneliness”.  As it happened, due to an insufficiency of percussionists, the eponymous work disappeared over a different event horizon – like that surrounding a black hole. In its stead, we had another composition by Speak, Musik fur witwen, jungfrauen und unschuldige (“Music for widows, virgins and innocents”, 2005) which had previously been premiered by Stroma. This proved to be a music of quietly intense, fleeting gestures (punctuated by side-drum strokes played by harpist Ingrid Bauer and violist Peter Barber), that gradually developed a sense of direction as repeated phrases hinted at an emerging underlying pulse.

Speak’s enigmatic title was drawn from that of an earlier composition, developed from a chant by Abbess Hildegard. The name of Netherlands-based Alison Isadora’s Cornish Pasty (2010) was similarly opaque (the programme note described the food, but not the music). The piece began with a starburst of sound, with tremolandos from Emma Sayers’ piano, Nick Granville’s electric guitar, and Steve Bremner’s vibraphone, creating a moving sound-object, through which melodies emerged from Rueben Chin’s and Hayden Sinclair’s soprano and tenor saxophones. Almost unrelentingly dense (in marked contrast to the sparseness of Musik fur witwen…), this composition, too, had a sense of direction and satisfying shape, gradually slowing down and thinning out after some interjections from Dave Bremner’s trombone, evolving from a texture-based piece to a predominantly rhythm-based piece.

I thought I detected some similarities here with Dutch composer Louis Andriessen (whose Zilver was performed in 2010 by SMP Ensemble under visiting conductor Lucas Vis), and also with some elements of minimalism. Continuum (1968) might have been Gyorgy Ligeti’s study in minimalism. This pulsating texture of trills and tremolandos has been played in Wellington, in its original harpsichord version, by Donald Nicolson.  Stroma’s “stereo” arrangement for marimba and vibraphone (impeccably realised by Claire Edwardes and Thomas Gulborg) had the odd (and enchanting) effect, for me, of  being “music in the head” (like the South American difference-tone flutes, demonstrated by Alejandro Iglesias-Rossi). Also affecting – and surprising – were the sustained, singing tones that were elicited from these percussive instruments.

Featured star, Claire Edwardes, performed solo in fellow Australian Gerard Brophy’s 1996 Coil, its dynamic contrasts and short, lively phrases demanding virtuoso control of the vibraphone’s pedal for both sustain and staccato effects.

American Steve Mackey’s Micro-concerto (1999) saw Edwardes take up small, hand-held instruments (such as claves, guiro, and whistle) along with the more conventional drums and vibes, for a five movement concert piece with small ensemble. The fourth movement, a warm-toned duo for Edwardes’ marimba and Rowan Prior’s cello, was especially enjoyable. The more vernacular-friendly style of both Mackey and Brophy made for a satisfying balance with the adventurous works in the first half.

Stroma’s next concert (Sunday, 1 September, 4pm, VUW Hunter Council Chamber) will feature (along with the Dorothy Ker, and former NZ resident Gao Ping), the versatile bass-baritone (and actor) Nicholas Isherwood. Last here in 2009, he performed then Stockhausen’s Havona (with electronics), and Sciarrino’s Quaderno di Strada (with Stroma). Both compositions had the uncompromising severity of late works: one was, the other not (thankfully, Signor Sciarrino is still with us). On 1 September, in “Goddess and Storyteller”, Isherwood will be performing in two dramatic vocal works by Iannis Xenakis.

Beauty and truth from Amici at Waikanae

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Waikanae Music Society 35th Anniversary Concert

Amici Ensemble (Donald Armstrong, Cristina Vaszilcsin, violins; Julia Joyce, Andrew Thomson, violas; Rowan Prior, Andrew Joyce, cellos; Hiroshi Ikematsu, double bass; Kirsten Simpson, piano)

Mozart: Grande Sestetto Concertante in E flat, K.364 (allegro maestoso, andante, presto)

Christopher Blake: Māramatanga (Rangiātea, McNaught, Sisyphus)

R. Strauss: Metamorphosen

Waikanae Memorial Hall

7 July 2013

The Waikanae Music Society has formed a laudable habit of commissioning a new work to celebrate each of its fifth-ending anniversaries.  Jack Body and Kenneth Young have both had commissions; this time it was the turn of Christopher Blake.  Most laudable, too, is the length of time for which its committee members have served; President Helen Guthrie has been on the committee for 29 years!

The programme began with Mozart, the work not under its original title Sinfonia Concertante or in its familiar setting for violin, viola and orchestra, but for string sextet of two violins, two violas, cello and bass.  Directed from the first violin desk by Donald Armstrong, convenor of the group, it certainly sounded different in this combination.  The arrangement by an unknown hand was extremely skilled, giving melodies to all the instruments that in the full version were for violin and viola.

