Tag: New Zealand School of Music

Diverting recital by senior NZSM tutors Inbal Megiddo and Jian Liu at St Andrew’s lunchtime

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

St Andrew’s lunchtime concerts

Inbal Megiddo (cello) and Jian Liu (piano)

Music by Boccherini, Manuel de Falla, Mendelssohn  and David Popper

St Andrew’s on The Terrace

Wednesday 30 October, 12:15 pm

A larger than usual audience came in from the sun to hear these two members of the music faculty of Victoria University (known as the New Zealand School of Music).

Boccherini
They began with one of Boccherini’s cello sonatas: one on A major. A look at the Boccherini catalogue shows 29 cello ‘sonatas, for cello solo (and basso)’, which is believed to mean probably a second cello; most were written when he was young. Of those, two are in A major, the second of which (No 13) was one of the few published in his life-time (unauthorised by the composer according to the programme notes).  However, there’s one in A major that is played by several cellists on YouTube: listed as G. 4 or No 6. Coming across these a few days after the recital, I doubt that this is what Megiddo played.

In any case it was clear at the start why this one has been found worthy of attention today. The music was distinctive and satisfyingly varied through its two movements, and Megiddo played authoritatively, nimbly and with a keen ear to its style and musical substance; this was an interesting, melodious piece that whets the appetite to hear more. As several writers have remarked, though Boccherini has attracted much more attention in the past couple of decades, his very large body of worthwhile music including a dozen cello concertos, is still seriously neglected.

De Falla
That was followed by Manuel de Falla’s Suite populaire espagnole which is an arrangement of Siete canciones populares españolas (‘seven Spanish popular songs’ – the second song, ‘Seguidilla murciana’, was left out of the arrangements that have been made for various instruments). They are widely different in character, a factor in their wide popularity; but they also offer very rewarding opportunity for other musicians, and Megiddo and Liu made flamboyant, colourful yet sensitive use of them.  Though my first impression was that the cello didn’t capture all the sparkle and dancing character of pieces like the ‘Jota’ and the ‘Canción’, it created a different, more mature character. Jian Liu’s piano made a bigger contribution in these pieces, particularly distinctive in the ‘Polo’.

A Song Without Words
One of Mendelssohn’s Songs Without Words was written for cello and piano, not, like all the others, for piano alone. He published eight books of Songs Without Words for solo piano, six in each, plus some others not published in his lifetime: Decca has recorded a ‘complete’ edition totally 56 pieces. Op 109 was written two years before his early death aged 38. I was surprised to find this lovely piece quite familiar, though I had not been aware of its source; typically charming and played most expressively.

David Popper 
Liszt was not the only composer of Hungarian Rhapsodies; David Popper, Czech cellist, was a prolific composer, mainly for the cello. (I still have a relatively easy piece, Gavotte No 2, Op 23, that I played as a student). His Nocturne No 4 (Op 47) and Hungarian Rhapsody, Op 68 made a nice pair. The Nocturne was quite long with a prominent, interesting piano part, showing Popper as much more than merely a cello virtuoso. The Hungarian Rhapsody prompted the word ‘expostulation’ in my notes, and was a pretty spectacular piece, quite as bravura in style as Liszt’s pieces with the same name, and as startling to watch as to listen to.

 

Impressive piano recital of Brahms, Gershwin and Chopin from talented NZSM post-graduate students

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

St Andrew’s Lunchtime Concert

New Zealand School of Music postgraduate piano students

Tasman Richards: Brahms: Three Intermezzi, Op.117 and Gershwin: Three Preludes
Lixin Zhang: Chopin: Etudes Op 10 no 4 and Op 10 no 5; Four Mazurkas, Op 33 and Piano Sonata No 2, Op.35

St Andrew’s on The Terrace

Thursday 3 October at 12:15 pm

Here was a particularly rewarding recital from two of the graduate students of the university school of music’s Jian Liu.

Tasman Richards
First, the three intermezzi of Brahms’s Op 117. Most of the 20 piano pieces of the four opuses from Brahms last years are intermezzi: all three of Op 117 are. They were described by the famous critic, Eduard Hanslick as ‘monologues’… pieces of a ‘thoroughly personal and subjective character’ striking a ‘pensive, graceful, dreamy, resigned, and elegiac note’ (a quote from Wikipedia. Hanslick’s admiration of Brahms was counter-balanced by his cruel contempt for Bruckner and Wagner).

All are marked Andante. Tas Richards played them with careful attention to their character: the first calm and unhurried with a middle section that was darker, more sombre. The second one, marked ‘Andante non troppo e con molto espressione’, he played gently, with a degree of emotional uncertainty as if looking into a dimly lit gothic cathedral. In the latter part of the third intermezzo, in sharp contrast, the mood becomes more complex and ambiguous and so did Richard’s playing.

Richards with Gershwin
Without suggesting that Richards showed greater affinity with Gershwin, his playing of the three Preludes was both confident and idiomatic. The first, which Gershwin instructed to be played Allegro ben ritmato e deciso, was all of that, starting with powerful chords in the bass and great rushes of notes; it’s quickly over. The second is quiet and thoughtful, and longer, and Richards’ left hand moved hypnotically to control the steady beat, leaving the syncopated rhythm to the right hand. The third, Agitato, again driven by fast, virtuosic playing, extravert, and again, fairly quickly disposed of.

Linxin Zhang in Chopin 
The notes in the programme leaflet on both pianists left information gaps that I always like to read. No dates of birth or of beginning and ending of studies. In the case of Lixin Zhang: where born, and brought up? His achievements from the Royal Schools and Trinity College in Britain are mentioned but that doesn’t imply place of residence; the first reference to New Zealand was with a Rattle recording in 2018, but he may well have been born and educated in New Zealand.

However: his playing – all Chopin – was at a remarkable level. The two Opus 10 Etudes (Nos 4 and 5) were evidence of singular flexibility and fluency of style, while still allowing them to breath momentarily and for their dynamic contrasts to show through.

The four mazurkas of Op 33 did form an interestingly contrasted group, showing the far-from limited character of the ‘mazurka’, apart from a basic, fairly quick triple rhythm. The individuality of each piece was actually enhanced by playing them in their published sequence. It’s always interesting for the pedantically minded, like me, to hear groups of pieces that the composer published together, played in that order (which also applies to the deplorable policy, now pursued by RNZ Concert, of playing single movements from extended, many-movement works).

The set includes the well-known No 2 in D (Vivace) with its charming modulation in the middle, which was a delight in Zhang’s hands. But on either side are the more thoughtful ones, No 1 in C sharp minor (Mesto – ‘sad’) and No 3 in C (Semplice) and these were beautifully played. The fourth mazurka is also marked Mesto and left us in a calm, reflective state.

Chopin Sonata in B flat minor 
The major work of the recital of course was the great Sonata No 2, in B flat minor. Once upon a time, when piano recitals by top visiting pianists were frequent, this was very familiar. Zhang’s playing struck me as very mature, not the least stripped of its romantic character. Like the group of mazurkas, its appeal belongs to the rich emotional variety of the four movements. Though famous for the third movement Marche funèbre, which emerged a bit emphatically for my taste, but undeniably thoughtful, secretive, the entire work is generally admired (even by those who parrot the tired opinion that Chopin couldn’t deal with extended forms; and hearing his cello sonata played last weekend in the Martinborough Music Festival consolidated that admiration), the other movements are its essence. It’s got one of the strangest Scherzo movements, as the entire ‘Trio’ section, several minutes long, is so richly meditative. Zhang played it with great skill and feeling. And the whirl-wind finale which always astonishes when played so fast and fluently, did just that.

Though the recital went a bit over the normal length, it was one of the more satisfying and rewarding lunchtime concerts from the wonderful St Andrew’s series. A real pity that, being on a Thursday, it didn’t attract an audience of the usual Wednesday size.

 

Two out of three from Puccini’s Il Trittico boldly and confidently presented by the NZSM

Posted on by Peter Mechen

Te Kōkī New Zealand School of Music presents:
PUCCINI – Suor Angelica / Gianni Schicchi (from “Il Trittico”)

Cast(s):  Suor Angelica

Suor Angelica………………..Michaela Cadwgan
The Princess………………….Margaret Medlyn
The Abbess……………………Teresa Shields
The Monitress……………….Jennifer Huckle
Sister Genovieffa……………Olivia Stewart
Sister Osmina………………..Lydia Joyce
Sister Dolcina………………..Ruby McKnight
Sister Lucilla………………….Sinéad Keane
Alms sisters…………………..Shaunagh Chambers / Simon Hernyak
Novices and lay sisters……Nikita Aranga / Caitlin Roberts
Ruobing Wang / Emily Yeap
Boy……………………………….Edward Usher

Gianni Schicchi

Gianni Schicchi………………Robert Tucker
Lauretta…………………………Jessie Rosewarne
Zita………………………………..Grace Burt
Rinuccio…………………………LJ Crichton
Gheraldo………………………..Jeffrey Dick
Gheraldino……………………..Edward Usher
Nella………………………………Cheyney Biddlecombe
Betto di Signa………………….Morgan Andrew-King
Simone……………………………Samuel McKeever
Marco……………………………..Masunu Tuua
La Ciesca…………………………Nina Gurau
Maestro Spinelloccio (a doctor)………..Zane Berghuis
Ser Amantio di Nicolao (a lawyer)…….Matt Barris
Pinellino (a cobbler)………………………..Elian Pagalilawan
Guccio (a dyer)………………………………..Tomairangi  Henare
Buoso Donati…………………………………..Gabriel Wee

Director: Jon Hunter
Designer: Sean Coyle
Lighting: Glenn Ashworth
Costumes: Sarah Carswell

Conductor: Kenneth Young
The New Zealand School of Music Orchestra

Hannah Playhouse, Wellington,

Friday 19th July, 2019

(until Sunday, 21st July)

When Giacomo Puccini first penned his Il Trittico (Triptych), consisting of three short operas designed to fill a single evening (premiered as such in New York in December 1918), various considerations combined to elevate the third of these works, the rollickingly comic Gianni Schicchi, to pride of place in the public’s affections, leaving the other two, the violent, bloody Il Tabarro (The Cloak) and the somewhat sanctimonious Suor Angelica (Sister Angelica), to fend for themselves, often elsewhere and in isolation. It would certainly be a tall order to perform all three in a single evening, the time-frames alone creating a certain awkwardness (either with two intervals, or one very long first or second half!). Even then, resources would be fully stretched in terms of casting and of staging, leaving opera houses far more likely to opt for a “double” bill at the most, à la the famous verismo twins, “Cav” and “Pag”.  Of late, there’s been revived interest in going thus far towards Puccini’s original intentions (usually with “Schicchi” as the “drawcard” along with either of the other two).

