Tag: New Zealand music

Vibrant Concerti Grossi old and new light up a refurbished Old St.Paul’s in Thorndon

Posted on by Peter Mechen

Baroque Music Community and Educational Trust of NZ, in partnership with
University of Canterbury Music presents:
NEW BAROQUE GENERATION
Concerti Grossi by M-A CHARPENTIER, TORELLI, VIVALDI, CORELLI, HANDEL and RAKUTO KURANO

Mark Menzies – Solo Violin / Tomas Hurnik – Solo ‘Cello
Ensemble of participants in Baroque Music Workshop 2021
Rakuto Kurano, Ashley Leng, Leo Liu, Henry Nicholson, Jack Tyler, Thomas Bedggood (violins)
Rebecca Harris (viola) / Daniel Ng (cello) / Frederick Bohan-Dyke, Oliver Jenks (harpsichord)

Old St.Paul’s, Thorndon, Wellington

Monday, 16th February, 2021

I was thrilled beyond words when told that this concert would take place in the breathtakingly beautiful Old St/ Paul’s Church in Thorndon, a building which extensive earthquake-strengthening renovations had closed to the public for so long! So for me it was like greeting an old friend when walking through the church’s entranceway for the New Baroque Generation’s Wellington concert, one which concluded the ensemble’s enterprising “11 concerts in 16 days” tour of the country.

This initiative, set up by the Baroque Music Community and Educational Trust along with the University of Canterbury Music included an intensive week-long workshop on baroque instrumental practices as well as the aforementioned concert tour. At the forefront of the project were two well-known professional musicians – violinist Mark Menzies and Czech baroque specialist and cellist, Tomas Hurnik – under whose guidance the musicians who attended the workshop were able to put their newly-honed skills into practice over the duration.

The concert included a new work especially commissioned for the tour, one specifically designed for the project, a neo-baroque work by emerging composer Rakuto Kurano, a violinist in the touring ensemble. The work formed the finale of a concert devoted to that most baroque of all musical forms, the Concerto Grosso, of which we heard various representative examples from that “era”. Apart from Rakuto Kurano’s splendid work, the one which surprised me the most was by Marc-Antoine Charpentier (1643-1704), a composer I’d hitherto associated almost exclusively with vocal works.

Basically a “Concerto Grosso” features a small grouping of instruments interacting with a larger ensemble, instead of a single instrument being pitted against an orchestra in a standard “concerto”. My introduction to the “Concerto Grosso” form was via Handel on a 1967 set of Decca recordings made by the then world-famous Academy of St.Martin-in-the-Fields, under the leadership of Neville Marriner – such a delight! – and not least due to Handel’s freely “borrowing” from his own music, some of which I already knew. In his Op. 6 set of 12 Concerti Grossi, for instance,  No.9 (HWV 327) and No.11 (HWV 329) both contained delightful reworkings of parts of the composer’s organ concerti, most prominently the famous “Cuckoo and the Nightingale” Concerto (HWV 295).

We did get some Handel in this evening’s presentation, one of those Op.6 Concerti, though, alas, not either of those already referred to. Instead we got the first of the set, No. 1 in G Major (HWV 319), for which the composer again “poached” some of his previous music, an Overture from one of his “Italian” operas, Imeneo, as well as freely imitating passages in one of fellow-composer Domenico Scarlatti’s newly-published “Harpsichord Exercises”. Handel’s work came as the penultimate item on the programme, a kind of “state-of-the-art” example of a Baroque form.

I made a lot of performance notes in the “heat of the listening moment”, which would be too tiresome for anybody to read in full afterwards, so will attempt to summarise my impressions – of the Handel, I thought the opening “A tempo giusto” beautifully sounded, the terracing of dynamics  between the duetting violins and the ensemble exquisite – then, in the “Arrival of the Queen of Sheba-like” Allegro which followed, I thought the players amply demonstrated in places that Handel seemed almost to have invented the “Mannheim Crescendo” before the musicians of that august ensemble did! I loved the detailings in the Adagio, such as the elaborate trills which introduced some of the cadences; and relished the different trajectories of the two concluding Allegro sections, the second one particularly exuberant, with plenty of “joicks! – tally-ho!” kind of stuff, thankfully with no horses, hounds or unfortunate fox present!

Of course, I have things the wrong way round, here, as the concert opened with the M-A Charpentier work, the H.545 “Concert pour 4 parties de violes” – two Preludes, each as shapely and flowing as the other, played in the “authentic” manner with little vibrato, but not without warmth and expression, and plenty of dynamic variation. The following Sarabande took our sensibilities to solemn, thoughtful realms at the outset, the Trio section (2 violins and ‘cello) alternating with the ripieno (the full ensemble), with a sweetly-toned piano conclusion. By contrast the Gigues gave off terrific energies, first the “Angloise” in ¾ time, contrasting with the “Francois” in common time, the whole ceremonially rounded by the concluding “Passecaille”, varying the textures between trios of instruments and full band, before concluding the work with a hushed version of the theme – so very lovely!

The works followed one another in more-or-less chronological order, Giuseppe Torelli’s “Concerto musicale a quattro in G Major Op.6, No. 1”, niftily throwing the figurations about in lively fashion at the beginning before calling order with a winsome Adagio sequence. I felt the music-making already had hit its stride in terms of a “naturalness” of utterance with the succeeding Allegro, nothing being “forced” or “squeezed”, the energies always expressive and properly “breathed”.  The first violin’s floridly-expressed decoration of the Adagio seemed to grow naturally from what had come before, transforming into a more energetic but still graceful Allegro movement, and seemingly to gather energy as it proceeded, until a wry, almost mischievous softer postlude ended the work.

While not named as a “Concerto Grosso” Antonio Vivaldi’s “Concerto in B-flat for violin, ‘cello and strings RV 547” featured the violin and cello soloists as both collaborators and combatants, with great teamwork from the pair alternating trenchant and exciting exchanges, each player relishing the dynamic variation of his line both when interlocked with the other’s and when solo – so exciting! The slow movement brought out more co-operation than competition, each instrument seeming to “listen” to the other in an affecting way; while the finale seemed like a kind of “anything you can do I can do as well/better” kind of interchange, the violin in particular “digging in” during a central trenchant section, before both instruments surrendered to the sheer elan of the massed tutti ending!

Arcangelo Corelli, generally acknowledged as the “master“ of the concerto grosso form produced his set of 12 works in 1714 some years after they were actually written – in an “imitation is the sincerest form of flattery” kind of gesture, Handel subsequently brought out his own set of works directly modelled on Corelli’s, effectively “bringing to fruition” the form, with younger composers already beginning to move towards the solo concerto and the sinfonia concertante kind of work. As we got from Handel’s Op.6,  we were given the first of Corelli’s set, No. 1 in D Major, a beautifully rich ceremonial Largo opening, the Allegro sections that  followed interspersed with the return of the slower music. The Largo that followed had beautiful “birdsong” elements in the figurations, which suddenly scampered off in “edge-of-the-seat” style, as if dancing on the edge of a precipice, the playing somehow conveying a whiff of dangerous excitement! The solo violin began the opening of the ensuing Adagio with the second violin attractively imitating, echo-wise, the phrases, and the cello steadfastedly counterpointing the progressions. What really delighted our sensibilities was the final Allegro, the two solo violins in thirds excitingly dashing away at the  music’s beginning, relishing the interplay between each other and with the ripieno strings, and turning to the audience as if “bringing us in” to add our breathed “Amens” to the final phrases!

At the conclusion of the already-described Handel work, we were given what promised to be the evening’s most thought-provoking work – a Concerto Grosso commissioned from one of the ensemble’s violinists, Rakuto Kurano. I wasn’t prepared for what seemed like the work’s complete absorption of the historical concerto grosso form but straightaway with its own distinction, the introduction tempestuous and arresting (almost “sturm und drang” in its mood), succeeded by a poised, breath-catching series of quiet gestures, the solo violin adding some stratospheric decoration to the line, then plunging into a fugue, hair-raisingly active and with some terrific dove-tailing gestures to boot! The Fourth section, Grave, sounded gorgeous, steadily-moving chords over which the two solo violins elaborated, bringing the solo cello briefly into the argument at the end. A boisterous Allegro gave the two violins a fine “duelling” sequence, the supporting players either dashing round about or soaring away with their own flights of fancy. The Adagio which followed was  a kind of freeze-frame or slow-interlude in a motion picture, and with the harpsichord, so discreetly balanced to a fault throughout the evening, allowed a brief moment of soloistic glory! The Allegro Vivace that followed – a boisterous, percussive dance, complete with tambourine – primed us up for the brief but exhilarating “The Birds”, antiphonal dialogues pithy but hair-raising! The Finale, energetic and involving, concluded with a trenchant tutti  that “grounded” the sounds in a satisfyingly conclusive way – a gesture of unequivocal and inspiring surety.

A brief encore piece was, I was told, Luigi Boccherini’s “Night music from the streets of Madrid” – if “more Courtenay Place than Thorndon” at that hour, it certainly returned us to our lives, and prompted more of the same enthusiasm and enjoyment. Very great honour and glory to the members of this ensemble, and to their inspirational teachers over the duration, violinist Mark Menzies and ‘cellist Tomas Hurnik, their leadership and encouragement here wrought of magic.

 

Now on CD! – Claire Cowan’s incandescent score for the RNZB’s recent “Hansel and Gretel”, played by the NZSO with Hamish McKeich

Posted on by Peter Mechen

CLAIRE COWAN – Hansel and Gretel; a Ballet in Two Acts

Hamish McKeich (conductor)
New Zealand Symphony Orchestra

Recording produced by John Neill and Claire Cowan
Assistant Producer: Brent Stewart
Pro-Tools Editor: William Philipson
Illustration and Design: Fuller Studio

Verses: Amy Mansfield
Reader: Jonny Brugh

Recorded 2020 at Stella Maris Chapel, Seatoun, Wellington

After reading various reviews of the Royal New Zealand Ballet’s production of Auckland composer Claire Cowan’s Hansel and Gretel, toured by the company during 2019, I’m left feeling like one of the “gentlemen of England now abed” from Shakespeare’s Henry V play, those whom the monarch prophesised would “think themselves accurs’d” for not being at Agincourt to share in the splendour of the occasion’s success. And now, having listened to the enticingly-presented double CD set of the ballet’s music which the NZSO with conductor Hamish McKeich subsequently recorded, I feel doubly aggrieved at having missed out on seeing what “sounds like” a cornucopian feast of excitement, energy, colour and drama, if the music alone is anything to go by.