As Armstrong suggested in his opening remarks, the original work would have been played, under its original title Sinfonia Concertante, by a small orchestra in a venue much smaller than those typically used today.  I still missed the broader background sound of an orchestra, despite the superb solos; notably the excellent double bass solo from Hiroshi Ikematsu in the first movement, and the viola solo from Julia Joyce in the andante movement.

The beauty of form and melody were to the fore, as always with Mozart.  There were so many charming touches, some unexpected.  Each movement was full of transforming character.  Slight aberrations of intonation were perhaps more obvious in this configuration than they would be in that for which the music was originally written.

The programme note stated that Christopher Blake’s music for piano quintet was about the enlightenment of religious faith.  This was seen in the Maori context, the opening movement being named for the church at Otaki.  The second movement was named after a comet, and the third based on the philosophy of Camus, and on the Greek character condemned to push a rock uphill, forever.  The link between Maori and the Greek gods is surprisingly topical, given the recent repeat performance of John Psathas’s Orpheus in Rarohenga, and a very fine current exhibition at Pataka in Porirua, of Marian Maguire’s wonderful etchings and lithographs linking Maori and Greek characters, Titkowaru’s Dilemma.

The work began with strummed cello, becoming gradually louder.  The other strings joined in, some pizzicato with strings deliberately hitting the finger board.  The piano entered, and the movement became a string quartet with shimmering piano in the background.  The piano followed up with a sombre, intoned melody while the strings played pizzicato again.  The movement ended as it began, with the cello.

The opening unison of the second movement perhaps suggested the open night sky; its crescendo sounded like a planet rising.  Other-worldly sounds continued.  Interlocution from the piano built up to passionate outbursts, then a mellow, muted section followed.  Meanderings by all the instruments ended the movement.

The third movement, reflecting the bleak philosophy of Frenchman Albert Camus had a gloomy tone, overall.  In places it was confused and hectic, with elements of a different, more positive attitude in a skipping piano part.  After this, the rapidly repeated, almost tremolando phrases of the strings had a pessimistic slant, and their angular melodies brought a dismal mood that the piano then joined in.  There were some gorgeous harmonies for the strings, before a declamatory ending.

Māramatanga means enlightenment; this exploration of some of its aspects certainly justified another hearing, at which one would hope to be further enlightened by and about the music.

Metamorphosen is usually played by 23 strings, but this version for seven strings is apparently based on Strauss’s original sketches.  His mourning for the destruction of so many symbols of German culture during World War II is amply heard in the music; one hopes that he also looked to a metamorphosis from that shocking state to a better one.  He certainly had good reason to be gloomy, as he saw the destruction around him.

The music brought forth beautiful playing from each individual in the group.  The cadences, progressions and harmonies had highly emotional effects.  The work grows gradually and almost imperceptibly with a wonderful build-up of tension and gorgeous tone.  After a time it took on a more optimistic aspect, in the midst of restless searching, the while clothed in romantic beauty.

As compared with the Mozart work, Strauss made considerable use of a variety of dynamics, and depth of sound.  This was a powerful performance.  A beautiful viola solo with quiet accompaniment had me wondering – is it describing resignation or resolution?  The firm, even at times harsh passage that followed suggested rejection, not acceptance.

A return to more peaceful pastures was mellow, but turned to poignancy – and perhaps resignation at last.

A fine concert illustrated why it is that the Amici are frequent visitors to the Waikanae Music Society.  Their tackling of such a varied programme always had the ring of truth.

 

 

Old and new, far and near, from the New Zealand String Quartet

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Wellington Chamber Music Trust

Brahms: String quartet in A minor Op.51 no.2 (allegro non troppo; andante moderato; quasi minuetto, moderato – allegretto vivace; finale – allegro non assai – piu vivace)

Ross Harris: String quartet no.5 (Songs from Childhood)

Dvořák: String quartet no.12 in F, Op.96 ‘The American’ (allegro ma non troppo; lento; molto vivace; vivace ma non troppo)

New Zealand String Quartet

Ilott Theatre

Sunday, 23 June 2013

It was good to see ‘our own’ quartet back in the Sunday afternoon series, after an absence of several years.  Particularly, it was pleasing to see that Helene Pohl was able to play with all the fingers of her left hand, having now fully recovered from her accident in February.

As usual, members of the Quartet introduced the items in an informative manner, illustrating themes and passages on their instruments, especially prior to the opening work.  The thought emerged that perhaps Brahms’s self-criticism that caused the destruction of many of his works may not be something to be deplored; the sublime music of this quartet (one of the NZSQ’s favourites, said Rolf Gjelsten) is beyond compare, and something to be treasured.

Although Romantic, this quartet is not pure romanticism.  There is much attention to form and structure.  The long first movement is full of various shades of emotion and thought, sunny and serious by turns.

The slow movement is rich and sombre, with a wistful lilt.  As the programme note had it, it is like “a quiet conversation between the four instruments.”  This was particularly the case in its third section.  The third movement is very lyrical as well as dance-like, featuring both slow and fast dances.  Its long lines kept the music moving forward.