Here, from Victoria University of Wellington’s Te Kōkī New Zealand School of Music we had a classic pairing of tragedy (Suor Angelica) and comedy (Gianni Schicchi) whose contrasts, I thought, worked brilliantly, each to the other’s advantage. Partly I think  due to a welcome circumspection of presentation in both cases, here, neither work was made into a caricature of itself – Suor Angelica’s overtly Catholic ethos wore its religiosity lightly, as did the knockabout comedy of Gianni Schicchi maintain a stylishness that never descended into coarse buffoonery – and this deftness of touch on the part of Jon Hunter’s direction for the most part gave each story the theatricality it needed to work, the climax of Suor Angelica here giving rise to my only reservations in this regard, more of which below.

In keeping with the intimate nature of the performing venue and the corresponding space available, conductor, chorusmaster and musicologist Michael Vinten undertook the task of making a “reduction” of the composer’s orchestral scores which preserved the essential spirit and sound of the originals, and which, if not delivering as much “physical” impact as the full opera orchestra does in places (such as the climax of Suor Angelica), amply suggested a comparable kind of emotional impact. Of course the physical immediacy of the instrumental detailings coupled with the players’ confidence and elan throughout made for stunning orchestral results under conductor Ken Young’s inspirational leadership.

What a vehicle for soprano and mezzo voices is Suor Angelica! The leading role especially runs the gamut of emotion and “fills out” the character in such a short space of time – she goes from being “just another nun” at the opera’s beginning, to a figure of the utmost tragedy within minutes, as another character, one who proves to be her “nemesis”, turns up in the story and whose “hatchet job” on the hapless Angelica is remorseless. As Suor Angelica, Michaela Cadwgan poured herself into the role up to the brim, fearlessly attacking a vocal line which required her in places to push her voice to what seemed almost past its limits in places, readily conveying the character’s intensity and depth of sorrow. Her acting paid full regard to the added tension of maintaining her dignity and bearing as a member of a religious order, while expressing her tragedy of having had to give up what was her greatest worldly joy, her son, before discovering, through the agency of her “nemesis” that her son had actually died without her knowing – the anguish was all too palpable in places, while  in context making total emotional sense.

With her surely-felt dramatic instinct brought fully into play, Margaret Medlyn’s troubled but   still unforgiving Princess made the perfect foil for her unfortunate niece’s desperately-enacted sorrows. We were made to “feel” something of the subtext behind the character’s cruelty and remorseless response to Angelica – a “wicked-stepmother”-like figure but with complex demons of her own. Amongst the other nuns the voice of Jennifer Huckle  resonated steadily and sweetly as the Monitress, while  Olivia Stewart ‘s shining tones enlivened her entreaties to the sisters to observe the rays of sunlight setting the image of Our Lady glowing in the courtyard. All the voices contributed to an essential sense of the ensemble, their surety of “belonging” and contributing to that feeling contrasting all the more with Suor Angelica’s growing desperation to be reunited with her dead son.

Expertly though the production conveyed the ambivalence of the “cloistered” atmosphere with its security/imprisonment dichotomies, and the oppressive ambiences surrounding the visit of the Princess to her virtually incarcerated niece, its staging at the very end didn’t for me catch enough of the transcendence of the story’s climax – the dead boy’s sudden appearance, the “vision from heaven” which draws Angelica towards and up into a numinous web of acceptance and forgiveness. I wanted him to directly “materialise” from the  blinding light which flooded the stage, and be the unequovical focus of things just for a telling instant – but his entrance from the side didn’t for me sufficiently turn into any kind of front-on, fully-focused engagement, missing an overwhelming sense of “revelation” which the music (and the lighting) was doing its best to evoke. It certainly deserved, I felt, at that point,  a surer moment of consummation, which, up to then, had been most whole-heartedly prepared for by all concerned.

Confidence was restored after the interval by the beginning of the opera which followed – Gianni Schicchi – an amusing and ironic vignette involving a photograph of the Donati clan closest to the recently deceased (?) Buoso Donati “freeze-framing” the setting, one which then clicked immediately into the business of the story. This is one of opera’s greatest “ensemble” works, and the give-and-take between all of the “living” characters made for thoroughly convincing and characterful results. All kinds of voices and personalities were registered throughout the interactions, each one conveying its character’s attitude and intent in tandem with engaging physical presence.

Crucial to the action was the information quickly given us by a young man in the group of relatives, Rinuccio, who tells everybody he is in love with and wants to marry Lauretta, the daughter of the well-known “wheeler-and-dealer” Gianni Schicchi, a plan which scandalises his snobbish Aunt, Zita. We were treated to a splendidly open-hearted and ringing-voiced portrayal of the character by LJ Crichton, his tones warm, open and ardent, almost to the very top of his register. If the other voices in the group didn’t match such freedom and amplitude, each still carried sufficient weight and colour to tellingly advance the drama – and the physical interactions were most splendidly choreographed, photo opportunities included!

Of course the attitudes of the relatives to the “upstart Schicchi” change considerable when they find Buoso’s actual will and realise they have been disinherited, and that something needs to be done, quickly. Schicchi’s help is sought, but he is disinclined to help the Donatis when Zita refuses point-blank to allow Rinuccio to marry Lauretta “without a dowry” – which, of course, leads to the opera’s most famous single moment, the girl’s pleading with her father to help, or else she will throw herself into the river Arno (“O mio babbino caro”). Jessie Rosewarne’s direct, simply expressed plea as Lauretta (her singing very much on the trajectory of the dramatic action, rather than self-consciously proclaiming a “great opera moment”) does the trick and wins her father over to the cause, turning the story’s action on a fresh course.

As Schicchi, Robert Tucker rightly dominated the scenario from his first entry, holding everybody in thrall with the workings of his scheming mind, and even convincing us to suspend disbelief at the unlikelihood of the penalty of dismemberment and banishment from the city imposed on people who forge a will having any credence in the 1970s throughout the Western world. Like the “curse” in Verdi’s Rigoletto, this is the stumbling block for me in accepting any “modernising” of the opera’s action unaccountably beloved of present-day productions, however nonsensical the result! Still, here, everything went hilariously and hair-raisingly according to plan, with  both doctor and notary, along with witnesses, convinced that the disguised Schicchi was in fact “dear Buoso”, the deception then deliciously running away from the astonished relatives when Schicchi again turned the story around, proclaiming himself as the heir to the dead man’s house and most valuable assets! – pandemonium!

A great success, then, and an extraordinary achievement on the part of all concerned with both productions, powerfully evoking worlds as different as chalk from cheese! I’ve already mentioned conductor Ken Young’s surety of direction and the dazzling instrumental detailing by the players throughout both works, working hand-in-glove with the onstage action, and  positively oozing atmosphere in both scenarios, aided and abetted by the set, lighting and costumes. Its overall impact, to my mind, worked surely towards director Jon Hunter’s intention that the production express “the enduring power of music”, the raison d’etre of all opera here for all present to enjoy.

 

 

 

The Night Watch’s “Every Breath you take” a great success at the NZSM

Posted on by Peter Mechen

THE NIGHT WATCH presents:
EVERY BREATH YOU TAKE – A Concert of Baroque Music

Works by Pachebel, Telemann, Vivaldi, Caldara, Handel, Zelenka, Buxtehude and Willaert

The Night Watch
Andrew Doyle (alto and soprano chalumeaux/baroque clarinet)
Mark Cookson (tenor chalumeau)
Lizzy Welsh (baroque violin)
The Won Kim (baroque violin)
Kamala Bain (recorders)
Imogen Granwal (viola da gamba/baroque ‘cello)
Douglas Mews (harpsichord/organ)
Pepe Becker (soprano)
Helen Acheson (alto)
Philip Collins (tenor)
David Morriss (bass)

Adam Concert Room, Te Koki, NZ School of Music, Wellington

Sunday, 14th July, 2019

2019 is turning into a “bumper” year for me as regards richly-stimulating and keenly-recalled concert experiences! As befits a place that likes to style itself as something of a cultural centre, Wellington has certainly played host to the efforts of some remarkable musicians performing some fascinating assemblages of repertoire so far this year, and with more to come, as a glance at any collection of concert schedules to hand will bear out with appropriate flourishes!