Of course, judging by the critical adulation given last year’s aforementioned stage production, this could well be a work that has now begun its journey towards becoming the balletic equivalent of German composer Engelbert Humperdinck’s well-known operatic setting of the Grimm Brothers’ classic fairy-tale, and thus a staple of any self-respecting ballet company’s repertoire. So, there may be hope for me yet!

Cowan’s experience of writing for dancers previous to this production had been in the contemporary field, so writing a ballet score, with the story and music “leading the way” and dictating what the dancers do was a new experience for her. Having met RNZB choreographer Loughlan Prior, who conveyed to her his long-held desire to make a ballet from the classic Brothers Grimm Hansel and Gretel story, Cowan agreed to undertake the project with him,  firstly trying out different “slants” on the original story and characterisations to give the scenario a fresh and more contemporary feeling. Working with Prior highlighted the specific requirements for dance music , such as the care needed when choosing time signatures and tempi, even if Cowan found that her choreographer preferred her music’s symmetrical rhythms to the angularities of 5/4 or 7/4 – but she confesses she simply didn’t want to be confined to 2/4, 3/4 and 4/4 the whole time!

A dancer herself as a child, she had gone back to listen to some of the ballet classics –  Tchaikovsky, Prokofiev, Stravinsky – to “check out” what those composers did, watching a  actual production of “The Nutcracker” and finding herself surprised at how much more music there was besides those well-known “iconic” moments in the score, some of which seemed to her like “filler” – Cowan promised  she would set herself the goal in her own work of giving those continuity moments as “magical” a quality as anything else in the score through constant reiteration of variants of the main themes, so that the music’s special distinction was always present.

Though she’s actually not the first woman to compose a ballet for the New Zealand Ballet Company, as has been claimed in some quarters – Dorothea Franchi’s work Do-Wacka-Do, written in 1956, firstly as a jazz combo, and later as a suite rescored for full orchestra, was (coincidentally, like Cowan’s) a revisiting of 1920s musical styles (Franchi called her work “good old American Jazz”) frequently performed by the Company, and (again, like Hansel and Gretel) one toured throughout the country in 1961 with piano (the composer’s?) accompaniment – Cowan’s “Hansel and Gretel” is, however, definitely the first full-length ballet by a woman to be performed by the RNZB, Franchi’s work having usually been part of a “double bill”, or performed with other smaller separate items.

The 2019 tour of Cowan’s and Prior’s work, having been such a success, it seemed wholly appropriate for the venture to be preserved in one form or another – the composer certainly felt that the work could be “shared” with many more people who didn’t have the opportunity to attend one of the live performances via a recording. Conductor Hamish McKeich encouraged  Cowan to approach the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra with a proposal that reflected both the success of the live performances and the obvious prestige of association with the same for the orchestra, the result being that fifty of the players’ services were donated by the Orchestra to the undertaking, with Hamish McKeich the obvious choice as conductor. The chosen venue was the Stella Maris Chapel at Seatoun in Wellington with John Neill, of Park Road Post producing the recording. Cowan embarked on a crowd-sourced Boosted campaign to make up the remainder of funds needed for the project, and with all the arrangements and the planning in place, its completion seemed certain.

This of course being 2020, nothing was thus assured, with a community outbreak of Covid-19 in Auckland in August bringing plans to a standstill. Undeterred, though at considerably greater expense, Cowan continued the process piecemeal with a series of two-and-fro operations between Auckland and Wellington , the work having to be recorded in sections with different instrumental groups, and painstakingly dovetailed together at the end. It’s a tribute to the determination, expertise and patience of everybody concerned that the end result seems to my ears as magnificent as if there were no disruptions!

From the Overture’s beginning the music is a kaleidoscopic delight of sensation and impulse, the piece illustrating a burgeoning of things to come in the story from what seem like wistful, everyday situations.  It’s beyond the scope of this review to describe the whole ballet, but the opening scene gives the listener more than enough enticement to pursue the wonders that the story in its entirety delivers. The Street with its ceaseless comings-and-goings movement illustrates the world of the children’s family, the piquant detailing of busy-ness and cheerful purpose set against the frequent singing lines which depict care and longing, as well as something of the family’s circumstances in a world of harsh economic realities.

A Mary Poppins-like frisson of premonition introduces The witch’s ice-cream bicycle, the composer cleverly blending wonderment and unease at her antics, then normalising her presence by having her disappear into the falling dusk along with everybody else. Cowan illustrates her mastery of transition here, morphing the crepuscular ambiences into a kind of night-life scenario as both colours and impulses begin to repeople the scene, taking us from this into the children’s family home (no cruel and heartless stepmother, here, but simply loving and caring parents), where Dinner is being served, the parents obviously doing their best to remain cheerful, passages for solo violin and strings expressing the family’s bonds of love and care , while various other passages (wind and brass) suggest the paucity of fare.

The ear is constantly tickled by Cowan’s invention, each impulse pf movement and phrase of melody a suggestive experience for the listener. Particularly touching is the Pas de Deux for the Mother and Father, blending characterful concerted movement with complete freedom, the imagination both shaped but unconstrained by limitations of time and space – it was here I strongly felt Cowan’s experience as a film composer coming through, in her evocation of a “state of things”, one into which we as listeners were readily invited to observe and “feel”.

The rest follows the outlines of the Grimm Brothers’ classic story, though with some particularly “tasty” ingredients added, suggested by sequence-titles like The Witch’s Baking Charleston , Cowan‘s 1920s settings having liberally spiced the music with Broadway and jazz influences. In general, the music for the second part is brighter, brassier and more extrovert, as befits the blandishments of the gingerbread house scenario in which the children find themselves. Across this, recurring themes knit the episodes into a compelling whole, with associated groundswells of emotion bubbling up in places like the reprise of the Pas de Deux for the Mother and Father while looking for their children, a self-confessed favourite moment in the work for the composer!

The CDs contain a “bonus” at the end of the ballet’s action, a retelling of the story in verse, written by Amy Mansfield, here, racily delivered by Jonny Brugh, of 800 Words and What We do in the Shadows fame, to the accompaniment of musical excerpts from Cowan’s soundtrack. Mansfield’s words, saucily mixing finely-tuned imagery with drollery and outrageous doggerel, catch the spirit of Cowan’s music with gusto and relish, a delectable introduction/reminiscence of the complete work, if perhaps not, like gingerbread houses themselves, to be indulged in too freely or frequently!

No, the music itself, its creation and realisation, is the true joy of this delectable offering; and, as with the works of those luminaries previously mentioned, Tchaikovsky, Prokofiev and Stravinsky, on the strength of this recording able to stand alone and bear witness to composer Claire Cowan’s stellar achievement. Whether those words of Shakespeare’s quoted at this review’s beginning resonate with you or not, you are urged to investigate this beautifully-appointed recording of “Hansel and Gretel” without delay!

(I am advised by Claire Cowan herself that the set is available only on bandcamp at this stage. For more information click on the following link –www.clairesmusic.bandcamp.com for both physical CDs and digital copies. The physical copy comes with a digital download too.)

 

 

At last! – the 2020 NZSO National Youth Orchestra gets to show what it can do

Posted on by Peter Mechen

The New Zealand Symphony Orchestra presents:
“Finale” –  the NZSO National Youth Orchestra 2020

LISSA MERIDAN – Firecracker
JOSHUA PEARSON – When a pale blue dot breathes
PYOTR TCHAIKOVSKY – Fantasy-Overture “Romeo and Juliet”
SERGE PROKOFIEV – Suite from “Lieutenant kije”
ARTURO MÁRQUEZ – Danzón No. 2

(Joshua Pearson is the NZSO National Youth Orchestra Composer-in-Residence 2020)

NZSO National Youth Orchestra 2020
Hamish McKeich (conductor)

Michael Fowler Centre, Wellington

Thursday 18th December, 2020

NZSO Chief Executive Peter Biggs called this evening’s concert “a belated wish come true”, after the NZSO NYO’s plans for mid-year Wellington and Auckland performances together with the NZSO of Shostakovich’s epic “Leningrad” Symphony were cancelled due to the coronavirus pandemic. After such a disappointment, the young players were “overjoyed” that the lifting of restrictions nation-wide enabled a new concert to be announced for the year’s end, with the Shostakovich project re-scheduled for 2021.

Conductor Hamish McKeich put the occasion in an even wide perspective in welcoming us all to the concert after the orchestra had performed the first two items, Lissa Meridan’s spectacular 2000 work Firecracker, and Joshua Pearson’s 2020 NYO-commissioned When a pale blue dot breathes, by asking us, amid the joy of having our National Youth Orchestra performing tonight, to spare a thought for young musicians in other places around the world at this time unable to come together in like manner due to pandemic-induced restrictions. So, added to the relief of being able to perform was a determination on the part of all present to make the very most of the occasion, which the music-making to my ears certainly achieved.

I can still remember the excitement of first hearing the Auckland Philharmonia’s CD set of NZ commissioned “Millenium Fanfares” brought out by Atoll Records in 2000, one that began, as here, with the aforementioned Firecracker by Lissa Meridan, a brilliant evocation in orchestral terms of light, colour and energy, stunningly realised by McKeich and the players – what an “ear” for sound on the composer’s part was displayed here! Meridan wrote this fanfare while serving as the Director of the Lilburn Electroacoustic Music Studios at Wellington’s NSZM, and the music’s astonishing blend of textural fluidity and dynamic variation suggests the kind of limitless possibilities open to one well-versed in sonic explorations, the kaleidoscopic instrumental combinations as ear-catching when lightly-scored as they were overwhelming when flooding the ambiences with wave upon variegated wave of brilliant and impactful irruption.