The finale was in great contrast to the earlier movements.  Despite its energy, it didn’t have as much to say as the earlier ones.  The entire work was played with flair and sensitivity.

Again, some explanation before the next item, this time from its composer, Ross Harris.  He questioned whether we remember childhood, or is it something we make up as memory?

He warned us that the players were not playing out of tune – the work commenced with some playing micro-tuned notes, against harmonics.  Later, a tui melody emerged, that developed into a canon.  Sometimes each instrument was doing different things from its fellows.  There was considerable use of the ponticello technique (bowing close to, or on the bridge; pont=bridge).  The music became somewhat frantic towards the end, and while much of the time it was true that ‘The use of continually shifting metre and micro-tuning imbue the work with a dreamlike floating quality, both fragile and illusive [elusive?]” as the composer’s programme note had it, it was not all like this – some passages were chunky, although others were ghostly, with little fragments of harmonics interspersed with pizzicato.

It was an intriguing work, one I would wish to hear again, to fully appreciate.  I heard generally appreciative comments afterwards.

Dvořák’s ‘American’ string quartet is one of my favourite works.  As the programme note said, “There is a sense of joy…”; I find this with all this composer’s music.  Even where, in the second movement, there is a sense of yearning for his home country, it is not an anxious or angry yearning.

The interweaving of the parts, especially in the passages of the first movement using the pentatonic scale – beginning with the beautiful opening on viola – was wonderful to hear.  The movement was played with fervour and empathy, and more dynamic contrast than I have sometimes heard in this work.

The slow movement was magically lovely, while the third, employing bird song (vide the Ross Harris work) was most enjoyable.  The finale also made use of the pentatonic scale.  It was thoughtful and melodic, but spirited to the end.

A new work, and two of the most brilliant from the late Romantic era made up a gorgeous programme, played with the intelligence, sublime finesse, perfect balance, and the musicality that we have come to expect from Helene Pohl, Douglas Beilman, Gillian Ansell and Rolf Gjelsten.

 

Antipodean stargazing and planetwatching from the NZSO

Posted on by Peter Mechen

The New Zealand Symphony Orchestra presents

MUSIC FOR MATARIKI

EVE DE CASTRO-ROBINSON – The Glittering Hosts of Heaven

GUSTAV HOLST – The Planets

New Zealand Symphony Orchestra

Pietari Inkinen (conductor)

Michael Fowler Centre, Wellington

Friday, 14th June, 2013

“Matariki” – the “eyes of god”, are said to be the stars belonging to a cluster (known elsewhere as the “Pleiades”) which were formed by the fierce God of the Winds, Tāwhirimātea, who tore his eyes out and threw them into the heavens in anger at the separation of his parents the Earth and Sky.

Somewhat less overtly savage is the account in Greek mythology of the seven daughters of Atlas, the Titan, who were pursued by the hunter, Orion, and saved (presumably from a fate worse than death) by Zeus who placed them in the sky. And, yes, there are seven stars, and in both of the mythologies quoted here, each star is given its own name and character.

Only after the concert did I go looking for these definitions and explanations – and I was both delighted and amazed by how these archetypal depictions and metaphorical interpretations of the particular stars in question seemed to particularly resonate with my memories of Eve de Castro-Robinson’s wonderful “Glittering Hosts” music, which was the first music we heard during the evening.

This work was a new commission by the orchestra, and I thought one that most successfully threw wide open its composer’s particular gifts of evocation, along with an ear for near-inexhaustible detail and an unerring sense of structure. De Castro-Robinson’s arresting story-like rhetorical gestures and vivid instrumental characterizations kept us transfixed, like some sultan of antiquity in thrall to his Scheherazade, as she related tales of wonder and excitement.

I liked how the piece began, not with far-away, nebulous murmurings divorcing us by dint of sheer distance from the firmament and its activities, but with in-the-face insistent, spiky, here-and-now happenings, the deep strings and percussion opening up the vistas only after we ourselves had become caught up with some of the scintillations. So, the vastness of the territory was indeed evoked, but so were its relative immediacies, with three of the seven instrumental soloists, flute, clarinet and trombone, drawing us into their opening interplay as part of the overhead galactic goings-on .

The piece seemed very “layered”, with frequent ostinati delineating patterns of orbital and rotating movement, bursts of shimmering detail evoking both individual and “clustered” stars, and more long-breathed lines (usually from the strings) suggesting the mystery of great distances. Details came and went more by osmosis than chance, leaving resonances in their wake, a cantabile figure from the solo ‘cello taken up by the strings, and a trombone solo sounding part-clarion-call part-lament. And across the larger picture, orchestral percussion gradually added their weight and colour to a kind of processional sequence which generated great warmth and colour, almost Straussian in its impact.