This present concert by an ensemble with the arresting name “The Night Watch” demonstrated a continuation of this  happy state of affairs with flair, expertise and energy, as with the group’s  first Wellington appearance earlier this year (which was reviewed by Rosemary Collier: https://middle-c.org/2019/02/from-the-night-watch-love-me-tender-a-baroque-style-celebration-of-loves-intangibility/ ). Each concert in its own way served to demonstrate the incredible richness of the music of the Baroque era, this second presentation having a kind of doubly unique distinction in, firstly, showcasing the qualities of the chalumeau, a single-reed wind instrument which predates the clarinet, and then presenting a New Zealand premiere of a little-known cantata by the Bohemian composer Jan Dismas Zelenka.

Beginning a concert of Baroque music with a performance of Johann Pachelbel’s Canon and Gigue might have seemed on paper an almost cliched gesture, were it not for the way the music here grew from the ambiences of instruments being tuned and fingers being “warmed up”, with sounds coming from Douglas Mews’ keyboard which spontaneously activated firstly the viola da gamba, with its ground bass, and then the violin and recorder, with their canonic figurations, whose variants seemed to pour out from the composer’s fertile imagination as gaily as water gushing from a mountain spring. The following Gigue had a vigorous, almost animal energy, what seemed like gleeful “pouncing” on the notes and almost mischievous stringendo aspect enlivening each crescendo phrase.

Part of the concert’s charm was the musicians’ direct engagement with the audience (a delicate balance between information and entertainment) which, done sensitively, despite attendant hazards, can enrich an audience’s enjoyment, especially of something unfamiliar. Thus it was for me with the musicians’ demonstration of the chalumeau, a clarinet-like single reed instrument, here presented in three sizes, soprano, alto and tenor, between two players, Andrew Doyle and Mark Cookson, the former doing the talking and most of the demonstrating. When it came to the Concerto by Georg Philipp Telemann, the alto and tenor instruments were used, the timbres mellow and slightly “grainy” compared with clarinet tones, Telemann’s opening Largo conjuring up a ritual-like sobriety, giving way to a vigorous Allegro with the solo instruments in thirds for most of the time. Soft pizzicato strings allowed first the alto then the tenor chalumeau a gentle, sensitive vocal line throughout the Adagio, before the final Vivace, with the instruments again in thirds, the impression of playful but essentially small-scale voices most engagingly sounding their grainy and occasionally guttural tones in distinctive ways.

An aria from Vivaldi’s oratorio “Veni. me sequera fida” featured alto Helen Acheson, the vocal line low and conversational, enlivened by a few moments of declamation, the voice partnered by the soprano chalumeaux in gentle collusion, every sound soft-grained and beautifully mellow in effect, the ensemble moving as one throughout the music’s gentle undulations. Antonio Caldara’s “Nel mio coro” which followed, swopped the alto and a violin for a soprano, Pepe Becker, whose true and intensely-focused tones flooded our sensibilities with the song’s piteous sorrow “hope is dying….and constancy is weeping…..” – it was a relief to turn from such raw emotion to expressions of joy and confidence via Handel’s “Eternal Source of Light Divine”, a work intended for performance in vast spaces, thus being scored for baroque trumpet – but here, in more intimate surroundings, Andrew Doyle’s baroque clarinet brought a sweetness to the ceremonial outpourings, while Pepe Becker’s mellifluous tones added warmth, glory and lustre to the proceedings.

After the interval we were treated to the New Zealand premiere – a work by the enigmatic Jan Dismas Zelenka, a Bohemian composer who worked as a composer at the Saxon court of Dresden from 1679 until his death in 1745. Recognised by both Bach and Telemann as a composer of worth during his lifetime, Zelenka’s reputation and his music virtually disappeared after his death. But whereas Bach had a Mendelssohn who “rediscovered” and generated fresh interest in his work, Zelenka had to wait until the twentieth century for his achievement as a composer to be recognised, and his music’s astonishing qualities to be rediscovered.

Zelanka’s cantata Immisit Dominus pestilentiam (spelt “Pestilarium” in the programme) dates from 1709, when it was premiered not in Dresden but in Prague, with Zelenka himself conducting, making it one of the earliest pieces of the composer’s music that has survived. Even here, his approach to word-setting and to overall structure is remarkably distinctive – central to the work are the opening accompanied recitatives with soft string suspensions, from which “grow” the subsequent arias and instrumental solos, with many a vividly-rendered passage or detail, courtesy of both singers and instrumentalists.

The opening declamation of tragedy and deep mourning – “The Lord set a pestilence upon Israel” (sung in Latin, incidentally, the programme containing an English translation) was superbly delivered by Pepe Becker, the voice pitiless in its detailing and heartfelt in its focus. Equally overwhelming was bass David Morriss’s forthright “Voice of The Lord”, proclaiming “the end of all flesh has come before me”, to suitably chilling effect. The pleading voice of the alto at “Remember Lord”,coupled with the touching tones of the chalumeaux, and additional support from the bass viol, made for a properly sombre entreaty, rising to a passionate appeal at the end. A splendidly Handelian fugue, featuring all voices and instruments, brought out the resolve to “sacrifice to our Lord”, while the soprano solo that followed “Pray for me, with tears” brought forth lovely, heartfelt and sensitive phrases from Pepe Becker, with sterling support from Kamala Bain’s recorder-playing, both lines seeming to convey the “fallibility” of sin and the dignity of suffering.

More forthright tones came from tenor Phillip Collins, with cries of “Be merciful!” ably supported by the instruments, and again very Handelian in effect. Perhaps more distinctive and individual was the following “Cry out, drops of blood”, David Morriss delivering the text with sharp focus, augmented by Helen Acheson’s more sombre tones, the lines low and mutes, the instrumentation spare, creating great tensions, as the strings’ staccato notes depict the “drops of blood”. Two choruses rounded the work off, the first, “O God”, brief and declamatory, and the second fugal, “And grant”, the singers’ lines clear and compelling, given excellent support by the instruments, and the whole ensemble blending and conveying individual strengths and detailings magnificently!

Baroque violinist Lizzy Welsh introduced the next item, a Trio Sonata (Op.2 No.5 in A Major) by Dieterich Buxtehude, the Danish-German organist and composer. Renowned as the Lübeck organist whom the young JS Bach walked 250 miles from Armstadt to meet and hear play, Buxtehude was known more for his vocal and organ music than his chamber works, though as Lizzy Walsh told us with some relish, his contribution to musical history also involved his eldest daughter, whom none of the prospective candidates (including Handel and Johann Mattheson) for Buxtehude’s position on his retirement seemed to want to marry (at the time a common ‘prerequisite” of such an appointment!)

This was , I thought, a beautiful performance – the exchanges epitomised the whole of the evening’s music-making, having an improvisatory sense, but obviously with the music well under the fingers – the third movement was passacaglia-like, a violin solo with harpsichord, while the fourth movement featured the viola da gamba as if extemporising, most expressively. Even more “concerted’ was the fifth movement Allegro, with deft exchanges between violin and da gamba, leading to a recitative-like flourishes, and in a sequence marked poco presto some brilliant concluding passagework from all the players.

The remainder of the programme consisted of three songs of Italian origin, the first, Ninna Nanna, a lament of the Virgin for her Son, here hauntingly sung by Philip Collins, the violin joining in after one verse, then with the recorder, elaborating on the melody before the singer returned, repeating the verse. Then came Antoneddu, a folkish, if somewhat exotic-sounding ballad, featuring Helen Acheson being partnered by the sultry tones of the soprano chalumeau – the singer’s line was suggestive of trouble and tragedy, the da gamba’s accompaniment a heavily-accented pizzicato, all sounding earthy and fraught with danger. The entire ensemble took the stage for the final song, Vecchie Letrose, written by Adrian Willaert (1490-1562), a lively, angular item whose sentiments definitely belonged to a more repressive and discriminatory age, but whose music could still be enjoyed. Two of the singers played tambourines to heighten the impact of it all, and the spiky vocal line added to the heavily accented satisfyingly earthy instrumental playing.

“Every Breath You Take” having been a great success for “The Night Watch”, the group is already planning another presentation, that of French music – La Vie en Rose – for November of this year, which will be, on the strength of this fine showing, eagerly awaited.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

NZSM Orchestra speaks its concert presentation’s name with skill and conviction at St.Andrew’s

Posted on by Peter Mechen

New Zealand School of Music presents:
DARKNESS AND LIGHT
Music by Mozart, Britten, Rod Biss and Tchaikovsky

MOZART – Symphony No.35 on D Major K.385 “Haffner”
BRITTEN – Sinfonia da Requiem
ROD BISS – Four New Zealand Bird Songs
TCHAIKOVSKY – Fantasy Overture “Romeo and Juliet”

Margaret Medlyn (mezzo-soprano)
Kenneth Young (conductor)
New Zealand School of Music Orchestra

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

Tuesday, 21st May, 2019

Though having just tut-tutted elsewhere over the NZSO’s somewhat loose “title” attached to its most recent concert, I’m much less inclined towards adverse comment regarding the NZSM Orchestra’s publicity legend  for ITS latest presentation, “Darkness and Light”.  It’s a reasonably apposite description of the moods of what was being played at the evening’s concert, conveying something of the music’s range and impact as was performed, here brilliantly and most satisfyingly, by the NZSM forces.