As the thoughtful programme note by Febry Idrus indicates, NZSONYO Composer-in-Residence Joshua Pearson’s new work When a pale blue dot breathes suggested a kind of antithesis to Lisa Meridan’s scintillating creation, at the outset a realisation of a kind of William Blake-like “world in a grain of sand”, the “pale blue dot” of the title representing the earth glimpsed from outer space silhouetted in a sunbeam, a dot containing “a crowd of cacophony”. Its componentry is further characterised by sound-vignettes representing the space-ship Voyager’s “Golden Record”, one containing sounds and images from Earth as a kind of “message in a bottle” for forms of life as yet unknown to us conveying various “essences” of human existence, including examples of spoken language.  The piece’s opening underlined its subject’s relative insignificance in relation to the surroundings, the sounds creaking, shuddering and shivering into being, the ambiences eerie and strangely non-corporate, until, like nature abhorring a void, a tumult of voices rose as if an act of sheer will, looking to somehow co-ordinate its impulses, rallying trumpet fanfares and jaunty piccolo tunes putting flesh on the music’s bones and characterising the self-conscious “outreach” of humankind into the unknown, from its “best of all possible worlds”.

It’s all somewhat Tower-of-Babel-like, one that appears to lose its voice at one point when the wind and brass players “sigh” tonelessly through their instruments, as a mute recognition of language and gesture perhaps needing more, or perhaps giving way to simply being and putting faith in a process of continuance. I liked the balloons being spectacularly burst towards the end, possibly as a sign of risking all and expending empty baggage……the composer was well received by the audience at the piece’s thoughtful, enigmatic conclusion, the latter prompting thoughts of the music being a kind of “Also Sprach Zarathustra” for our time, perhaps?

After this, Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet Fantasy-Overture might have required something of a quantum shift of brain-cell response on the part of listeners – but in the end the music’s opening ambiences seemed to grow out of the resonances already stirred and shaken, the winds this time unusually “weighted” by the bassoon’s prominence over the clarinet throughout the introductory measures. Hamish McKeich kept everything else poised and expectant, hinting at the unease and tension which then sprang eagerly forward at the fist signs of warring unrest between two feuding families, the strings generating speed rather than weight and building the excitement towards full-blooded conflict most excitingly.

McKeich prepared his players beautifully for the famous love-theme’s appearance, the oboes deftly supported by the horns, and the strings’ veiled quality readily suggesting the tenderness between the lovers from the outset – again some lovely work from the winds and horns, and afterwards harp and cor anglais. Urgency ahead of any initial suggestiveness marked the strings’ plunge into their reiteration of hostilities between the warring families, the percussion nicely “terracing” the music’s dynamics, and delivering maximum weight when required – the return of the lovers’ theme wrung our sensibilities out properly (excitingly supported by the bass drum at one point) – and the players brought off the music’s jagged syncopations with great elan as the conflict peaked and suddenly imploded, the lower strings digging deeply into the black depths of tragedy reinforced by the shattering timpani roll, the ensuing funeral march almost perfunctory with sheer numbness.

As much as I would rather the composer had defied his mentor, Mily Balakirev, and retained his earlier, quieter ending for the piece (I’ve always found the brassy ending to the work too “stock”, too conventional, and seeming to run counter to Shakespeare’s concluding lines in his play  “A glooming peace this morning with it brings/the sun for sorrow will not show his head”), the players here made Tchaikovsky’s harshly-expressed finality hit home with all appropriate force at the end.

And what a brilliantly-conceived contrast followed! – even when separated by an interval! – Serge Prokofiev’s totally delightful Suite (originally music for a Soviet film of the same name, “Lieutenant Kije” – actually, in Russian, “Kizhe”) was put together by the composer shortly after the film’s release in 1934, with the composer’s Paris-based publisher using the French form of the name. Prokofiev then expanded the somewhat fragmentary film music soundtrack, and re-orchestrated it for full orchestra – he described the process as “difficult”, but was determined to complete the task, as he wanted to try and “normalise” his relationship with the Soviet authorities after returning to Russia from the West.

The film’s source for the story was lexicographer Vladimir Dahl’s 1870 publication of a collection of “Stories from the Time of Paul I” (son of Catherine the Great and Peter III, Paul I was Tsar between 1796 and 1801 prior to his being assassinated), the tale describing the life, adventures and death of a mythical officer, invented as a result of a clerical error, which couldn’t be admitted to for fear of angering the Tsar! It was taken up by the novelist Yury Tynyanov, who wrote the screenplay for the film. The story naturally appealed to the Soviets as an example of ridicule of the “old order”, though the bureaucratic bungling and fear of displeasing one’s superiors was to remain a worldwide trait throughout most of the twentieth century.

Prokofiev’s music was a wholly delightful affair, right from the very first magical solo cornet/trumpet strains  (it isn’t specified which one was played here, but Isabella Thomas was the flawless off-stage soloist) which announced “The Birth of Kije”, to the same theme’s slightly augmented reappearance at the Suite’s end. This dream-like encapsulation belied the rest of the music’s excitement, colour and immediacy, the characterisations of both the hero and his adventures springing engagingly to life-life, as with all rattlingly good yarns! The composer’s penchant for vivid orchestration gave the NYO players ample opportunities to shine, the percussion in particular having a proverbial field day though mention must be made of the distinctive contribution made by the tenor saxophonist (Tessa Frazer), her playing deliciously enlivening the textures of both the second movement Romance and the third movement, Kije’s Wedding. My favourite of the Suite’s movements has always been the Wedding, though its effectiveness depends on the degree of tongue-in-cheek “swagger” given the trajectories by the conductor and players – here, the “oohm-pah” brass rhythms were an absolute delight, underpinned by outrageous explosions of festive joy from the full orchestra, the percussion holding nothing back!

Concluding the concert’s listed items was a piece by Mexican composer Arturo Márquez, Danzón No. 2, a piece championed by the Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela under Gustavo Dudamel during that orchestra’s tour of Europe and America in 2007. I thought the music had a kind of “Latin American Gershwin” kind of feeling in places, with firstly the clarinet and then the oboe voicing the melodic lines, piano, percussion and pizzicato strings encouraging the music’s impulse to ‘dance’, each refrain introducing livelier trajectories, swooning into sultry, suggestive passages which build the harmonies to expressive heights before re-energising the rhythms once again – the bursts of energy set against contrasting episodes of languor gave the piece a volatility whose climax drew from conductor and players plenty of edge-of-the-seat abandonment and a cataclysmic finish!

Despite, or perhaps because of the brilliance of the concert’s ending an encore seemed more than appropriate by way of extending the occasion’s frisson of excitement, with Khachaturian’s “Sabre Dance from the ballet “Gayaneh” brought scintillatingly into play, the famous glissandi brass notes more expressive that I can ever remember, rather than producing merely the usual “snarl”, and the shock of the abrupt changes of texture and dynamics towards the end startlingly pulled off! Very great glory, indeed, to this year’s NYO, conductor and players making the most of their opportunities and to the NZSO for making it all happen in the face of unforseeable difficulties.

 

 

Orchestra Wellington: huge percussion resources exploited in Psathas masterpiece from Olympus complemented by huge Rachmaninov symphony

Posted on by Steven Sedley

Orchestra Wellington conducted by Marc Taddei
With Jeremy Fitzsimons (percussion) and Michael Houston (piano)

John Psathas: View from Olympus: Concerto for percussion, piano, and orchestra
Sergei Rachmaninoff: Symphony No. 2 in E minor, Op 27

Michael Fowler Centre

Saturday, 5 December 2020

The large line-up of percussion instruments at the front of the orchestra would have given an inkling to the audience that they would be in for a challenging, interesting evening of music. Although the John Psathas’ View from Olympus has had many performances, premiered by the Halle Orchestra in Manchester in 2002, it is still music off the beaten track for an audience of predominantly older concert goers. The Rachmaninoff Symphony is something else, a justifiably well-worn favourite of the concert repertoire.

John Psathas, View from Olympus
This concerto work was commissioned by the internationally renowned percussionist, Evelyn Glennie. It draws on the New Zealand composer’s Greek heritage. It makes use of Greek mythology and describes in three movements 1. The Furies and their avenging spirits, 2. To Yelasto Paithi (The smiling child), and 3. Dance of the Maenads. The first movement, conjuring up the Furies opens with vigorous rhythms that echoed some of Stravinsky’s early ballet music, but the music was distinctively Psathas, exploiting the tone colours, tone quality and unique sounds of the large array of percussion instruments.

In the midst of the furious loud noises a solo violin is introduced for a few bars, something that clearly had a special meaning for Psathas and Greek listeners familiar with the music of the popular Greek violinist, Stathis Koukoularis. The second movement is calm and peaceful, reflecting, as Psathas said, ‘the feelings inspired by his own precious children. A passage with wind chimes gently ringing creates an otherworldly dreamlike sound. The rhythmic patterns suggest children’s songs, games. nursery rhymes, without explicitly quoting any. The last movement is violent, suggesting the Maenads possessed, in an ecstatic frenzied dance, belabouring each other. The loud drum beats create an unsettling impression of mayhem.

The piano was a partner in a dialogue with the percussion instruments. It was also a link, a commentator, that gave coherence to the sounds of a large group of diverse percussion. There is none of the romantic singing tone, the light and shade that is associated with the grand piano. The piece is an exploration of rhythmic texture, and asks questions about the nature of music, can there be music without melody, based purely on rhythm and various tone colours?

The constant repetition of small musical patterns suggests minimalism, but there is nothing minimal in this huge innovative concerto. It uses large resources with not only a percussion solo that involves vibraphone, marimba, simtak (a steel cylinder played with fingers), dulcimer, steel drums, wind chimes, drum stations, cymbals, tom-toms and various other instruments to hit or stroke, as well as a solo amplified piano, but also an orchestra with two percussion players, timpani, two harps, a full complements of brass, wind and strings.