After this, the sounds deepened and darkened once again as though some kind of “event’ had occurred, leaving far-reaching resonances, and the soloists all gingered-up with impulse-gestures, angular figures bouncing between one another and different orchestral groups! The solo ‘cello, high in its register, brought forth a deep, double-bass and timpani response, as the flute “sounded breath” against a solo viola’s romantic inclinations, and the percussion trickled in strands of ambient warmth, taking little notice of the larger concerns of gleaming brass and scintillating winds.

The vastness of physical territory was matched by the piece’s far-flung moods – out of the sounds’ passive objectivity at the beginning gradually evolved what sounded to me like a baleful oppressiveness, challenging the solo violin’s lyrical warmth and generating energies throughout the orchestral textures which rose up in a kind of madness, the laughter chromatic in accent and mocking in tone, a kind of display of awesome power dwarfing any human aspiration. The solo trombone’s flatulent-textured comments gave ready rise to similarly pithy responses from among the other soloists, almost an “enter-the-clowns” scenario, one which both entertained and disturbed with its implications for we earthly mortals.

All of these interactions seemed to me in the overall grip of some wonderful kind of axial trajectory whose volatility of detail and surety of progress seemed to mirror, in a star-crossed way, human affairs on earth. I could fill paragraphs with minute-to-minute impressions of the journey taken by the music, but such an undertaking would be out of the scope (orbit?) of this review. Enough to say that the whole was rounded off by the seven soloists’ adroit dovetailing of their lines and fusing of their ever-waning tones and textures with those of the orchestral winds, into a deep silence at the end.

As homage to the splendour of the night skies, I found De Castro-Robinson’s work compelling and satisfying. While it may never challenge its companion concert piece this evening in the popularity stakes, it’s a work which, I think, will reward repeated hearings, and – what would be best of all to happen – a recording. Certainly it’s a handsome tribute by the composer to her “beloved parents”, one of whom (her father) was able to be present at the performance (I understand, somewhat hair-raisingly, after having his scheduled flight to Wellington cancelled earlier in the day!) – it was obviously “in the stars” that he was able to eventually make it!

Having had our terrestrial selves already somewhat borne aloft by contact with the “glittering hosts” of Matariki, we were more than ready for some closer-to-home interplanetary explorations in the form of Gustav Holst’s well-known seven-movement suite “The Planets”. Despite its great popularity, it’s an elusive piece, terribly difficult to get “right” all the way through, due to its wide-ranging moods and compositional styles over the seven parts, not to mention the sheer virtuoso instrumental demands upon the players. Surveys by commentators of recordings which have been made over the years haven’t turned up a single performance by one conductor and orchestra which is reckoned to have “nailed” the piece through and through – though,of course, the same could be said of many, many works, both on record and in concert.

So, how did Holst’s brilliant series of astrological character-studies come across here, throughout the evening? Generally, I felt that Pietari Inkinen and his players were happiest when the music took them to realms furthest from the heat of the sun (with the exception of Venus, more of which in a moment). In fact the final three movements were, I thought, superbly delivered, not least of all the composer’s own favorite movement, Saturn (the Bringer of Old Age), which was cold and unremitting at the outset, with the music’s growing disquiet built to a terrifying central climax (such scalp-pricking trumpets!), before slowly and inexorably turning the music’s despair to resignation and acceptance. Uranus (the Magician, and a favorite of mine) I thought a riot of colour, energy and scarily-directed impulse (the music should sound, as here, just as dangerous (baleful brass and shrieking winds!) as it does funny (galumphing timpani and wheezy contra-bassoon!).

And the enigmatic Neptune (the Mystic) demonstrated such endless reserves of sustained tonal control from all concerned (including the wordless off-stage choir), that we sat for what seemed almost like an age in eerie silence at the end, lost in our own wonderment at the spell cast by those beautifully-distant voices. Earlier in the suite , the cool, chaste, and determinedly virginal charms of Venus (the Bringer of Peace) were of course as much Holst’s doing as anybody’s – and this performance from Inkinen and his players was no exception, with peerlessly pure horn-playing from Samuel Jacobs and matching tones from the winds, as well as Vesa-Matti Leppanen’s violin and the rest of the strings (apart from a not-quite-true attack on their soft final chord, obviously difficult to achieve).

Interestingly, I found myself talking with an old friend at the concert’s interval (before the Holst work was played) – this was an extremely experienced concert-goer friend who enthusiastically praised Pietari Inkinen’s recent work with the orchestra (much of which he said I was heartily agreeing with!) – he then said something like “…and such elegant music-making! – never a vulgar or ill-conceived sound from the orchestra…”. Again I was able to agree, though as I was about to opinion that with some music, this conductor’s encouragement of elegant, and unfailingly mellifluous orchestral textures didn’t for me take some things in the music far enough, the “resuming-bell” sounded, and that was the end of the discussion.