Wellington continues to lack a satisfactory mid-sized venue with enough room for orchestral performance, though ensembles such as the NZSM Orchestra still manage to cope with cramped spaces and  acoustics at places such as St.Andrew’s, and, as here, make the event “work” in the face of these drawbacks. In fact, the NZSM Orchestra under Ken Young’s direction seems to have achieved a level of expertise and consistency over their last few concerts I’ve attended which generates a tangible aura of expectation and excitement around each occasion – in itself, a significant and substantial affirmation of the worth of the School and what it achieves.

The programme cast its net widely, over time and physical space – first performed in 1783, Mozart’s “Haffner” Symphony (named after a childhood friend of the composer’s from Salzburg in honour of the former’s elevation to the nobility) has become one of the best-known of his symphonic works, while New Zealand composer Rod Biss wrote his “Four New Zealand Bird Songs” in 2014, over two hundred years later, and on the other side of the globe. The remaining two works bridged the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the music’s various connections and associations including Europe , the United States and Japan – a cosmopolitean affair!

Beginning the concert with the Mozart “Haffner” Symphony, Young and his student musicians flung themselves at the music with all the exuberance and energy those notes demanded, their figurations by turns skyrocketing and cascading, the first movement a brilliantly joyous celebration, the moments of circumspection as delicate and inwardly “charged” (a beautiful minor-key exchange between strings and winds) as the energetic runs were exciting and “bubbly”. Grace and poise were on show throughout the Andante, winds and horns steadfastedly “floating” their lines over the strings’ ethereal exchanges, while the Minuet was here given more energy and spunk than one usually hears in this movement, even if one missed some of the music’s charm, especially in the Trio. Of a piece was the Finale’s performance, the opening hushed and expectant, the energies bursting out like a firecracker, looking forwards to Beethoven’s as yet unwritten Second Symphony in its irrepressible momentum. The players’ propelling of the rushing passages was terrific, both soft and loud, and their split-second alternations great fun, like a musical cat-and-mouse chase! Altogether, this was as brilliantly-focused and compellingly-played a performance of this work as I’ve ever heard live, invigorating and “edge-of-the-seat” right to the end!

Nothing further from all of this could have been imagined than the opening of Benjamin Britten’s “Sinfonia da Requiem” which followed, percussion and lower brass mercilessly assailing our sensibilities, and plunging us into the darkest realms of tragedy and privation. Britten’s work, dedicated to his parents, expressed the despair he felt at their separate passing, more recently at his mother’s unexpected death when the composer was 24. The titles of each movement reflect something of Britten’s coming to terms with his loss through intense suffering towards gradual acceptance.

Oddly enough the work’s actual genesis was via the Japanese Government, who were commissioning music to mark 2,000 years of the Japanese Empire. Britten’s offering of the Sinfonia was predictably rejected by the Japanese, who were offended by the unequivocal Christian nomenclature (Latin titles for each of the movements) accompanying the work – the composer had rather naively expressed to a friend the idea that the music had “plenty of peace propaganda in it”. The Japanese refusal of the work “rescued” Britten from the subsequent embarrassment of his music’s association with a country who had since entered into the war against the Allies.

This performance went on as it began – from the opening’s fearful depths the music began its torturous treadmill-like journey through the music’s “vale of tears” in search of some kind of illumination, whatever its shape or form. The players took up the challenge, braving all privations in giving conductor Young the searing intensities and fearful abyss-like depths that the music’s progress required.  The second movement’s Dies Irae (marked Allegro con fuoco) then awakened, with tongued winds and bouncing strings leading to great tattoos of percussion, and ghoulish triplet rhythms from the brasses mocking the laments we’d heard in the first movement, a “quick march” fiercely pushing the music towards a frenzied build-up and reiteration of a hammering motif and an eventual disintegration of a serial-like motiv, whose repetitions gradually ran out of steam.

Amid this entropic scenario, a new world began to take shape, the wind players giving voice to the sounds of fresh air blowing over the devastations, echoed nobly by the horns. Strings joined in with the echoings, Young inspiring his musicians to build towards a magnificent peroration, a kind of paean of renewed hope in faith, love, and the glories, warts and all, of human existence.

After an interval we were treated to a different, closer-to-home response to human behaviour, one dealing with its impact upon the natural world, our own immediate wilderness inhabited largely by birds, and increasingly besmirched and despoiled by human greed. It’s becoming an all-too-common scenario, and one whose recent manifestation at a beach north of Auckland inspired local composer Rod Biss to collaborate with poet Denys Trussell during 2014 and produce a set of songs, the second of which represented a protest at what seems to me to be an obscene “rich development” of Te Arai Beach, the natural home of one of New Zealand’s mot endangered birds, Tara-iti, the Fairy Tern.

Tara-iti was the first of the set to be written – on its completion, both composer and poet thought its impact would be enhanced by being made part of a set, and so three other songs followed. The work was first performed, as here, by mezzo-soprano Margaret Medlyn as part of a SOUNZ recording project involving the NZSO strings and harpist, and associate conductor Hamish McKeich. This evening’s performance was (as far as I can make out) its public premiere, with both the composer and poet present (both summonsed to the platform at the end – and even though it was rather clumsily done, with only the composer actually mentioned by name, we in the audience DID get the idea that the “other” man was Denys Trussell!)

The opening Dawning featured diaphanously drifting chords preparing the way for a beautifully buoyant vocal line, the words superbly delineated by Medlyn, making every utterance count throughout the music’s soaring, swooping, drifting progress. The beginning of the second song, Tara-iti, had a similar drifiting kind of gait, the accompaniment infused with a sense of fragrant, vulnerable beauty, though the vocal line had an angularity and a sadness whose quiet lament-like delivery hinted at unresolved tensions.

Pizzicati notes accompanied the pukeko’s awkward peregrinations throughout The Purple Swamphen as Pukeko, the words and sounds paying tribute to the bird’s clownish behaviour and maverick aspect. However, by far the most impactful of the songs was the last one, Karearea, (New Zealand Falcon), the vocal line unaccompanied at the outset, the singer’s voice magnificently alone in the skies before the strings opened the vistas below to thrilling effect. Medlyn didn’t spare her considerable resources throughout, pushing ever higher to upper reaches in the company of some dramatically searing string work, before her final, serenely majestic utterance allowed the strings and harp a last defiant counter-flourish. All of this made for an epic tribute to a bird regarding itself, in the face of things, as master of its own natural world – alas, a world now under threat from a different kind of arrogance from another quarter.

After Ken Young had heartwarmingly made a point of paying a public tribute to the work of one of the stalwarts of the School of Music who had just announced his retirement, senior technician Roy Carr, present at the concert to acknowledge the tribute and our response,  there remained one more item on the programme. It was left to Young and his players to present the much-loved “Fantasy Overture” by Tchaikovsky, Romeo and Juliet – and by crikey, did they put the music through its paces! I’ve sat through a number of live performances of this work and heard so many recordings as well, to the point where I usually find myself preferring to listen to something else – with the piece’s popularity, unfortunately, has often come deadening routine, the gestures sounding empty and clichéd and the melodies chipped and worn through over-use. Yes, I know there’s always someone listening who’s come to the music fresh (as I did once, spellbound by its beauties), but it’s the “that old warhorse” aspect that I often find comes through, even when played by the most prestigious of orchestras.

Here, somehow, it was if conductor and players had “found” some hitherto neglected piece and were resurrecting it for a new era of listeners! – I was gripped right from the beginning (though smiling at a woodwind mishap in the very first chord!), compelled by the urgency with which the players shaped their phrases, the whole having a dramatic “line” which vividly characterised the well-meaning actions of the young Romeo’s mentor Friar Lawrence, and imbued the music’s course with through-line tension that never abated. The battle music had tremendous attack and verve, the agitations really catching fire, while the contrasting love-music wove a gossamer spell over the proceedings, including a seraphic touch from the harp and some beautiful cor anglais tones. The renewal of internecine agitations between the houses focused the sharpness of attack even more, giving the militant version of Friar Lawrence’s theme terrific punch and the warrings even more desperation – and while the lovers’ theme had its great moments before being swept away with everything else in the maelstrom, Young encouraged his players to keep the music’s driven, merciless aspect, to the point of sheer exhaustion. Even the funeral music gave us no peace, but a haunted, throbbing ache throughout. And despite the beauties of both the wind and string-playing throughout the epilogue, the final timpani onslaught proclaimed the death of love and beauty in no uncertain terms.

After this performance, life could never be quite the same again – so, very great credit to the players and their conductor for a splendid concert!

Janacek and Beethoven String Quartets from the amazing NZSQ at Te Kōkī New Zealand School of Music

Posted on by Peter Mechen

Te Kōkī New Zealand School of Music presents:

The New Zealand String Quartet
JANÁČEK– String Quartet No. 1
BEETHOVEN – String Quartet No.16 Op.135
NATALIE HUNT – Data Entry Groove (2014)

New Zealand String Quartet –

Helene Pohl, Monique Lapins (violins)
Gillian Ansell (viola) / Rolf Gjelsten (‘cello)

Adam Concert Room,
Te Kōkī New Zealand School of Music
Victoria University of Wellington
Friday, 15 March 2019

(Reviewer’s note: I’ve deliberately left off publishing this review until now to allow a week or so’s worth of air and space to blow into and around things concerned with the horrific events that took place in Christchurch on the same day of the concert. It’s a small gesture set against happenings in a vast and unpredictable world, but I’d nevertheless like to dedicate these words to those whose lives were so tragically ended by what took place in those Christchurch mosques that day, and to all those people who responded, both immediately and over the days that followed, to the needs of fellow-New Zealanders of all persuasions with kindness and understanding that helped restore some hope and faith in a future whose bright dream had been suddenly darkened……)

Monday 25th March 2019

It all seemed too good to be true – here we were at a FREE CONCERT at the Adam Concert Room up at the University, about to be enthralled by the country’s most prestigious string quartet in two major works from the genre’s repertoire, one from the nineteenth and the other from the twentieth century, plus an additional piece from someone who’s proving to be a most interesting member of a stimulating “new  wave” of young New Zealand composers – as close to a “something for everybody” scenario as one could perhaps get at an hour-long concert by a single group!