John Psathas does not belong to any modern musical tradition. He is an individual, unique entity, and his music is like that of no one else according to his publisher Promethean Editions.  Innovative, different, perhaps difficult as this work might have been, it was received with an enthusiastic ovation by the large audience.

As an encore Michael Houston and Jeremy Fitzsimons played Fragments for vibraphone and piano, a work associated with this concerto. It is related in musical material to the second movement of the concerto. John Psathas joined Michael Houston to turn the pages.

Sergei Rachmaninoff: Symphony No. 2
Rachmaninoff harks back to a very different era. This symphony was written in the turbulent times of 1906-7 and this is reflected in the tension and drama of the music.  It captures the spirit of old Russia that was about to change. Rachmaninoff wrote it in Dresden where he moved to escape the turmoil in Russia in the wake of the 1905 revolution. He set out to write a symphony following the success of his Second Piano Concerto and establish himself as a symphonic composer after the critical failure of his first symphony.

The Second Symphony is a huge challenging work for an orchestra. It is a long, demanding work that lasts about an hour. It is very intense music which places, great demands on every section of the orchestra. The first movement starts with a brooding, dark, slow introduction. This leads to a haunting melody which is then expanded, broken up into small blocks that become a constituent part of the development. There are colourful wind and brass passages. The strings are required to dig deep to produce a lush, rich tone. The second movement starts with a hectic, driven passage that leads to an expressive melody. Then layers upon layers of the song-like melodies lead to a grand climax.

The third movement introduces a lyrical theme that has at times a fairy-tale like quality. The final movement starts with an energetic gopak kind of dance, followed by a haunting melody. It is no wonder that the rich texture of the themes of this symphony have been used in a number of films and were adopted in popular music. The orchestra mastered the challenges of this colossal work, with some beautiful playing in the solo wind and brass passages. It was a clear but restrained reading. The orchestra did Rachmaninoff proud.

This was the end of a very difficult season, but despite its challenges, the orchestra performed all its subscription concerts and gave some 180 performances. Marc Taddei, the conductor, congratulated the orchestra in a short speech.  He describes it as a virtuoso orchestra, he also congratulated the audience, and noted that this orchestra had the largest audiences of any orchestras in the country during the season,

Taddei then announced the concerts of the next season, with focus on ‘virtuoso’ music, from Paganini and Liszt to Bartók and Lutosławski as well as the orchestra’s Composer in Residence, John Psathas. It was a beautiful, moving concert, with the grand sound of the Rachmaninoff Symphony left ringing in people’s ears.

 

 

“The Older the Better” – a triumph of age and experience at Circa Theatre

Posted on by Peter Mechen

Circa Theatre and Hens’ Teeth presents:
THE OLDER THE BETTER – a Revue
(Part of WTF! 2020)

MC – Kate JasonSmith
Starring: Coral Trimmer, Sunny Amey, Dame Kate Harcourt. Linn Lorkin, Helen Moulder, Rose Beauchamp, Jan Bolwell and Margaret Austin

Producer – Kate JasonSmith
Lighting – Lisa Maule
Stage Manager – Johanna Sanders
Technical Operator – Niamh Campbell-Smith
Illustration and Graphic Design – Emma Cook

Circa Theatre, Taranaki St., Wellington
Thursday, 3rd December 2020

(until 20th December)

A footnote to the show’s title above the cast list in the programme reads: “The performers you may or may not see, tonight….”. When putting the show together around the talents of three ninety-plus performers, Dame Kate Harcourt, Coral Trimmer and Sunny Amey, the producer of “The Older, the Better” Kate JasonSmith found so many willing participants among what she called “a fabulous collection of Gold Card performers” that she was able to devise a “revolving support cast”, one whose membership would change for every performance.

It would be hard to imagine this, the opening night, being bettered, given that the show ostensibly and spectacularly revolved around the three performance “dames” (one of whom, of course, already has that official title), the rest being the “glittering gold-carders” who made up the “supporting” roles – though the beauty of the presentation was that there were no seams or lessenings of inspirational flow as turn followed star turn, with each of the “acts” offering its own characterfully-contrasted cache of distinctive delights (excuse the alliteration! – it just slipped out!)….

In keeping with the inclusive spirit which had gravitationally drawn this galaxy of heavenly bodies together, we in the audience were promptly invited to also audition for the show – as an audience! – and after agreeing, were put through our paces, demonstrating “audience behaviours” (clapping, laughing, dancing – someone even suggested “paying”!)….. I thought our “murmuring in sympathy” efforts creditable , but needing more conviction, more FEELING! – however, then, when we laughed uproariously at one of the MC Kate JasonSmith’s jokes, we clinched the role – “This audience is fine! – don’t bother to bring that other one in!” she promptly carolled towards the entranceway! – and so the show began, introduced by Kate JasonSmith, most interestingly as “Nine lovely women, and eight lovely costumes!” Oo-er!!

It would be churlish to self-indulgently “give the show away” by describing too many of the delights that followed in detail – but when “the talent” was summoned with the cry, “Talent! – Talent ON THE SET!” – the uproar that greeted the appearance of Dame Kate Harcourt to begin things in earnest was heart-warming! We got from her a vividly- coloured picture of a sassy character called Maud, who was enjoying life at ninety-three, insisting at one point that this was the oldest she had been! Putting it like that made for pandemonium in the aisles!

We had no sooner recovered when the fabulous Linn Lorkin was at the piano weaving bluesy magic with a song she wrote inspired by home thoughts from abroad while she was visiting a US beach, a number “Family at the beach” which undulated from rhythmic patter-song to dreamy, nostalgia-filled relivings of iconic childhood memories of being a child at a beach somewhere in New Zealand, capturing it all so unerringly for me, and somewhat redolently, for others as well. She morphed from this into a jazzy rhythm which brought the equally charismatic Coral Trimmer to the stage with her harmonica, aptly launching into Gershwin’s “I got rhythm” with terrific choreographic energy, then disarming us completely and utterly with “Londonderry Air”, a tune better known as “Danny Boy”, the duo’s playing milking the song’s ascending second part for all it was worth (juicy chordings from the pianist, and a glissando to boot!) before raptly delivering the piece’s concluding, lump-in-throat “water come in me eye” pay-off.

The arrival of eminent theatre administrator, producer and comedienne Sunny Amey then completed the trio of nonagenarians, Amey joining with Coral Trimmer to sing some parodies (the first of which (to the tune of “Colonel Bogey”) we all knew and joined in with the bawdy words!), then musing further on the process of ageing with gorgeous sendups of classics like “Shuffle off to Buffalo”, her gently self-deprecating forgetfulness-parables forging empathetic, belly-rumbling links with her listeners! And it was into this haze of opaque evocation that the ever-astounding diva Cynthia Fortescue and her accompanist Gertrude Rallentando (Helen Moulder and Rose Beauchamp respectively) burst to relive their triumph of “Going for Baroque” with the tried-and-truly-astounding “condensed and updated” version of Henry Purcell‘s celebrated opera “Dido and Aeneas”, here searingly and fearlessly revamped as “Diane and Andy”.

Cynthia’s unashamedly Boris Christoff-like assertion when introducing the work to us, ”I play all the characters”, seemed to me to more than adequately sum up the – well, some might think of them as “liberties” while others would unhesitatingly use the word “inspirations” – which abounded in the pair’s realisation of the age-old tale of love and betrayal – during which we as a proper “performing audience” had an infernally risible part to play as well, goaded into a frenzy by the leader of a coven of “wayward sisters”, a witch called Jacinda!  One excerpt only will I reveal from the adaptation to again convey something of the flavour of the whole – “Hear my plan/to rid Aotearoa/ of this dreadful man” –  (something involving a “Trojan virus” sent to the hapless Andy’s laptop)  – but that’s quite enough info to be going on with!….

We heard former dancer and performance-poet Margaret Austin’s wryly entertaining  “Should I lie about my age” dissertation, one which turned into a cautionary tale of association on her part with an impresario and a drink-besotted choreographer on tour throughout Europe, with its bitter-sweet conclusion; and, following further music-making from Linn Lorkin and Coral Trimmer, we were introduced to Jan Bolwell, performer, choreographer and playwright, and founder of the Crows Feet Dance Collective, whose stories touched on her father’s experiences in Italy during World War Two, when he was hidden by an Italian family from the Germans, of her own experiences in Italy when re-exploring her father’s “haunts” while a prisoner, including dealing with her sexual harassment by various Italian men, and of her defiance of the “women’s ageing” stigma in society, as expressed in a country and western song she had appropriated, whose yodelling choruses could be rewritten to fit the words “Older Ladies”. No prizes for guessing who were able to “try out” the song at a glorious full-throttle!

Not to be outdone, Helen Moulder’s Cynthia Fortescue made a plea to be allowed a final “scene” with “Dame Kate”, consisting of a single song, a delicious duet from Mozart’s “Magic Flute” opera depicting the meeting of two lovers the bird-man Papageno and his long looked-for mate Papagena, piquantly accompanied by Rose Beauchamp’s Gertrude! – had we not acquiesced we would have missed out on minutes and minutes of pure delight as the two “Pa-pa-ge-no/ge-na-‘d” themselves contentedly into the throes of connubial bliss. And then, seemingly as soon as it had all begun, it was over, with a rousing “all-for-one” rendition of a tune to which the words “The Older the Better” gave resonant ambiences for the rest of the evening. In all, it’s a heart-warming, unmissable affair, an inspirational initiative by Kate JasonSmith, a magical coming-together of past and present which will cause much amusement and delight!