So as I listened to each of the remaining pieces, I found myself recalling my friend’s words – Mars (the Bringer of War) was first up, with everything expertly played by the band, and including some wonderful individual moments – a big-boned, sonorous euphonium solo, for instance! – but the playing for me, though brilliant, didn’t really disturb or truly alarm. One of Holst’s own books on astrology had the following description of the planet: “Mars is cruel,has blood-red eyes and is prone to anger”. Here, it all seemed not quite brutal- or harsh-sounding enough – while at the opposite end of the emotional spectrum, I thought Jupiter (the Bringer of Jollity) lacked real humour and bucolic energy. In a sense, each characterization needed more sheer abandonment, towards ugliness in “Mars” and vulgarity in “Jupiter” – and this is probably the rub!

Finally, Mercury (the Winger Messenger) featured skilled, precisely-timed playing, but was it all mercurial enough? – was this the speed of thought? My own thought processes, perhaps – but then I’m a flat-footed, somewhat pedestrian thinker, lacking in true wit and real spark. There are wings on the feet of visual depictions of Mercury that l’ve encountered, but this performance’s sounds didn’t accord with those images in my head. Alas, Mercury here remained earth-bound!

So, in the fine old tradition of performances of this work, some of the planets on Friday evening shone more brightly than others. Those that really glowed did so most effulgently – and conductor, orchestra and choir can be especially and justly proud of that unforgettable moment at the end of Neptune’s performance when it seemed in the hall that the whole of the Universe had stopped for a few seconds just to listen to the music’s silences…..

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Orchestra of Swing, courtesy of “The Duke”

Posted on by Peter Mechen

Orchestra Wellington presents:

NIGHT CREATURE

GERSHWIN – An American in Paris

BERNSTEIN – Three Meditations from “Mass”

MARGETIC – Music for Wind, Brass and Percussion

ELLINGTON – Night Creature

Andrew Joyce (‘cello)

Mark Donlon (piano) / John Rae (drumset) / Miguel Arnedo-Gomez (bongos) / Patrick Bleakley (bass)

Marc Taddei (conductor)

Orchestra Wellington

Town Hall, Wellington

Sunday, 26th May 2013

The only clue I had to what we might be in for, during the course of the oncoming Orchestra Wellington’s concert with the overall name “Night Creature”, was George Gershwin’s An American in Paris, which I knew reasonably well.

I had not heard any of Leonard Bernstein’s “Mass” – though I remember reading a review of the composer’s own recording many years ago, one whose description of the work’s full-on theatrical, somewhat confrontational style put me off ever wanting to get to know it.  Such an attitude on my part was bound to catch up with me, sooner or later…..

Duke Ellington’s was a name I knew far better than his music – my Take the “A” train days of listening almost exclusively to swing I still recall with great pleasure, but of course Ellington’s was a creative spirit which explored realms far removed from swing. His three-movement suite Night Creature resulted from a 1955 commission by conductor Don Gillis and the Symphony of the Air (the old NBC Symphony), and used a quartet of saxophones and a jazz combo, emulating a kind of baroque concerto grosso arrangement – intriguing, to say the very least.

As for New Zealand-based composer Karlo Margetic, and the Bartok-like title of his new piece Music for wind, brass and percussion, I had heard some of his music before and remembered enjoying the experience, most recently a work for Piano Trio called Lightbox, premiered in 2012 by the NZ Trio.

So, the evening’s music promised a tantalizing assemblage, one whose parts I was determined I would give every chance to make a positive impression – even the Bernstein! In the event (thanks partly to the stellar playing of ‘cellist Andrew Joyce) Bernstein’s Three Meditations from “Mass” provided some of the most beautiful and heartfelt-sounding moments of the concert.

Having thought such dismissive thoughts about the piece I was pleased to find myself enjoying the music thoroughly. It all began with xylophone-like chimes, and an anguished, questioning ‘cello solo, the themes and ideas of the opening between the soloist, orchestra and organ. I was particularly taken with Andrew Joyce’s handling of the ‘cello’s beautifully rapt final utterances, even if the effect was all but spoilt by a persistent audience cougher.

The next piece’s opening was a slow and portentous pizzicato march, into which the orchestra joined, building the tensions with plenty of volatile excitement, aided and abetted by the organ at one scalp-pricking point! Through it all, the solo ‘cello kept an “eye of the hurricane” aspect, alongside menacing side-drum rolls and a final orchestral crash.

Straightaway, the drumbeat led into the final Presto, the soloist responding first with a disjointed cadenza-like recitative, and then taking up the drum’s dance-rhythm. I loved the cheery, angular folksiness of the dance, whose energies eventually gave way to the ‘cello’s taking up of a passionately romantic theme , supported beautifully by the orchestral strings. The “working-out” of these things reminded me in places of the composer’s “West Side Story” in its bitter-sweet, volatile mood. To finish, the ‘cellist played cadenza-like fragments imitating birdsong, as the percussion persisted with its “motto” rhythm in the background. Irrespective of the music’s wider context, I thought the work engaging and thought-provoking.