Beginning the concert was the first of two string quartets by Moravian composer Leoš Janáček, one bearing the sub-title “Kreutzer Sonata”. In a letter, written by the composer to a much younger married woman, Kamilla Stösslová, whom Janáček regarded as his “muse”, writing her over 700 letters, he revealed his music’s purpose: “What I had in mind was the suffering of a woman, beaten and tortured to death, about whom the Russian author Tolstoy writes in his Kreutzer Sonata”. Of course, Tolstoy (who ironically didn’t much care for music!) used the title of one of Beethoven’s most famous chamber works to intensify his story’s emotional “charge”, that of a woman in a loveless marriage caught up in the passions of the music when playing the work with a handsome violinist, and as a result being beaten to death by her jealous husband.

Violist Gillian Ansell nicely anatomised the music’s terrain beforehand, introducing musical examples played by the group that resembled incredibly burgeoning slices of raw emotion. It was obvious straightway how the group possessed the temperament, confidence and technical skill to be able to enter wholly into this tortured world, one marked by the composer’s penchant for extremes of both expression and technical address, and with the players aware of how such music worked best via a suitably no-holds-barred approach.

Here the ensemble infused these extremities and razor-sharp contrasts with the utmost concentration, making it all sound as if each member was “living” the frenzied outbursts and tortured trajectories of the music’s narrative – as one commentator’s description succinctly puts it, expressed in writing that’s “less melody than compelling, emotionally-charged talking”. Like Mussorgsky before him in Russia, so Janáček wished to catch the realism of his countrymen’s speech patterns in his writing with all their angularities and astringencies, and, in this context heightened by extremes of feeling.

The second movement’s sharp contrasts between the dancelike motifs and the searing coruscations of emotion here simply conflagrated the textures, having a simultaneous “stunning” and “drawing-in” effect on the listener, the playing remarkable in its candid impact. By contrast, the third movement began with a melancholic duet-like passage from first violin and ‘cello (a quotation from Beethoven’s work, used to highlight the “illicit” rapport between the two players in the story), nastily punctuated on a number of occasions with scintillating shards of sound, here all remarkably coherent in an overall expressive sense while disturbing in their own realm of impulsiveness. Still, the performers had, one sensed at all times, a “grip” on the overall design that allowed the stridencies free rein to shock and unnerve without straying from the whole.

A brooding calm hovered over the finale’s opening, the lyricism heart-rending and bleak-sounding (shades of Sibelius’ Fourth Symphony)! until the viola began pulling the violins along agitated stretches of territory, the music building and sharpening its tensions as an incredibly intense dotted rhythm sequence piled “Pelion upon Ossa” in its anger, fright and menace – the “moment of murder” then suddenly seemed to dissolve the music’s substance, leaving little more than crumpled, exhausted shadows – so very enigmatic! – and here, so heart-stopping in its searing execution by these intrepid players…….

I’d always regarded Beethoven’s last quartet as a kind of roller-coaster-ride as well, actually, but of a different kind to what we had just heard, alternating the visceral with the playful and enigmatic, as opposed to Janacek’s relentless assault. Here were Olympian forces at play, with whatever moments of stress and angst suggested (in the work’s finale) defused as systematically as they’d been developed, like the inevitable movements of cosmic bodies through the heavens, leaving we earthbound listeners gaping in bemused astonishment!

‘Cellist Rolf Gjelsten here emulated Gillian Ansell’s penetrative introductory remarks regarding the Janacek, entertaining us greatly with his theories regarding Beethoven’s famous “question-and-answer” passages at the finale’s beginning, and provoking amusing responses from the other quartet members. Thus enlightened and emboldened, we began our listening, with the lower strings right at the start posing a question or remark answered by a pithy, increasingly insistent exclamation from the violins – “Pardon?” – or perhaps “You’re joking!” Straightaway, this fusing of the portentous and the commonplace – the fabulous with the ordinary – set the tone for the rest of the work. Not a note was wasted, the effect an amazing sense of freedom in simplicity.

By contrast, the scherzo had us on the edges of our seats, the players alternating jovial muscularities with spectral mutterings, punctuating the proceedings with off-centre sforzandi, and grim-humoured rebeginnings, building up to the notorious “madcap trio”, three whirling dervishes trying to catch the lone violin mid-flight – a fearful symmetry gone berserk! The occasional “wildness” of intonation to my ears sounded appropriate – what would a perfect, “squeaky-clean” rendition of this music do except reduce the untamed, out-of-control exhilaration of the whole, anyway?

Gorgeously rich and deep-toned at the slow movement’s beginning, the melody was “sung from within” at first, before being lifted aloft for us by the first violin – we then were left to “reimagine” its contourings, prompted, it seemed, by the harmonies alone, as if the music had almost lost its way in the dark, as if bereaved. Rapturously, the music then reinvented itself, the ensemble heart-warmingly playing into and out of one another’s figurations, leading to the first violin’s “taking wing”, supported by upward arpeggios from the others, allowing the long-breathed statements to drift naturally into a grateful communion of silence at the end.

Came the enigma of the finale’s opening, with cello and viola “asking the question”, leaving the violins to muse over a response to begin with, then burst impassionedly forth as if hanging by a thread waiting for assistance or illumination – a terse three-note response to the opening three-note question, the well-known “Muss es sein?” (Must it be?) phrase which the composer inscribed in the score.

How exhilarating, then, that sudden onrush of joyful energy accompanying the reply, again inscribed by Beethoven in the score – “Es muss sein!” (It must be!) – the release of tension here brought out most tellingly an inevitability, a mark of greatness to do with force of personality, with depth of acceptance and with single-mindedness of purpose! Beethoven’s intoning of a Rasumovsky Quartet-like second melody then threw the vistas open, including the world at large in this paean of acceptance of life! How vigorously the players gave themselves over to this energetic release – and how terrifyingly they then mirrored its sudden reversion to a nightmare of doubt and anxiety with the return of the “Muss es Sein” motif! – the violins sounded particularly “spooked” at the reappearance of “the question”!

Almost defiantly, the allegro reasserted itself, pulling all the music’s strands out of their state of transfiguration and thrusting forth once again. Part of the rehabilitation of surety came with the “Rasumovsky-like” tune, its open-hearted aspect here seeming to include all of us in a kind of anthem-like circle of strength and resolve. Throughout, the musicians remained strong and steadfast, bring forth playing whose confidence uplifted our spirits further, culminating in the enchanting pizzicati that led to the final, emphatic gesture of belief in simply being. Fantastic!

Though I would have happily regarded what we’d experienced as “cup runneth over” stuff, I couldn’t begrudge a young composer’s music the chance of a hearing – and so it was that we heard Natalie Hunt’s 2014 work “Data Entry Groove”, a delicious piece of music-theatre depicting the workings and interactions of computers and operators. A jazzy, nicely off-beat set of opening trajectories involved various cyber-rhythms (Rolf Gjelsten and his ‘cello) and personalised responses to the machine-like routines from the other three players, involving sliding notes and inventive textures and timbres, including a “time for a break” section (violinist Monique Lapins did what looked to my untutored eyes to be some Pilates!)…..returning to their work-routines the players busied themselves with various engagingly off-beat energies, all of which led to a surprise ending of droll and insouciant finality. Definitely a work to enjoy in the “seeing” and “hearing” rather than in the “describing”!

 

NZSM cellists under Inbal Megiddo play cello favourites, some rare, some in disguise, all skilled and entertaining

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

New Zealand School of Music Cellos, led by Inbal Megiddo

Music by Mozart, Grűzmacher, Bach, Vivaldi, Brubeck, Gershwin, Joplin

St. Andrew’s on The Terrace

Wednesday, 3 October 2018, 12:15 pm

lnbal Megiddo is the head of Cello Studies at the New Zealand School of Music.  Along with her today were seven cello students, all highly competent on the instrument.  Their varied programme was heard by a sizeable audience.

The programme commenced with a very fine arrangement of Mozart’s Overture to his opera The Magic Flute, by Douglas Moore, an American composer who died in 1969. The tone of the four cellists who played this was not always well-blended.   The names of the players (five females including Megiddo, and three males) were given in the printed programme, but they were not identified individually for each piece played.

Verbal explanations were given rather too fast for everything to be clearly heard.  Megiddo explained the origins of two of the cellos – the first was given by the family of the late Wellington luthier and cellist, Ian Lyons.  The origin of the other I could not hear.  Two of the group played these instruments in Friedrich Grutzmacher’s Duo for two cellos, Op.22 no.2. Friedrich Wilhelm Ludwig Grützmacher was a noted German cellist in the second half of the 19th century.  This was most attractive music, very well played. The upper part was quite lovely, with an interesting lower part accompanying.  The two players swapped places from time to time, i.e alternating between upper and lower part throughout the performance so that both got a chance to be the soloist.  There were gymnastics for both parts.