 

Gareth Farr’s “Chemin des Dames” Concerto and Elgar’s ‘Cello Concerto together a powerful “concerted” statement on disc

Posted on by Peter Mechen

ELGAR – ‘Cello Concerto in E minor Op. 85
FARR – ‘Cello Concerto “Chemin des Dames”

Sébastien Hurtaud (‘cello)
Benjamin Northey (conductor)
New Zealand Symphony Orchestra

Rubicon RCD 1047

I tried, I REALLY DID try to NOT look at my previous review for “Middle C” of the concert featuring the Gareth Farr ‘Cello concerto played by the same ‘cellist, Sébastien Hurtaud (also with the NZSO, though with a different conductor, Hamish McKeich) before writing this present review of the piece’s CD recording – of course, it was a different performance which needed to be “responded to” on its own merits; but I also wanted to check out my reactions to the same piece heard on a different occasion, for nothing more than my own interest’s sakes. There are, after all, so many variables of a subjective nature at work experienced by any listener hearing the same piece of music twice, to the point where it can be a totally different experience the second time round. (Incidentally, the earlier “Middle C” review can be found at https://middle-c.org/2017/05/aotearoa-plus-from-the-nzso-set-alight-by-gareth-farr-premiere/).

One of the main factors which coloured each experience differently for me was the other music which Farr’s concerto was played alongside, perhaps rather less significantly on a recording, where the listener can, if she/he wishes, choose to hear any work as a “stand alone” experience. In the 2017 concert at which the concerto was presented, we also heard music by Pierre Boulez and John Adams, neither of which pieces seemed to me to have much to do with Gareth Farr’s work – which, of course, was neither here nor there, except that the concert’s advertised title was “Aotearoa-plus!”, and I remember expending a good deal of reviewer’s energy at the time complaining about having only ONE work by a New Zealand composer in the programme!

First on this new Rubicon CD was a performance by the same artists of another ‘cello concerto, one which had a good deal of commonality of circumstance with Farr’s work – this was Elgar’s E Minor Concerto Op. 85, written in 1919, in the First World War’s aftermath, and regarded by many commentators as a lament on the part of the composer for the horrors of the conflict and the destruction of a way of life. Farr’s concerto for the same instrument, written almost a hundred years later (1917), was also written with the First World War in mind, though more specifically dedicated to the memory of three of his great-uncles, who lost their lives in the conflict, and are buried in France and in Belgium. The work’s title “Chemin des Dames” (Pathway of Women) was the name of one of these places of conflict, but was employed here by the composer to underline the impact of loss the war had on women such as the composer’s great grandmother, who had lost her brothers.

I thus began my listening with the Elgar Concerto, a work indelibly associated for a whole generation of music-lovers, myself among them, with British ‘cellist Jacqueline du Pre, whose legendary 1965 recording made with Sir John Barbirolli continues to haunt the interpretative echelons of this work for all of its subsequent performers. To his credit Sébastien Hurtaud makes the work as much his own as could be humanly possible, a rich, and deeply mellow solo statement at the opening setting the tone of the performance as one both gorgeously-voiced and sensitively nuanced. He’s partnered by the NZSO conducted by Benjamin Northey, the playing alert, fresh and direct at all times, if, to my ears recorded a tad backwardly in relation to the soloist, which I thought reduced the poignancy of solo instrumental dialogues in places, while still giving plenty of weight to the “big moments”.

The ‘cello is captured beautifully, Hurtaud’s plauying bringing out the “striving” quality of the first theme introduced by the strings and rising confidently to meet the full orchestral tutti – strong, stern stuff, indeed! The subsequent exchanges between soloist and orchestra beautifully point the difference here between the minor- and major-key ambiences, the life and energy of the latter projected so whole-heartedly – and while the orchestra’s individual instrumental lines seem to me too reticently-placed compared with the soloist, the tuttis ring out clearly and satisfyingly, with the brass a real presence.

Hurtaud makes us pay attention to the softest of pizzicati during the transition to the scherzo, the orchestra responsive, and the exchanges volatile, so that when the scherzo finally kicks in, the surge of energy is electric. Again the full-blooded orchestral shouts are most exciting, but I wanted to hear more of the pointillistic detail of the dialogues – still the accelerando at the movement’s end here has a wonderful ‘edge-of-the-seat” spontaneity!

How beautifully these musicians breathed the slow movement’s opening – lines filled with nuance, and hearts pulsing as one! The power of the music’s self-reflection and its emotion seemed at times  too candid to speak even of its own volition, the performance thus becoming a simple act of faith and will on the part of the players. Was the pause before the finale blustered in a shade too long? – when entering, the orchestra was right on the button with its crescendo, and afterwards supported the soloist’s musings with a rich carpet of sostenuto tones. Hurtaud’s sudden, thrusting, irruption-like  phrases became a veritable call to action, and we were away, with splendidly virile tutti passages in response to the soloist’s energies. The exchanges took us through plenty of incident, the cellist’s discourse vying with wind figurations and flecks of passing orchestral colour – some of which I wanted to hear more of, though the rumbustious passages had real bite – and the drollery of the orchestral ‘cellos joining up with the soloist was a sequence of truly collaborative delight!

But then, to be plunged into the work’s next section after these relative pleasantries – into what one suddenly felt to be the “dark centre” of the work! – was a shock! Elgar was profoundly affected by the war’s tragedy, and the disastrous effects on both man and beast (the suffering reportedly endured by the horses in combat zones he found particularly upsetting!) – and as Sebastien Hurtaud tells us in his notes, the composer may have, while working on the concerto, heard of the death in battle of one Kenneth Munro, the son of his long-ago ex-fiancée, Helen Weaver (who, incidentally, emigrated to New Zealand after breaking off the engagement). Here, the music seems to openly weep, all inhibition forgotten, ‘cellist, conductor and players caught up in giving voice to an outpouring of despair, its darkness leavened only by a brief quotation from the slow movement and a surge of grim defiance via a flourish at the end.

Gareth Farr expresses surprise, writing a note in the CD booklet about his concerto, that the work has so much in common with the Elgar – he never expected it to be bracketed thus, so his own work was originally conceived with no conscious thought about the older composer’s concerto for the same instrument. The cyclic quality of both works struck him forcibly when producing this recording together with Sebastien Hurtaud, whose comments about both works also highlight the ritualistic “beginning and ending” aspect of both pieces. Both also point to the shared focus of each concerto upon the tragic “Great War” years, Hurtaud describing each piece as a kind of “Requiem”, in the cellist’s words, “universal in scope and rooted in personal dramas” – a powerful and succinct way of characterising their shared qualities.

To the Farr Concerto, then, one which sounded as much awakened into being as played, with orchestral strings gently activating ambiences coloured by harp and keyboard figurations – the cello’s lament-like bird-call sparked responses from winds and brass at first before fetching up a sudden vehement crescendo of orchestral sound, brutal but brief. In the recitative that followed, the cello was echoed by winds and brass, bugle calls and a stirring of ghosts, with lots of dialogues between the soloist’s meditations and full-scale and single-instrument orchestral responses. Hurtaud’s rapt playing touchingly evoked a wanderer picking a way through a sometimes desolate, sometimes disturbingly animated landscape, as if looking for something – seeking a voice or impulse that could bring enlightment or recognition, Farr’s writing creating ambiences “stirred and shaken” with intent whose lamentings, interacting with clarinet, oboe and harp, as well as the strings, eventually provoked conflagration.

As sorrow confronted anger, the music turned on itself, the lines and textures catching the solo ‘cello up in merciless conflict – a fusillade of orchestral sounds followed, whose purpose seemed to unleash the forces of negation, which sought to fragment and undermine substance, battling with the cello’s voicing of the exotically-tinged theme, and taking it over, holding it to what seemed like ridicule. It all became a kind of bacchanale of brutality, a bombardment of grotesquely-wrought shrapnel whose repeated waves ran their course before exhaustedly subsiding.

The ’cello was left “to grasp this sorry scheme of things entire”, which Hurtaud and his instrument did in an extraordinary display of energy interwoven with inwardness, a reaffirmation of life culminating with the return of the work’s opening – strings, celeste and harp,  then percussion, winds and brass, the sounds stealing in to proclaim, amid the desolation, a laid-waste peace.

What seemed to me at the outset a pairing of entirely different compositions has, on rehearings of the disc, brought the “worlds” of the two works more closely together, above and besides the obvious commonality of association with the 1914-18 Great War –  at one and the same time a vital and thought-provoking listening experience.

 

NZSO with three widely varied works: two masterpieces and a charming, approachable New Zealand concerto

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

New Zealand Symphony Orchestra conducted by Gemma New with Stephen De Pledge (piano)

Vaughan Williams: Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis
Anthony Ritchie: Piano Concerto No 3
Sibelius: Symphony No 5 in E flat, Op 82

Michael Fowler Centre

Friday 20 November, 6:30 pm

The audience at this concert would have been intrigued, as they took their seats, to see some orchestra members finding their way to a row of music stands in the gallery above and behind the orchestra: two players each of first and second violins, violas, cellos and one double bass.  The rest – strings only of course – were in their normal places

Vaughan Williams with Tallis
The position of players was for Vaughan Williams’s Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis. As the programme note explained, the two groups reflected, not a sort of concerto grosso as it might have been reflecting the music of a century later, but the two fundamental manuals of a pipe organ: the Great and the Swell.

The nine concertino players, standing high at the rear, handling the “Swell” part, entered first, sounded singularly remote and ethereal (at least from my seat middle stalls) while the ripieno section, the remainder of the strings reflecting the “Great” organ sounded normal; and each took turns at articulating the Tallis melody.  To have been intrigued by this disposition suggested that I had perhaps not heard the piece played live before, or certainly not in this arrangement, and I was enchanted.

After a few minutes during which my attention was drawn to the singularly expressive gestures from the conductor Gemma New; then to a warm solo viola in the main orchestra introducing solos by other strings. New inspired the orchestra to such vivid playing, with such commitment that the entire work had the audience transfixed. The music lends itself to such treatment of course, though I can imagine that not long ago many conductors and audience members of a critical disposition might have found her intense, large-scale gestures excessive. But if it brings the music to life in such a remarkable way, then what’s to criticise?

I have been heard to lament that RNZ Concert’s Settling the Score has, I suspect through unfamiliarity, not placed the Tallis Fantasia at No 1 place instead of the Skylark. The entire audience here could be guaranteed to vote for it in 2021, if possible in this wonderful account under Gemma New.