The concert had begun with music of quite a different mood, Gershwin’s An American in Paris, here thrillingly given what I can only describe as the “full” treatment by Marc Taddei and his players. From the start, the energies of the piece came at us in great and colourful waves, with brash auto-horns and whipped-up tempi at the climaxes. Played with such sharply-focused detailing the quieter interludes, when they came, made an enormous impact of withdrawal, the traveller’s sudden bouts of homesickness made all too heart-rending by the beautiful string- and wind-playing (Matthew Ross’s violin solo a bitter-sweet joy).

At first I thought the energetic bits needed a bit more “swagger” and point, and to rely less upon sheer speed of execution in places – but the trumpet-solo episode (superb!), counterpointed by the saxophone choirs, had such rhythmic “schwung”, such a delicious and infectious immediacy, that I capitulated, head-over heels, to it all from that moment onward! The orchestra strings played with plenty of stylish heart-on-sleeve emotion, matched by energetic wind and brass detailings which surged and flowed through the precincts of the Town Hall in grand fashion. It might have been a little too “over-the-top” for some people, but I loved it.

Again the trumpet-playing captured all the swagger of the rollicking theme which struck up in response to the solo violin’s chromatic angstings, inspiring the orchestral strings to respond in kind. At the end, the great restatement of the earlier trumpet theme by the full orchestra had more of a jazzy, spiky aspect than a “symphonic orchestral” one, a detail not lost upon the droll-voiced tuba with his brief concluding solo. In all, a terrific achievement!

Karlo Margetic, Orchestra Wellington’s Emerging Composer-in-Residence wanted to write a piece that contributed to the repertoire for wind and percussion ensemble, or as he put it in a pre-concert interview, “orchestra without strings”. As a clarinettist in various ensembles, Margetic would often enjoy first-hand the writing for winds within the framework of full orchestral pieces, and wonder why there wasn’t more stand-alone repertoire for the combination – “…such an amazing sonority!” he would think to himself – so he decided he would do something about it in the most practical possible way.

His work, Music for wind, brass and percussion, did surely and exactly what the title suggested it would do. Here were the unique sound-characteristics of the ensemble through its constituent parts and its combination of those parts, presumably as its composer imagined would happen. And it was surely no accident that the piece began with the sounds of clarinets weaving their lines throughout the textures, as the other instruments awaited their turn to try a folkish falling theme, despite the snarling aspect of the trombones, warning their fellows not to get too cocky with their new plaything too soon.

But to no avail – the theme became thoroughly energized through all this attention, and began arcing shreds of melody through the air like shooting stars,underpinned by crashes, explosions, and rolling timpani. Margetic certainly didn’t neglect his percussion, enabling it to glint and sparkle in places, roar and rattle in others, as this theme rolled around the stratospheric regions belonging to each instrument group. The panoply of sounds thus created made for a wonderful effect, both lyrical and dramatic, its melodic contouring not unlike the well-known thirteenth-century chant “Dies Irae”.

As the melody developed, the tensions around and about it receded, provoking a final ensemble-roar in passing, and leaving a muted voice whose tones had perhaps underlined the whole of the interaction – having done, it melted away along with the other resonances. On this showing, I thought the work a great success – coherent throughout, beautifully shaped and contoured, interestingly coloured (those “amazing sonorities”, no doubt!) and always suggesting spontaneity, however much was pre-ordained.

Conductor Marc Taddei belatedly talked to his audience before the orchestra began the final item of the concert, Duke Ellington’s Night Creature. Taddei wanted to draw people’s attention to the idea that classical music didn’t exist entirely of itself, but drew inspiration from popular music, and cited “The Duke” as an example of a musician who “thought across” categories as both a performer and composer. Apparently, Night Creature was written because its composer wanted to get a symphony orchestra to “swing”.

“Swing” it all most certainly did, the work launched by the jazz combo (piano, double-bass, drum-set, bongos) playing part of another Ellington-inspired work, music which “set the scene” for what followed, without a break. The first part of Night Creature was just as evocatively titled Blind Bug, the “nocturnal dance” scenario somewhat nightmarish, the textures dominated by the brasses and saxophones, with the strings providing a kind of atmospheric backdrop.

The following Stalking Monster had well-defined rhythmic trajectories set by low piano notes, winds and strings, the music droll, rolling-out and evocative. At the other end of the sound-spectrum were powerful toccata-like exchanges between brass and timpani, though these also joined in with the rhythmic drolleries, the muted brasses extremely characterful. Solos from both saxophone and trombone were an exciting feature, and even the strings got to do a bit of “funky” towards the movement’s end.