Next we turned to J S  Bach; Prelude and Fugue from Suite no.5 in C minor.  It was arranged by Laszlo Varga, (1924-2014), a Hungarian-born American cellist.  The effect of the Prelude arrangement was quite romantic.  In the Fugue, the separate entries of the instruments revealed the differing timbres of each individual instrument.

A fast version of the three movements of  ‘Winter’ from Vivaldi’s Four Seasons (RV 297, Op.4 no.8) followed, in an arrangement by James Barralet, a British cellist.  Inbal Megiddo played the solo parts in the first two movements; the largo was beautifully rendered.  A student performed the solo in the third movement (allegro) in fine style.  It was exquisitely played, and the performers’ ensemble was splendid.

Elegy was quite different from David Brubeck’s other compositions (assuming this is the famed jazz composer Dave Brubeck) such as the well-known Take Five.  It lived up to its title superbly. Again, Megiddo played the solo rather mournful but beautiful melody.  The music fell away to pianissimo at the end. The players had a lovely blend here.The Gershwin standard ‘Summertime’ from Porgy and Bess kept us in the United States; it was short and sweet, but effective, with Megiddo again playing solo.

Finally, in jazz-land again, we heard The Entertainer, a 1902 classic piano rag written by Scott Joplin (1868-1917).  Again the players revealed their expertise.  Although intonation was no always perfect, the playing was full of contrast, including in an excellent pizzicato passage. A cellist in the audience told me that most of this programme had been performed at this year’s Cellophonia, for cellists; ‘a week of music making and expert coaching from international musicians’ held in late August, at the New Zealand School of Music, Victoria University of Wellington.

 

 

 

Impressive piano recital: Haydn, Beethoven and Liszt, from three NZSM students at St Andrew’s

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

 

St Andrew’s lunchtime concerts

Piano Students of the New Zealand School of Music

Saskia Hazlewood
Haydn: Piano Sonata in E minor, Hob XVI/34
Claudia Tarrant-Matthews
Beethoven: Piano Sonata in F minor, Op 57 “Appassionata” (first movement)
Liam Furey
Haydn: Piano Sonata in C minor, Hob XVI/20
Liszt: Transcendental Etude No 11 in D flat, S 139/11 “Harmonies du soir”

St Andrew’s on The Terrace

Wednesday 12 September, 12:15 pm

This was another in the series of concerts from NZSM students that have been presented recently in the lunchtime concert series at St Andrew’s on The Terrace.

There were three pianists here: two, first year, and one in her third year. Both the first year students played a minor key Haydn sonata, while the third year student, Claudia Tarrant-Matthews, played the formidable first movement of Beethoven’s Appassionata (another minor key piece).

Saskia Hazlewood played Haydn’s Sonata no 34 in E minor, handling with confidence the unrelenting staccato in the first movements, with no needless ornaments. The particularly marked hesitations in the slow movement enhanced the ‘Sturm und Drang’ feeling that it creates (it wasn’t just in the symphonies that that early mark of Romanticism existed). And the Vivace finale is one of Haydn’s most delightful, left untroubled by the odd, minor slip.

The second Haydn sonata was No 20, in C minor, played by Liam Furey. That too was a performance that seemed rather beyond what I might have expected from a first year student: thoughtful, with interesting dynamic contrasts and a surprising slow passage in the middle. The middle movement, Andante con moto, is long and without strong melodic character; so it depended more on the pianist’s own imaginative resources, which were quite evident. One might have interpreted its character as being another foreshadowing of Romantic spirit. His fluent playing of the Finale was further evidence of Furey’s grasp of Haydn’s wit and musical inventiveness.

Then Furey played one of Liszt’s formidable Transcendental Etudes. Not all are of insurmountable difficulty; they are just hugely challenging and emotionally intense. The most tumultuous part of No 11, Harmonies du soir, comes some time before the end; it follows stretches of rapturous, nocturnal music that becomes increasingly passionate and then subsides. The pianist revealed an impressive feat of memory and grasp of Liszt’s aesthetic.

Claudia Tarrant-Matthews’s offering was more challenging inasmuch as the Appassionata is so familiar that one is likely to compare it, unconsciously, to the sounds of consummate performances by the greatest pianists. There was no shame in having the score in front of her for the lengthy and demanding first movement. Her handling of the vivid contrasts that Beethoven presents, cutting between brief, rapturous, melodic passages and sudden irruptions of passion showed her grasp of its entire dramatic narrative.

It was an impressive performance. As were those by the other two young pianists.

 

NZSM Orchestra’s “Triple” celebration with the Te Kōkī Trio

Posted on by Peter Mechen

Te Kōkī New Zealand School Of Music  presents:
Music by Brahms, Beethoven, Debussy and Lilburn

BRAHMS – Tragic Overture
BEETHOVEN – Concerto for ‘cello, violin and piano with orchestra
DEBUSSY – Nocturnes (excerpts) – 1. Nuages  2.Fetes
LILBURN – Suite for Orchestra (1955)

Te Kōkī Trio : Inbal Megiddo (‘cello), Martin Riseley (violin), Jian Liu (piano)
New Zealand School of Music Orchestra

Kenneth Young (conductor)

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

Tuesday, 17th April, 2018

There was palpable excitement among those gathering within the none-too-spacious vistas of  St.Andrew’s-on-The-Terrace Church for the most recent concert given by Te Kōkī New Zealand School Of Music’s Orchestra with conductor Kenneth Young, most certainly due to the event’s extra attraction in presenting the fabulous Te Kōkī Trio as guest soloists in Beethoven’s wondrous Triple Concerto! – of course, each of the Trio’s soloists are currently heads of their respective instrumental disciplines at the School of Music in any case, which somehow added to the integral splendour and prestige of the occasion.

Under Kenneth Young’s tutorship this orchestra has seemed to me to gradually develop over the years the skills and confidence needed to tackle works from the standard repertoire which I would have considered ambitious to a fault for student players to even attempt, and proceeded to bring them off with considerable elan. True, the students always appear to have heart-warming support from their various tutors in performance, even when the latter are performing as soloists – we noticed, for example how both Inbal Megiddo (‘cello) and Martin Riseley (violin) from Te Kōkī Trio joined the full orchestra after the interval, in the wake of their Beethoven performance – and I feel certain that Jian Liu (piano) would have done the same had there been a keyboard part for him to play! But there were a number of others, whom the programme rightly named, spread across the various disciplines, whose presence in the band would have been empowering, to say the least!

It’s a scenario which seems to augur well for continued first-class performances by New Zealand orchestral musicians in this country, let alone develop the players’ individual instrumental skills for solo and smaller ensemble work. What we’re all waiting for in Wellington, now, is a venue that’s rather more accommodating spacious than St.Andrew’s  for orchestras such as the NZSM ensemble, without resorting to the capacious vistas of the MFC – which can even dwarf both Orchestra Wellington and the NZSO, depending on the numbers required for particular repertoire. So, how far advanced is the Town Hall’s promised earthquake restoration project, again?

This evening we were given an eclectic programme, each piece a challenge for the players in its different way, as befitted the concert’s purpose. First up was the hoary old Tragic Overture, by Brahms, which I confess I wasn’t heart-thumpingly excited about hearing – possibly because I’ve sat through many an “auto-pilot” performance of this music, seeming to amble through its paces with little “edge” given the attack, phrasings or rhythms, “standard fare” at its worst. Happily, Ken Young and his players obviously had no intentions of the music being made to sound anything other than totally enthralling, right from the first note – the attack of those first two chords was electrifying, the ensuing atmosphere charged with expectation, and the focused trajectories of the music that followed leading urgently and surely towards drama and excitement.

Conductor and players brought about this state of things by keeping the focus the whole time on where the music was headed, and then committing themselves to realising those cadence-points with the utmost concentration and urgency. Consequently, the music became the conduit through which all the efforts of the players passed, the result feeling like a kind of “living entity”, instead of merely a well-polished run-through. The passionate urgencies of the string-playing in the first, agitated section were beautifully contrasted by the poised eloquence of the winds during their more lyrical sequences mid-work, the oboist the most prominent of a number of heroes, here. The winds all made characterful and plangent contributions right up to the heart-warming burst of sunshine from the horns that allowed the violas their generously-phrased moment of glory before handing over to the violins.

There was no let-up, no slackening of tensions right up to the end of the piece, with the strings again squaring up to the conflict and matched by the winds’ and brass’s darkly passionate colourings and the timpani’s steady underpinning of the climaxes. If all performances of this work evoked such a spirit among orchestral players, I would happily change my tune regarding the music – here, the piece was made to bristle and boil, its trenchant sounds recreating a living sense of tragedy.

Having been nicely “primed” by these expressive urgencies, we were all the more expectant of the delights that the next piece of music would bring – Beethoven’s warm-hearted Triple Concerto, which brought to the performing platform the three aforementioned soloists from the Te Kōkī Trio. With a grand piano and two other places for string soloists required in front of the orchestra, the auditorium’s capacities were put under some stress, though with the help of the upstairs balcony, everybody seemed to fit in, just! As well they did, because the performance was of an order that will, I believe, give rise to reminiscences of the “Ah! – you should have been there to hear…” variety from among those present, in years to come.

The opening orchestral tutti is, quite simply, for me, one of those “squirming-with-delight” sequences whose ambience evokes a kind of cosmos eminently receptive to human habitation, a state of potential being amply filled by the arrival of the soloists, one at a time, here, all personalities in their own right, and imbued with interactive skills of all kinds. Inbal Megiddo’s ‘cello was the first to “appear”, brightly-and eloquently-voiced and very much at one with Martin Riseley’s violin, both relishing their triplet figurations that prepared the way for the piano. Jian Liu’s playing straight away had a matching, bright-eyed eagerness which readily gravitated to the mode of enthusiastic exchange that characterised most of this movement.