Ritchie’s Piano Concerto 3
Anthony Ritchie’s Third Piano Concerto could hardly have been a more singular contrast. It was written in 2008 for Emma Sayers and the Manakau Symphony Orchestra and has been performed several times and been recorded by SOUNZ with its dedicatee Sayers and the APO under Uwe Grodd. Stephen de Pledge’s piano opened quietly, creating a peaceful, pensive spirit that lasts about three minutes. It’s followed by a traditional Allegro whose purpose is to be playable and enjoyable rather than an exhibition of either the composer’s cleverness or the pianist’s virtuosity. There were no suggestions of its composition by a disciple of Schoenberg or Boulez, and the end of the first movement had a piano part that could be by Rachmaninov.

The orchestral score, written for a semi-professional orchestra, creates no impossibilities, though there are striking opportunities for brass phrases. The vividness of the orchestral playing was conspicuously the result of New’s understanding of its unpretentious character.

Much of the slow second movement is for piano solo (hardly a ‘cadenza’), with orchestral instruments such as a bassoon participating quietly. The entire movement is based on a recognisable melody which develops in a charming, meditative way; as the programme notes explain, it’s in modal keys, but it’s essentially melodic and any departure from conventional harmony is for the attention of musicologists. It created a charming experience that New and De Pledge handled with great sensitivity. The last movement, much shorter, was bright and playful, offering the pianist attractive opportunities to be both demonstrative and congenial.

As an encore, De Pledge played one of Grieg’s Lyric Pieces – the charming Nocturne in C, Op 54 No 4. Is it still as well-known as it always seemed to me?

Sibelius Fifth
The performance of Sibelius’s Fifth Symphony was the climax of the concert where, having got a taste of Gemma New’s dynamism and influence over the players, there was no doubt that this great symphony would be a thrilling experience. For one thing, the performance immediately created a sense of the music’s originality; every phrase, the opening horns and woodwinds, seemed to be both a fresh perception and a new revelation of a long-loved masterpiece.

New revealed a talent for building Sibelius’s several accelerating climaxes as if an entirely new experience. The climax at the end of the first movement created an outburst of applause and shouting that could in no way be ascribed to new-comers’ ignorance of the shape of the symphony. And the deliberate slow movement created suspenseful, deeply felt experience; rhythmically firm and compelling, endlessly repeated motifs that were steadily hypnotic as they accelerated.

The shift into the last movement without any sense of a missing Scherzo is the norm, but it’s always interesting to listen to the fade-out, the moment’s pause and then the clap of the timpani that begins the last movement. It created at once an expectation of the extraordinary suspense of the endless repetition and evolution, sometimes a mere whisper, of the monumental theme that cohabits with the dancing woodwind tune; but eventually takes charge into the glorious, suspenseful finale.

Again the applause was long and serious, celebrating a concert that in its imaginative entirety was a huge success.

 

 

NZSO’s “Eroica” programme title lives up to its name at Wellington’s MFC

Posted on by Peter Mechen

The New Zealand Symphony Orchestra presents:
EROICA – Music by Anthony Ritchie, Jean Sibelius and Ludwig van Beethoven

RITCHIE – Remembering Parihaka (1994)
SIBELIUS – Violin Concerto Op.47
BEETHOVEN – Symphony No. 3 in E-flat Op. 55 “Eroica”

Vesa-Matti Leppänen (violin)
Miguel Harth-Bedoya (conductor)
New Zealand Symphony Orchestra

Michael Fowler Centre, Wellingto

Sunday 27th September 2020

CEO of the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, Peter Biggs, summed it up in his foreword in the printed programme for the orchestra’s most recent presentation initiative – named after one of the three works presented, Beethoven’s “Eroica” Symphony – when he referred to 2020 as “what continues to be a challenging year for us all.” Biggs and his staff rose to that challenge admirably in enabling  Peruvian-born conductor Miguel Harth-Bedoya, presently resident in the United States where he is Music Director of the Forth Worth Symphony Orchestra, to travel to New Zealand and isolate for two weeks, so he could conduct the NZSO in this series.

One would perhaps expect that, in the case of every professional orchestra of quality, its concertmaster could, at short notice, assume the responsibility of performing as a soloist in a repertory violin concerto, as has the orchestra’s current leader, Vesa-Matti Leppänen, in the same series. I’m not able to say whether the violinist Augustin Hadelich who was unable to come to this country to take up his original engagement had intended to programme the same concerto, or whether Vesa-Matti had chosen a different work to play; but the Sibelius Violin Concerto seemed, not surprisingly, a natural fit for its performer, and proved a great success.

Repertory-wise, conductor Harth-Bedoya’s tenure as Music Director of the Auckland Philharmonia from 1998 to 2005 would presumably have given him exposure to a range of New Zealand-composed works, among them, perhaps, the work presented today,  Anthony Ritchie’s Remember Parihaka, which was the first item of the concert. Before the music began, however, one of the orchestra players, Andrew Thomson (principal second violinist) in welcoming the audience to the Michael Fowler, made mention of the impending retirement from the orchestra at the concert’s end, of a long-serving member of the second violins, Lucien Rizos, in response to which announcement the player was warmly acknowledged by both his colleagues and this evening’s audience – a nice touch!

And so we began our listening with the aforementioned work by Anthony Ritchie, Remember Parihaka, one which I had heard on a recording some time ago without remembering too much about it, except that it was atmospheric and impactful, and seemed in accord with what I already knew about the disgraceful and brutal happenings associated with the “armed takeover” by Government forces of the Taranaki village where the Maori spiritual leader Te Whiti o Rongomai lived with his followers, implementing their policy of non-aggressive resistance to the white settlers’ push to acquire Maori land. I had read author Dick Scott’s book “Ask that Mountain” some years ago, and was interested to learn of Te Whiti’s methods being known and adopted by Mohandas Ghandi in later years, both in South Africa and in India.

The music began spaciously and ambiently, lower strings and air-borne wind figures conveying both peace and foreboding. The string lines rose like the morning sun, the sounds punctuated by louring chords from horns and winds, violins sounding a tense affirmation of the oncoming day, with the violas singing a more tender, caring line as the flutes repeated their birdsong. Pizzicati and scampering string movement joined with winds in suggested people running and gathering, as a field drum conveyed a kind of march-like purpose, energising the rest of the orchestra and giving rise to repeated warnings from the birdsong. As the tensions mounted and the warning cries became more frequent the bass drum gave voice to purpose, brutal and direct at first, then with deeper, more menacing ostinato underpinning the strings and winds, leading to a cataclysmic cymbal scintillation, signalling a culmination, a general violation, a triumph of might, leaving desolation in its wake – all that remained were sounds of deep lamentation. It was all rather less graphic a musical experience than I’d remembered, somewhat subtler in effect – and perhaps more enduring for that.

We then turned our attentions to the Sibelius Violin Concerto, performed by the orchestra’s regular concertmaster, Vesa-Matti Leppänen (whose place today in the leader’s seat was ably filled by his deputy, Donald Armstrong). I’d heard Vesa-Matti perform in a solo capacity before (most memorably, Vaughan Williams’ The Lark Ascending) but he surpassed even that achingly lovely performance with this one in terms of sweetness of tone and clarity of texture. At first I thought his tone a tad small to do full justice to the heroic gestures which flex their muscles and soar aloft in various places, but as the music proceeded it became obvious that the focused intensity of his playing was actually carrying every note to our ears, if in a way that didn’t rely so much on grand gesturing as absolute clarity of articulation. Conductor and orchestra seemed to understand this implicitly, in places such as where the solo viola richly “counterpointed” the violin or the clarinets murmured an ambient backdrop. There were places where orchestral muscle was flexed most excitingly, a tutti leading up to brass and timpani “letting rip” sounding overwhelming in such a context. Vesa-Matti was disinclined to “attack” the notes in an obviously virtuosic way, but instead play them simply and expressively – his fingerwork in passages which called for extreme dexterity was astonishing, as towards the conclusion of the first movement cadenza.

Harth-Bedoya got some beautiful wind-playing at the slow-movement’s beginning, the clarinets pure and liquid, the oboes pastoral and engaging, and the flutes and timpani defining in the space of a few notes touches of open-air brilliance contrasted with deep shadow – a memorable piece of tone-painting. The soloist then took up his rich, glowing line, matching the horns in the playing’s warmth, and with hushed tones echoed by the orchestral strings setting in dramatic contrast the following orchestral tutti, big and black-browed, the brass and winds particularly arresting! But what magically sotto voce octave passagework from Vesa-Matti we heard, with everybody else in accord, building the tones in a dignified way towards the movement’s big concerted statement, leading to more enchantingly soft playing from everybody, the mood reminding me suddenly of the end of the first movement of Mahler’s Ninth Symphony, no less – a similar sense of “coming through”…..

The programme notes quoted most aptly the famous description of the work’s finale as “a polonaise for polar bears” (from writer and musicologist Sir Donald Francis Tovey – 1875-1940), summing up both the strength and weight of the music’s rhythms, though Vesa-Matti’s violin seemed to lightly skip across the snowy vistas in comparison to the accompaniments. I particularly liked his lightness of touch in the passages where Sibelius seems to “crowd in” the notes to the extent of distorting the rhythms, except that here the soloist’s nimble-fingered momentums seemed  easily to encompass the figurations, avoiding the trenchant angularities of some performances at this point. I relished the waspish buzzings of the muted horns and the bouncing accompaniments from the double basses, especially in tandem with the soloist during the latter’s high violin harmonics, which were thrillingly, eerily played! I hadn’t previously seen passages in the work where the soloist was accompanied by first-desk strings alone, which here added to the variety of textural incident. In the work’s coda the intensities were screwed tightly up, the soloist singing high, bright and breezy, and the orchestra gathering its forces to match the violin’s outpourings – a totally exhilarating experience!

It seemed as if, at the music’s conclusion, the audience didn’t want to let their concertmaster-turned-concerto-soloist go, calling him back repeatedly, along with the conductor, for further ovations. A nice touch was Vesa-Matti’s presenting of his bouquet to the retiring violinist Lucien Rizos before leaving the stage for the last time. Then it was the interval; and after we’d waxed lyrical concerning the concerto and its performance in every which way to anybody else who would listen, it was time to return to the auditorium for the “Eroica”.