Finally Dazzling Creature stirred some glamour and sex into the mix, a depiction of the “Queen” of all the night creatures – a muted trumpet announced the erotic “charge” of her presence, strings delineated her seductive movements and the winds underlined her exoticism. Having established this “Mistress of a Modern-day Venusberg” and her thralldom over all, the music swung with the saxophones, and hit its straps with the brass choir. And, how the composer did enjoin us in his programme note on the music to relish his depiction of “the most overindulged form of up-and-outness”! I’m certain that “The Duke” would have been pleased had he been there – for all of us, players and listeners, it was “swing” with a vengeance.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wellington Youth Orchestra trumps with Shostakovich

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

WELLINGTON YOUTH ORCHESTRA PRESENTS:

John Psathas: Tarantismo (Wellington Première)

Rachmaninov: Excerpts from Aleko

Shostakovich: Symphony no.5 (moderato, allegretto, largo, allegro non troppo)

Wellington Youth Orchestra, conducted by Hamish McKeich, with Paul Whelan (bass-baritone)

Wellington Town Hall

Saturday 11 May 2013

A recent work by John Psathas, Tarantismo demonstrated again his considerable skill in orchestral writing, and his inventiveness.  The programme notes explained that the title refers to tarantism, the extreme desire to dance, that used to be attributed to the bite of the tarantula, but is named after the sea port in southern Italy.  From this tradition comes the dance, tarantella, a rapid, whirling dance.

The piece opened with tubular bells; soon there were brass melodies, particularly on the trombones.  The writing became briefly somewhat Mendelssohnian.  A large orchestra was required; numbers of ‘friends and guest players’, whose names were not listed, joined to support some sections.  I noticed three additional horns, the principal double bass and the principal violist from the NZSO.  There may have been others, notably in the percussion.  I noted, too, two players from the Quandrivium quartet that I heard perform two nights before. There was gorgeous harp playing from Michelle Velvin – and indeed throughout the concert.

Undulating phrases helped the work to build and build in both volume and tempo to complete was a very successful work, with something worthwhile for each player to do.

The surprise guest was brought to the platform for the second work, and turned out to be bass-baritone Paul Whelan, who had been performing the previous night with the NZSO and the Orpheus Choir in Psathas’s Orpheus in Rarohenga.

The music from Rachmaninov’s opera Aleko was completely unfamiliar to me, but most enjoyable.  The Introduction started with woodwind and then there was a big symphonic sound.  Throughout, there were delightful little solos for woodwind, and the harp again made a most distinguished contribution.

The second excerpt was a Cavatina for the bass-baritone.  Paul Whelan almost shocked us with his big sepulchral Russian voice.  Parts of his excerpt were ominous and menacing, the voice used superbly to obtain these effects.  There were some Tchaikovskian turns of musical phrase near the end – perhaps reminiscent of Onegin, since the character in Aleko was described in the programme notes as ‘a world-weary young man from a wealthy background…’  The instant applause at the end was well-deserved.  This was great singing.

The Men’s Dance was rumbunctious, the double basses getting a good workout at the beginning.  Their playing was very fine, as was the brass playing, with some lovely long-held pianissimos, and much for the percussion to do.  McKeich’s conducting gestures looked clear and always meaningful.  The orchestra made a great sound, and always played as a cohesive unit.  The music was very involving.

The best was yet to come.  The playing of the Shostakovich symphony was simply splendid. This, perhaps his best-known symphony, is full of power.  I would be glad to hear a professional orchestra play this work as well as the Wellington Youth Orchestra did, despite a few intonation flaws in the strings soon after the opening phrases.  The strings nevertheless played superbly, rendering the bleak atmosphere through beautifully controlled dynamics and phrasing.  Refined oboe playing was just part of the magical woodwind to be heard throughout.  An unnamed pianist made a robust contribution.

Some Mahlerian phrases could be heard, but much of the music is more abrasive than Mahler, and much more percussion is employed, including impressive timpani playing from, I believe, another guest player.

The rather disturbing opening theme is repeated in many different guises in this first movement.  A violin solo, full of pathos was beautifully played by leader Arna Morton.

Again in the second movement, the double basses got the initial passages.  The jolly (or mocking?) section that followed was full of joie de vivre – apparently.  Solo violin was again an outstanding feature, then flute had its time in the sun, and many others, including the contra-bassoon.  The pizzicato string passages accompanying some of these were absolutely spot on.  The conductor had the measure of the work, and the orchestra conveyed that.

Notable in the third movement were the horns in top form (acknowledging that not all were regular WYO players).  The music moved from the jolly to the sombre here.  After a marvellous harp and flute duet, there followed ominous passages, in which the strings really dug into their instruments, to produce full, rich tone, exquisitely nuanced.  The dramatic contrasts and extremes were most exciting.

The finale started with bang, bang brass, especially the tuba, and timpani, as they played an exciting dance.  The movement ran a whole gamut of senses and emotions.  The period of quietude seemed almost shocking after what had gone before.  The tension mounted as the military, in the shape of brass and side-drum, called; the strings endlessly repeated one note in unison until the climax, and the end.