 

To reproduce all of my scribbled notes regarding this performance (I was, I confess, somewhat carried away by the sheer eloquence of the playing from both soloists and orchestra) would be sheer folly, like comparing prosaic mutterings to Shakespearian poetry – so I will confine myself to comments which somehow convey a sense of the whole. I particularly enjoyed Inbal Megiddo’s playing at the top of her range, with Beethoven making sure the instrument could be heard at nearly all times; and both hers and Martin Riseley’s violin-playing created a teasingly entertaining combination of exchange and unanimity in their passagework, with Jian Liu’s bright-toned piano adding both colour and a multi-voiced aspect of character to the discourse. This reached its first-movement apex both at the climax of the “development” section, and towards the end, with a “sighing” three-note descent leading to the coda, the three soloists scurrying through their firstly upward and then downward scales with great alacrity, amid crashing orchestral chords – so exciting!

The slow movement exuded pure romance at the outset, the orchestral strings’ rapt tones preparing the way for the ‘cello’s singing entry – a treasurable moment! The gently undulating piano followed carrying the melody forward, with violin and piano singing in tandem, before the violin was allowed ITS moment – honour was thus satisfied, the orchestra then essaying a dark and mysterious clarinet-led Weber-like sequence, which brought the soloists in singly by way of arpeggiated musings. Of a sudden, the ‘cello seemed to want to go out and play, and it was all on again, via the finale – though on this occasion I thought Inbal Megiddo’s playing more dutiful-sounding than enthusiastic with her introduction, a beginning that didn’t quite for me, launch things with sufficient “gusto”.  It took the orchestra to really set the polonaise-like rhythms on fire, though once the soloists reached their concerted “racy triplet rhythms” passage, punctuated at the end by the orchestra, things found their “stride” with a will, and there was no looking-back!

In fact the playing of the finale from here on generated tremendous momentum, which was thrilling in its own way, though I ought to register my fondness (excuses, excuses!) for the legendary, but much-maligned Karajan-led EMI recording of the 1970s with its starry lineup of Russian soloists, because of the po-faced “schwung” created in parts of that performance’s finale, particularly those minor-key polonaise-dance sequences. Here, by contrast, it was all thrust and counter-thrust, with those racy triplet-rhythms sounding positively dangerous at the performance’s speed, the risk-taking element inextricably tied up with the music’s joyous quality.

As for the helter-skelter coda (or rather, Coda No.1!), we simply gripped the sides of our seats and held on as Martin Riseley’s violin raced forwards, gathering up both ‘cello and piano, and challenging the orchestra to continue the chase, which they did, most excitingly! After various soloistic ups and downs, the piano introduced “Coda No.2”, a return to the polonaise dance rhythm, punctuated by great chordings from the orchestra and a brief frisson of skittery triplets from the soloists, and we were home, to the accompaniment of deservedly rapturous acclaim from all sides!

We all needed the interval to let off some rhapsodic steam in the direction of anybody else who would listen (most of the others were busy doing the same thing!). Once done, we gradually brought our metabolisms back down to normal from fever pitch, and settled back into our seats for the very different musical offerings of the concert’s second half.

The first of Debussy’s Nocturnes, Nuages (Clouds) began as if the sounds were reconstructing New Zealand poet Dennis Glover’s words in music – “detonated clouds in calm confusion lie”, with winds and strings enabling the phrases and textures confidently yet sensitively, the cor anglais mournfully repeating a motif that practically became a mantra for the scene, while the strings wove diaphanous sounds whose intensity varied as if controlled by unseen magic, the horn calling from a kind of fairy-nymph land of promise, and the winds floating their airborne phrases with great surety, a blip or two of no consequence against the steady evocation of timelessness, here beautifully realised by conductor Young and his players.

As for the second piece, Fêtes (Festivals), it straightaway seized our sensibilities by the ears, with the strings’ joyous clarion-call attack, infectious tarantella rhythms featuring excitable winds and  great brass shouts reinforced by timpani, with a spectacular flourish from the harp and percussion re-igniting the music’s thrust in a different direction – all so visceral and scalp-prickling! After we got further excitable exchanges between winds and strings – the latter barely able to contain their growing excitement – the distant procession’s sounds suddenly fell magically upon our ears from the harp and lower strings (Ottorino Respighi surely had this passage in mind when writing the last of his “Pines of Rome” in 1924), the remote brass calls creating magical vistas as the music moved forward, Ken Young controlling his forces like a general, and his troops marshalling their various forces with a will.  Horns shouted a welcome to the oncoming commotion, and the percussive sounds loomed ever closer (cymbals and side-drum splendidly giving voice) as the procession tumultuously passed through the scene and was eventually swallowed up by it, with ambient echoes resounding, and the festival rounding off its celebrations.

Festive sounds of a different kind were then brought into play for the concert’s finale, Douglas Lilburn’s 1955 Suite for Orchestra, a work written for the then Auckland Junior Symphony Orchestra, whose members must have found its playful angularities something of a challenge at the time. Lilburn composed the work while under the spell of the music of his older American contemporary, Aaron Copland, whose influence can be discerned in places, most noticeably in the finale. (Later, after some less-than-positive contact with the American, and an abortive visit to Tanglewood in the United States, to attempt a meeting with him, Lilburn seemed “cured” of any such further inclinations towards homage in that direction!).

In five shortish movements, Lilburn demonstrated the orchestral mastery he was soon to famously turn his back on, and explore what he called his own “total heritage of sound, meaning all sounds, and not just the narrow segment of them, traditional, imported, that we’ve long regarded as being music….” He meant, of course, an electro-acoustic sound-world, and made good his determination, to the bemusement and bewilderment of those who considered he hadn’t yet finished exploring what he had to say in traditional forms. For now, here was a playfulness and ease of expression worthy of any of his off-shore contemporaries, including the strangely deprecatory Copland – the opening Allegro of the Suite squawks with unashamed delight in places at the joy of setting such sounds into play, raucous, assertive, droll, sentimental and skittery, a “like it or not” spirit very much at large.

The Allegretto was a lovely, angular Waltz, the players tossing their pizzicato notes  across the orchestral platform, as strings and winds shared a serenade that had a whiff of “Old Paint” and its like, amid the rhythmic angularities – in places Lilburn’s almost Bartok-like humour of deconstruction came across splendidly, the lower brass adding a droll “Concerto for Orchestra” touch before the end. The brass began the Andante with slow, rising chords, echoed by the winds, as the strings intoned a plaintive melody, one which build to epiphany-like intensities at the end – a lovely, intensely-felt performance!

In complete contrast was the somewhat skeletal opening of the Moderato which followed, bleak winds and angular timpani giving way to a kind of “road music”, Young and his players firmly establishing those ambiences characteristic of their composer, here “at large” in the midst of landscapes he loved. And what fun everybody had with the concluding Vivace, the playing generating an orchestral energy which swept listeners along with dancing feet – a true Antipodean hoe-down! The sudden changes of atmosphere were breathtaking in their short-lived, but powerfully-focused moments of hymn-like serenity amid the riotous festivities, whose concluding shouts made a celebratory conclusion to a memorable concert!

Two resounding recordings from Rattle – classics and a feisty newcomer

Posted on by Peter Mechen


DAVID FARQUHAR – RING ROUND THE MOON
Sonatina – piano (1960) / Three Pieces – violin and piano (1967)
Black, White and Coloured – solo piano (selections – 1999/2002)
Swan Songs for voice and guitar (1983)
Dance Suite from “Ring Round the Moon” (1957 arr. 2002)
Jian Liu (piano) / Martin Riseley (violin)
Jenny Wollerman (soprano) / Jane Curry (guitar)
Rattle RAT-D062 2015

PICTURES
MODEST MUSSORGSKY – Pictures at an Exhibition
EVE De CASTRO ROBINSON – A Zigzagged Gaze
Henry Wong Doe (piano)
Rattle RAT-D072 2017

How best does one describe a “classic” in art, and specifically in music?

Taking the contents of both CDs listed above, one might argue that there are two “classic” compositions to be found among these works, one recognised internationally and the other locally, each defined as such by its popularity and general recognition as a notable piece of work. If this suggests a kind of facile populist judgement, one might reflect that posterity does eventually take over, either continuing to further enhance or consigning to relative neglect and near-oblivion the pieces’ existence in the scheme of things.

Though hardly rivalling the reputation and impact in global terms of Modest Mussorgsky’s remarkable Pictures at an Exhibition on the sensibilities of listeners and concert-goers, it could safely be said that New Zealand composer David Farquhar’ s 1957 incidental music for the play Ring Round the Moon has caught the imagination of local classical music-lovers to an extent unrivalled by any of the composer’s other works, and, indeed by many other New Zealand compositions. I would guess that, at present, only certain pieces by Farquhar’s colleague Douglas Lilburn would match Ring Round the Moon in popularity in this country, amongst classical music aficionados.

The presence of each of these works on these recordings undoubtedly gives the latter added general interest of a kind which I think surely benefits the lesser-known pieces making up each of the programmes. In both cases the combinations are beautifully thought-out and judiciously placed to show everything to its best possible advantage. And visually, there’s similar accord on show, the art-work and general layout of each of the two discs having its own delight and distinction, in the best tradition previously established by the Rattle label.