Two extremely smartish E-flat chords, and we were off! With brisk, driven passagework, bright and eager detailings, and the phrasing sharply and urgently delivered, with that slightly “clipped”, authentic-performance manner, it seemed we were in for a thrillingly front-on Beethoven experience from the beginning (complete with the first-movement repeat!) – I thought here of the legendary conductor Arturo Toscanini’s words when asked to describe what he thought of the “Eroica’s” first movement, his reply being, “Is not “Eroica”! – is not Napoleon! – is Allegro con brio!”. Here, conductor Harth-Bedoya seemed to encourage his wind-players (and who wouldn’t, with such talent, here?) to “play out” so that, not only in their solos, but in the “middle voices” of the orchestral texture, it all seemed uncommonly rich and detailed. Together with the energies of the playing, this made for a real sense of something vibrant and living, the strings digging into their syncopated accents when building up to the massive central-movement climax underpinned excitingly by the timpani and capped off gloriously by the brass!

Harth-Bedoya brought out the work’s dramatic and exhilarating qualities as much as a sense of something epic – and there were two moments in particular which I thought so brilliantly illustrated these qualities in turn, aided by superb playing in each case. First was the drama of the horn’s wonderful “false entry” just before the music’s recapitulation, a moment that reputedly took some listeners at the work’s first performance by surprise, to the composer’s annoyance! – here sounded to perfection before the rest of the band “crashed in”! Then, as the music surged towards the end, and the theme was played by horns, then strings, then winds and finally the brass, with ever-growing intensities, Beethoven unaccountably allows the brass only a few notes of the theme before getting his trumpet to break off in favour of letting stuttering winds finish the phrase! However, many older recordings (including the one I was “raised” on) allowed the trumpet line to continue playing the theme right through, as Harth-Bedoya did here, to my admittedly guilty satisfaction (I still prefer it, and on first hearing the “authentic” version on record had to be convinced by someone whose knowledge I respected that the trumpet hadn’t been removed through a tape-edit error, or something!)

The renowned “Funeral March” was just that, a loaded, purple-and-black experience, the beautiful string-playing capped off by Robert Orr’s glorious oboe solo. Harth-Bedoya again brought out the music’s drama, getting sharply-delivered contrasts in dynamics and textures from his players, the more military major-key sections blazing with momentary triumph before succumbing to the grief and anger of the episodes which followed, Bridget Douglas’s sonorous flute-playing as pivotal to the range of emotions as the oboe’s at the beginning. The strings here simply “nailed” the fugal sections of the movement, giving the music’s trajectories incredible power, picked up by the winds and brasses (and Laurence Reese’s timpani speaking volumes as always), with the double basses attacking their post-fugue “moment” with spine-tingling weight and edge. And the “ticking away” of life and breath towards the end made for a kind of sublimity in the silence that followed the music’s brief but telling final exhalation.

“Is not “Eroica”! – Is not Napoleon! – is Allegro vivace!“ Toscanini might also have exclaimed at this life-enhancing point in the Symphony – for here, indeed, was a scherzo, a quicker, more dynamic replacement for the classical symphony’s usual minuet, a change Beethoven had already made in each of his first two symphonies. Beginning with feathery playing from the strings and perkily-delivered themes  from the winds, the music then seemed to explode in joyful energy, the verve and physicality of the playing a heady delight! The NZSO horns also delighted with their playing of the Trio, Harth-Bedoya getting the players to begin the final rendition of their fanfare in startlingly assertive fashion, a gesture that I’m willing to bet Beethoven would have loved!

As he would have the attacca, which here plunged us into the ferment of the Finale’s opening before we had time to draw breath at the scherzo’s end! – Harth-Bedoya and the players made much of the dynamic contrasts between Beethoven’s use of the seemingly innocuous bass-line tune from the “Prometheus” music and several violent “knocking at the door” irruptions at the end of each of the measures. And the conductor would have none of the reversion to solo string lines which had so entranced us on a previous occasion when Orchestra Wellington performed the symphony for the following string passages, up to the appearance of the actual “”Prometheus” theme on the oboe. But what playfulness, what spirit and what character was engendered by the players in their treatment of Beethoven’s fugal explorations – the lines by turns sang, teased, shouted and giggled, and Harth-Bedoya got everybody to pull out all the stops for the “Russian Dance” variation, which was almost a show-stopper!

These and other episodes were silenced by the oboe and accompanying winds, giving the “tune” a decorative warmth and fullness of heart which the horns and other instruments acclaimed most heartily – some residue angst (hopes and dreams dashed?) from the struggles and tribulations of the journey was given its respectful due, before all such was swept away, Harth-Bedoya and his players going with and contributing to the flow, a veritable tidal wave of joyful release which filled the Michael Fowler Centre’s precincts to bursting, and gladdened the hearts of all present – great stuff!

Orchestra Wellington delivers spectacular concert of two great classics and a major New Zealand work

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Orchestra Wellington conducted by Marc Taddei, with Michael Houstoun (piano)

Tchaikovsky: Serenade for Strings, Op 48
John Psathas: Three Psalms
Rachmaninov: Symphonic Dances, Op 45

Michael Fowler Centre

Saturday 26 September, 7:30 pm 

This was not the first concert by Orchestra Wellington: that was on 27 July and featured Tchaikovsky’s Manfred Symphony and Rachmaninov’s Third Piano Concerto, played by Michael Houstoun.

This also featured Houstoun, playing what would be called a concerto in some contexts, but here, it was a three movement work by John Psathas called Three Psalms, with an important piano part, but also drawing on various musical and other artistic sources.

The other two works were, strangely, less familiar pieces by famous composers.

A long time ago, Tchaikovsky’s Serenade for Strings was a work that I came to know quite well through broadcasts by the then 2YC station (now Radio New Zealand Concert).

It has four movements (not named in the programme booklet):
Pezzo in forma di sonatina: Andante non troppo — Allegro moderato,
Valse: Moderato — Tempo di valse
Élégie: Larghetto elegiac
Finale (Tema russo): Andante — Allegro con spirito

When I first heard it, probably in my late teens, I found it richly melodic, simply gorgeous and moving. Even then, it made me wonder whether such a beautiful work could really be regarded as a proper, serious piece of classical music. The Waltz was the most popular movement and was often played on its own, a practice that I probably accepted then, not having heard the complete work. Though of course, I deplore that it’s now RNZ Concert’s standard practice to truncate most multi-movement works when even casual listeners today are surely familiar with far more classical music than was even recorded in the 1950s. Surely most grown-ups are now more responsive to and knowledgeable of classical music that I was in my teens!

This performance was so full of warmth and opulence that I asked myself why it was necessary to have other than string players in an orchestra at all. String groups numbered 12, 10, 8, 7, 6: very adequate.  The contrast between movements was vivid: the throbbing rhythms of the first movement, the rapturous waltz, the accurately named Elegy third movement, with its illuminating pizzicato. The multi-facetted finale might have opened with a beautiful calmness, but it launches into the Allegro that moved slowly to energetic passages that alternated with calm, towards a beautiful conclusion. A splendid performance.

Though Psathas’s Three Psalms could be regarded as some kind of piano concerto, neither its title nor its scoring pointed that way. And though I might have missed something, I didn’t understand how the three movements: Aria, Inferno and Sergei Bk.3 Ch.1, could been related to Psalms. Nevertheless, the role of the piano was prominent and important and it was very clear that Houstoun admired the work and his performance was arresting and illuminating.

Yet it was less prominent than incessant timpani and two marimbas which drove rhythms that characterised most of the first movement. The second movement began in near silence, with long slow figures by piano and strings; the piano sounds were translucent, while the emotion created by strings increased mysteriously, and tubular bells and marimbas again contributed a brief, distinct episode. I remained unsure about the alleged inspiration of the movement by the “disturbing images in James Nachtwey’s photographic elegy, Inferno”. Without pictorial examples of a rather obscure name the revelation seemed to contribute nothing to the appreciation of the movement. However, the sense of peace created a feeling of calm unease that generated an emotional force.

The title of the third movement refers to Prokofiev’s 3rd piano concerto which Psathas relates to his own musical character and aspirations. That source did not diminish the originality and individual inspiration as well as the hypnotic, incessant and energetic spirit of this typical Psathas movement.

After the two works of the first half which demanded only strings and, in the case of Psathas, timpani, marimbas, tubular bells, the stage was now filled with a large orchestra, totalling about 80. Though string numbers were slightly fewer than the NZSO would have employed for the Rachmaninov, the volume and splendid dynamism of the entire orchestra did a wonderful job with this final, spectacular composition by Rachmaninov, that he wrote in 1940 in the United States; he died in 1943.

I doubt that Orchestra Wellington has played it before. Nor can I remember my last hearing of a live performance (I didn’t hear the NZSO’s performance in 2017). A few years ago the NZSO used to record the dates of its last performance of each of the pieces being played. It’s a pity that has ceased.

Though I know it well, this live performance was utterly illuminating, creating a variety of passionate episodes that seemed to far outclass any performance that I’ve heard on recordings or on radio. All the wind players had conspicuous episodes, individually or in sometimes unusual ensemble, made more colourful by the presence of an alto saxophone (Simon Brew, who played it with the NZSO in 2017), bass clarinet along with other triple or quadruple winds, a piano and six percussionists.

All of which created highly colourful, stunning orchestral sound patterns. I was struck by the remarkable, ‘spectral’ sounds that emerged in the second movement that ends with such uncanny quiet. The programme notes commented that it shows signs of Prokofiev in its muscular and spiky orchestration: I agree. And there were numerous surprising and unusual fanfares the led in odd directions, as in the middle of the last movement, Allegro assai; and uncanny little fanfares led to the plain-song Dies Irae that Rachmaninov and others in the late Romantic era often quoted. Such unique orchestral characteristics however, were the distinguishing mark of the entire performance, that made it hard to recognise dance rhythms, or music that would have been very easy for a choreographer to be inspired by. Yet there have been a number of ballet performances, both in the United States and by the Royal Ballet in London.