All the music was chosen well, to give a range of solo passages for many of the players, and passages allowing other sections of the orchestra to shine.  It is hard to think of a symphony that provides more opportunities for woodwind solos than this one does.

The audience, if not large, was very attentive, and a partial standing ovation greeted the concert’s conclusion.  I left the hall on a ‘high’.  All credit to Hamish McKeich and the players.  The future of symphonic music in this country seems secure in these hands.

NZSO performs Hear and Far, but all contemporary, to warm reception

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

New Zealand Symphony Orchestra and the Orpheus Choir conducted by Tecwyn Evans.
Soloists: Jenny Wollerman, Richard Greager, Paul Whelan

John Adams: Harmonielehre;
John Psathas: Orpheus in Rarohenga

Wellington Town Hall

Friday 10 May, 6.30pm

[A review by a colleague did not materialize and this is based on my review that appeared in the Listener of 16 May. It could not be courteously published until that issue of the Listener had gone off sale. It is here somewhat changed and expanded]

Not long ago a concert of music written in recent decades, especially by a New Zealand composer, would probably have attracted a smallish audience. But things are changing.

The comfortably filled Town Hall at this concert of two pieces of music of the past 30 years was a moderate surprise.
Perhaps it’s a pointer to two linked phenomena: as in most other artistic spheres, more composers today realize that an attractive, accessible and well-made product is the only likely path to success; and it is to be observed that audiences respond accordingly.

(In this context I am bemused at the habit of publicizing a new piece of music by describing it as the ‘world premiere’, suggesting that concert promoters from Helsinki to Buenos Aires will be clamouring for performance rights. A more persuasive statement would be ‘second (or tenth) performance’).

Those elementary facts needed to be explained to neither of this evening’s composers.

John Adams’s Harmonielehre is written in open rejection of Schoenberg’s 12-tone system, yet he pays his respects to the great if misguided composer by using the title of his famous treatise urging that ages-old tonality, which evolved organically from ancient times, be replaced by an invented system.

Adam’s piece is a brilliant example of often maligned American style, of ‘minimalism’. It is music of energy, pulsing momentum, colour, yet with a dramatic shape that galvanised the audience for 40 minutes.   It starts with a throbbing outburst from brass and timpani; then marimba, xylophone, and the rest of the orchestra that includes two harps, two tubas, piano; electrical and mesmerizing, it accelerates, mutates rhythmically and generally maintains its hold on the audience.

Under Tecwyn Evans there was far more excitement than in the recorded versions I’ve heard (maybe that’s just the difference between live and recorded music). The middle of the first movement calms to a beautiful, if filmic lyricism, but recovers its opening motoric obsessiveness to the end. The middle movement, The Amfortas Wound, recalling Parsifal, relates to the creative block that Adams had experienced before writing this; more strings-led, a sort of neutral, trapped emotional state dominates. Part III resumes the throbbing rhythms but with light and calm, in tones that hint of Martinu or Nielsen; pulsating excitement returned, bringing boisterous applause.

I was intrigued to find recordings of the work on You-Tube were illustrated by abstract expressionist paintings by the likes of Rothko and Barnett Newman which, though minimal enough, hardly suggest the strong pulse that drives the music.

John Psathas’s oratorio Orpheus in Rarohenga seemed to yearn to be opera: I looked for visuals.

Accordingly, I also looked for surtitles for not all singers managed to produce the words with clarity. The programme booklet for the 2002 premiere performance, which had celebrated the Orpheus Choir’s 50th anniversary, printed the full libretto; but the notes here gave only a very generalized account of the story. Apart from the wonderful contributions of Richard Greager (Cook) and Paul Whelan (Orpheus), the words were largely inaccessible.  However, Mark Dorrell had trained the choir to sing with ardour and energy as well as clarity and precision, with very few flaws. Jenny Wollerman, singing the cross-cultural role of Venus (Cook’s observation of the Transit at Tahiti was another bit of the jig-saw; but we missed Mercury, whose transit Cook observed at The Coromandel Peninsula), was beautifully musical.

The text was by Auckland poet Robert Sullivan. It was often poetic and vivid, though it handled the widely spaced episodes without really creating a sense of time passing, from the first sighting New Zealand in 1769 to Cook’s death in Hawaii ten years later.

In a review for The Dominion Post in 2002 I wrote that I was not sure about the success of this combining Greek legend in a rather far-fetched association with Cook’s contact with Maori and the Hawaiians. For I could not avoid the feeling that Orpheus (whether god and choir) had been strong-armed into some sort of accord with Maori deities and an exploratory expedition some thousand years later.

I remain uncertain

The music however is powerful, exhibiting all Psathas’s orchestral virtuosity, melodic and rhythmic inventiveness; Evans led the large orchestra, organ, choir and soloists through this tough work with impressive finesse, accuracy and huge energy. There was spirited ovation.