Given the addition of extra players (about a dozen from the NZSO), partly as a result of the sudden busyness of many musicians being engaged in a variety of other musical groups and activities, the orchestra delivered a performance of the Symphonic Dances that was quite spectacular, both in it emotional variety and its sheer exuberance.

 

 

 

Prominent in the second movement was contributions by two marimbas but the rhythm with throbbing piano.

 

was vivid with a lot of fortissimo performance have been It really e three-movement Psathas work was   The size of the

 

 

NZSM Orchestra with conductor Hamish McKeich showcases achievements by 2020 award-winning composer and instrumentalist at St.Andrew’s-on-The-Terrace, Wellington

Posted on by Peter Mechen

Te Kōkī New Zealand School of Music presents:
Music by Mica Thompson, Carl Reinecke and Johannes Brahms

THOMPSON  – Song
REINECKE – Flute Concerto In D Major Op.283
BRAHMS – Symphony No. 2 in D Major Op.73

Isabella Gregory (flute)
Hamish McKeich (conductor)
New Zealand School of Music Orchestra

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

Saturday, 26th September, 2020

Pandemic restrictions having been relaxed of late (though judiciously more “on hold” than entirely done away with), we were allowed more-or-less regularly-spaced seating at St. Andrew’s to hear the most recent of the NZSM Orchestra’s public concerts, one featuring the recent winner of the School’s Concerto Competition, flutist Isabella Gregory (see the review at https://middle-c.org/2020/07/nzsm-concerto-competition-an-evening-of-elegance-frisson-and-feeling/), playing the Reinecke concerto with which she won the prize, though on this occasion with a full and proper orchestral accompaniment! Flanking her polished, sparkling efforts were two other items, the concert beginning with a work for orchestra  entitled “Song” by Hawkes Bay-born composer Micah Thompson, and concluding with the well-known Second Symphony by Brahms.

Thanks to the aforementioned ravages of Covid-19 upon the present year in respect of public music-making and -presentation, this was, I think, the first 2020 NZSM orchestral concert I’d attended , though I had seen a few of the individual players in other orchestral and chamber presentations at various times. It was certainly one worth the wait for, and promised much beforehand, with the NZSO’s principal Conductor-in-Residence Hamish McKeich due to rehearse and direct the performances. Also, one of the NZSO’s recent Guest Conductors, Miguel Harth-Bedoya apparently worked with the orchestra during this period – though it’s not clear whether the latter had any direct involvement with the orchestra’s preparation for this concert.

The evening began with “thanks and praise” from the director of the School, Prof. Sally Jane Norman, thanks for the efforts of people in staging the concert in the face of near-insuperable difficulties, and praise for the efforts of the musicians and their tutors – mixed in with all of this was warm appreciation for people’s actual attendance at the concert, supporting the school’s activities in fostering the careers of young composers/musicians.

First we heard a work by composer Micah Thompson, called “Song”, and inspired in part by the poetry of British poet Ted Hughes (1930-1998), specifically in this case a 1957 poem “The Hawk in the Rain”. Thompson explained, both in a progamme note and by means of an internet post (https://www.facebook.com/NZSMusic/videos/1186964995018168) how the poet’s interest in the “identity, history and mythologies of particular animals” had informed his own approach to exploring musical instruments’ characteristics and their use – he used Hughes’s “wild, sometimes brutal, but always expressive and melancholic” verses as a kind of counterpoint to his own creative impulses. As the programme printed the text of Hughes’ verses, I couldn’t help comparing his earthier, more confrontational expressiveness to that of an earlier poet, Gerard Manly Hopkins, in the latter’s comparatively rarefied (but just as dramatic and musical) poem from 1877, “The Windhover”, describing the flight of another bird of prey, a falcon.

Thompson’s work also took a number of previously-composed solo pieces, for piano, clarinet and flute, and “collaged” them into what he called “an orchestral space”. This space coalesced into life, the ambient beginnings featuring slivers of percussion, mingled with taonga-puoro-like calls, creating an atmosphere of wildness and vast resonances of possibility – long string lines were punctuated with birdsong and wild gesturings, the sounds suggesting flight both with impulses of wing-beatings and the stillnesses of soaring. Long-held notes for cello, winds, brass and violins accentuated the spaces while various scintillations suggested light-changes, both osmotic and sharp-edged. The celeste brought an almost cow-bell nostalgia into play, contrasting with the increasing combatative-edged intrusions from both clarinet and horn solos, the implicit violence of the poem’s words here suggested abstractedly, one of a number of “perceptions” hinted at by the music. Returning to whisperings, the sounds took on a kind of “mystic” feeling, the flute playing a fanfare-like birdcall, a cadenza-like passage which seemed to awaken the surrounds more markedly, the strings rustling, the percussions tinkling, the basses gently rumbling, the piano chirruping, everything freely modulating before drifting into a silence coloured only by the flute’s gentle call. I like the “assuredness” of it all, its focus supporting tangible imagery and feeling amid all the ambient suggestiveness.

Carl Reinecke’s Flute Concert has long been regarded as the instrument’s principal Romantic flagbearer, given that the composer was of the Romantic persuasion  along the lines of Mendelssohn and Schumann, rather than of Liszt or Wagner – though befriended by Liszt and given introductions by the latter to contacts in Paris, Reinecke remained a firm adherent of the more conservative 19thCentury school. The work’s gentle, Brahmsian opening was essayed beautifully by the players, here, with some lovely horn playing, and beautiful phrasing from the flute at the player’s entrance. The soloist’s “big tune” was answered by the brasses the exchanges taking us into a melancholic, romantic world of feeling, rounded off by a stirring orchestral tutti. I thought Gregory’s playing even more astonishing than when encountering her in the competition’s final, the orchestral accompaniment perhaps giving the soloist more variety to react to and establish a personality very much her own.

The slow movement took on the character of a kind of “Romantic legend”, a gift for a skilled storyteller, dramatic brass and timpani preparing the way for the flute’s narrative, which was here developed with a real sense of occasion and adventure, the ensemble seizing its chances to dramatize the music at every opportunity, an impulse somewhat tamed by the flute’s bringing the ending of the movement into the major key, as an antidote to the relative darkness! Horns and wind threw out a jaunty aspect at the finale’s opening, the flute taking up the polonaise rhythm with gusto, throughout the movement steadfastedly steering the music back to the dance whenever different episodes sought to diversify the expression – a charmingly winsome game of dominance, in which the flute was triumphant, the work’s coda featuring exciting exchanges between Gregory and the musicians, Hamish McKeich keeping the momentums simmering, right to the work’s festive conclusion.

Concluding the programme was a quintessential conservative-Romantic work, the Brahms Second Symphony, one which gave  the composer opportunity for some impish fun in describing the music beforehand to his friends – his tongue-in-cheek characterisations of parts of the work were reproduced in the excellent programme notes, comments such as the words “so melancholy that you will not be able to bear it – I have never written anything so sad, and the score itself will have to come out in mourning”. If at times gruffly expressed, Brahms certainly didn’t lack a sense of humour!

I enjoyed the performance enormously, in the first movement right from the near-perfect horn-playing at the work’s beginning, with its answering winds and floating string responses, through the “lilt” of the playing of the second subject theme by all concerned, and the stirring brass response to the increasing ferment of the development’s exchanges, to the lovely “spent” character of the climbing strings and the glowing wind replies when the opening was recapitulated (I loved the confidently-produced “zinging” quality of the strings’ playing of the dotted-rhythm fanfares shortly afterwards!). And though not absolutely note-perfect, the solo horn’s valedictory passage towards the movement’s end was so beautifully shaped and sounded, the string-playing that followed couldn’t help but sound ravishing (ravished, perhaps?) in reply.

The strings dug into the second movement’s opening as if the players really meant it, the top note of the succeeding upward phrase a bit shaky first time round, but more secure on its repetition – again the horn-playing shone, with the strings, and the winds following, and similarly shining   in succession. As the music floated over graceful pizzzicati both winds and strings sang full-throatedly, confidently leading from this into the music’s darker-browed sequences and holding their ground amid the storms and stresses, the winds eventually coming to the rescue, encouraging the strings to pick their way through the wreckage, putting the crooked straight and making the rough places plain as they went……the return of the opening sequence by strings and winds here made such a heart-warming  impression, even if  the horizons were again darkened and the brasses and timpani held sway for a few anxious moments – amid the uncertainties, winds and strings registered a further brief moment of apprehension with the timpani, before squaring up with a “let’s get on” gesture that brought the sounds to rest.

The third movement, an Allegretto grazioso featured a perky oboe supported by clarinets and followed by flutes  – lovely! The strings delicately danced into the picture, the tempi amazingly swift, the playing precise! – fabulous playing and skilful dovetailing when the oboe rejoined the mix with the opening theme – the lovely “flowering” of the wind textures was then matched  by the strings’ “darkening” of the same, after which the dancing resumed with earnest and energy – and I loved the re-delivery of the opening wind tune by the strings, the downward part of the phrase played with what sounded like a satisfied sigh! – very heartfelt!

The finale was, by contrast, all stealth and mystery at the start, creating great expectation before bursting forth, McKeich and his players creating an invigorating “togetherness” of ensemble, the winds gurgling with excitement when given their turn! The strings gave their all with their “big tune”, the tempo kept steady, the tutti blazing forth with excitement, the syncopations flying past at a tempo, and the sotto voce of the opening’s return maintained. Another excitable tutti was relished, before the triplet-led episode allowed a hint of melancholy to descend upon the textures before the movement’s opening sequence returned with a few ear-catching variants – a bit of scrawny playing here and there simply added to the excitement and abandonment, the brass heaving to with some elephantine comments, and the rest of the orchestra girding its loins for the work’s cataclysmic coda – noisy, but joyful and exuberant! It was a performance which got at the end a well-deserved accolade, doing the composer, as well as the conductor and players, proud!