So enamoured am I still with Farquhar’s original RIng Round the Moon for small orchestra (that first recording featuring the Alex Lindsay Orchestra can be found by intrepid collectors on Kiwi-Pacific Records CD SLD-107), I thought I would give myself more time to get used to the idea of a violin-and-piano version (arranged by the composer in 1992). I therefore began my listening with the more recent disc, Pictures, featuring pianist Henry Wong Doe’s enterprising coupling of Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition and a 2016 work by Auckland composer Eve de Castro-Robinson, A zigzagged gaze, one which similarly presents a series of musical responses to a group of visual artworks.

Mussorgsky’s collection of pieces commemorated the work of a single artist, Victor Hartmann, a close friend of the composer, whereas de Castro-Robinson’s series of pieces, commissioned by the pianist, were inspired by work from different artists in a single collection, that of the Wallace Arts Trust. In the booklet notes accompanying the CD the composer describes the process of selecting artworks from the collection as “a gleeful trawling through riches”. And not only does she offer a series of brief but illuminating commentaries regarding the inspirational effect of each of the pictures, but includes for each one a self-written haiku, so that we get a series of delightfully-wrought responses in music, poetry and prose.

Henry Wong Doe premiered de Castro Robinson’s work, along with the Mussorgsky, at a “Music on Madison Series” concert in New York on March 5th 2017, and a month later repeated the combination for the New Zealand premiere in Auckland at the School of Music Theatre. His experience of playing this music “live” would have almost certainly informed the sharpness of his characterisations of the individual pieces, and their almost theatrical contrasts. For the most part, everything lives and breathes, especially the de Castro Robinson pieces, which, of course, carry no interpretative “baggage” for listeners, unlike in the Mussorgsky work, which has become a staple of the virtuoso pianist repertoire.

While not effacing memories of some of the stellar recorded performances of the latter work I’ve encountered throughout the years, Wong Doe creates his own distinctive views of many of the music’s sequences. He begins strongly, the opening “Promenade” bright, forthright, optimistic and forward-looking, evoking the composer’s excitement and determination to get to grips with the business of paying tribute to his artist friend, Viktor Hartmann whose untimely death was commemorated by an exhibition of his work.

The pianist relishes the contrasts afforded by the cycle, such as between the charm of the Tuileries scene with the children, and the momentously lumbering and crunching “Bydlo” which immediately follows. He also characterises the interactive subjects beautifully – the accents of the gossipping women in “The Market-Place at Limoges” tumble over one another frenetically, while the piteous cries of the poor Jew in “Samuel Goldenberg and Schmuyle” are sternly rebuffed by his well-heeled, uncaring contemporary.

I liked Wong Doe’s sense of spaciousness in many places, such as in the spectral “Catacombs”, and in the following “Con Mortuis in lingua mortua” (the composer’s schoolboy Latin still manages to convey a sense of the transcendence he wanted) – the first, imposing part delineating darkness and deathly finality, while the second part creating a communion of spirits between the composer and his dead artist friend – Wong Doe’s playing throughout the latter properly evoked breathless beauty and an almost Lisztian transcendence generated by the right hand’s figurations.)

Only in a couple of places I wanted him to further sustain this spaciousness – steadying a few slightly rushed repeated notes at the opening of the middle section of “Baba Yaga”, and holding for a heartbeat or so longer onto what seemed to me a slightly truncated final tremolando cadence right at the end of “The Great Gate of Kiev”. But the rest was pure delight, with the fearful witch’s ride generating both properly razor-sharp cries and eerie chromatic mutterings along its course, and the imposing “Great Gate” creating as magnificent and atmospheric a structure of fanciful intent as one would wish for.

Following Mussorgsky’s classic depiction of diverse works of art in music with another such creation might seem to many a foolhardy venture, one destined to be overshadowed. However, after listening to Wong Doe’s playing of Auckland composer Eve de Castro Robinson’s 2016 work, A Zigzagged Gaze, I’m bound to say that, between them, composer and pianist have brought into being something that can, I think, stand upright, both on its own terms and in such company. I listened without a break to all ten pieces first time up, and, like Mussorgsky at Viktor Hartmann’s exhibition, found myself in a tantalising network of connection and diversity between objects and sounds all wanting to tell their stories.

The work and its performance here seems to me to be a kind of celebration of the place of things in existence – the ordinary and the fabulous, the everyday and the special, the surface of things and the inner workings or constituents. As with Mussorgsky’s reactions to his artist friend Hartmann’s creations, there’s both a “possessing” of each work’s essence on de Castro-Robinson’s part and a leap into the kind of transcendence that music gives to things, be they objects, actions or emotions, allowing we listeners to participate in our own flights of fancy and push out our own limits of awareness.

As I live with this music I’m sure I’ll develop each of the composer’s explorations within my own capabilities, and still be surprised where and how far some of them take me. On first hearing I’m struck by the range of responses, and mightily diverted by the whimsy of some of the visual/musical combinations – the “gargantual millefiori paperweight” response to artist Rohan Wealleans’ “Tingler” in sound, for example. I’m entertained by the persistent refrains of Philip Trusttum’s “The Troubadour”, the vital drollery of Miranda Parkes’ “Trick-or-Treater” and the rousing strains of Jacqueline Fahey’s “The Passion Flower”. But in other moods I’ll relish the gentle whimsicalities inspired by Josephine Cachemaille’s “Diviner and Minder” with its delight in human reaction to small, inert things, and the warm/cool beauties of Jim Speers’ “White Interior”, a study of simply being.

Most haunting for me, on first acquaintance, however, are “Return”, with Vincent Ward’s psychic interior depiction beautifully reflected in de Castro Robinson’s deep resonances and cosmos-like spaces between light and darkness, and the concluding tranquilities of the initially riotous and unequivocal rendering of Judy Miller’s “Big Pink Shimmering One”, where the composer allows the listener at the end space alone with oneself to ponder imponderables, the moment almost Rimbaud-like in its powerful “Après le déluge, c’est moi!” realisation.

Henry Wong Doe’s playing is, here, beyond reproach to my ears – it all seems to me a captivating fusion of recreativity and execution, the whole beautifully realised by producer Kenneth Young and the Rattle engineers. I can’t recommend the disc more highly on the score of Eve de Castro-Robinson’s work alone, though Wong Doe’s performance of the Mussorgsky is an enticing bonus.

Turning to the other disc for review, one featuring David Farquhar’s music (as one might expect of a production entitled “Ring Round the Moon”) I noted with some pleasure that the album’s title work was placed last in the programme, as a kind of “all roads lead to” gesture, perhaps to encourage in listeners the thought that, on the face of things, the journey through a diverse range of Farquhar’s music would bring sure-fire pleasure at the traversal’s end.

Interestingly, the programme replicates a “Remembering David Farquhar” concert on the latter’s seventh anniversary in 2014, at Wellington’s NZSM, curated by Jack Body and featuring the same performers – so wonderful to have that occasion replicated here in preserved form. The disc is packaged in one of Rattle’s sumptuously-presented booklet gatefold containers, which also features details from one of artist Toss Woolaston’s well-known Erua series of works, and a biography of the artist.

Beginning the disc is Sonatina, a work for solo piano from 1950, which gives the listener an absorbing encounter with a young (and extremely promising) composer’s music. Three strongly characterised movements give ample notice of an exciting talent already exploring his creativity in depth. Seventeen years later, Farquhar could confidently venture into experimental territory with a Sonata for violin and piano which from the outset challenged his listeners to make something of opposing forces within a work struggling to connect in diverse ways. A second movement dealt in unconventionalities such as manipulating piano strings with both fingers and percussion sticks, after which a final movement again set the instruments as much as combatants as voices in easy accord.

The Black, White and Coloured pieces for piano, from 1999-2002, are represented in two selections on the disc – they represent a fascination Farquhar expressed concerning the layout of the piano keyboard, that of two modal sets of keys, five black and seven white. By limiting each hand to one mode Farquhar created a kind of “double” keyboard, with many opportunities for colour through interaction between the two “modes”. Altogether, Farquhar had twenty-five such pieces published in 2003.

I remember at the NZSM concert being less than enamoured of these works, thinking then that some of the pieces seemed too skeletal and bloodless compared with the originals, especially the settings of Negro Spirituals – but this time round I thought them enchanting, the “double harmonied” effect producing an effect not unlike Benjamin Britten’s treatment of various English folk-songs. A second bracket of these pieces were inspired by diverse sources, among them a Chopin Mazurka, a Landler from a Mahler Symphony, and a theme from a Schubert piano sonata, among others. Again I thought more highly of these evocations this time round, especially enjoying “Clouds”, a Debussy-like recreation of stillness, stunningly effective in its freedom and sense of far-flung purpose.

Swan Songs is a collection of settings which examines feelings and attitudes relating to existence and death, ranging from fear and anxiety through bitter irony to philosophical acceptance, using texts from various sources. Written originally for baritone voice and guitar in 1983, the performances I’ve been able to document have been mostly by women, with only David Griffiths raising his voice for the baritonal record. Here, as in the NZSM Memorial concert, the singer is Jenny Wollerman, as dignified and eloquent in speech as she is in song when delivering the opening “The Silver Swan” by Orlando Gibbons (it’s unclear whether Gibbons himself wrote the song’s words or if they were penned by someone else). Throughout the cycle, Jane Curry’s beautiful guitar-playing provides the “other half” of a mellifluous partnership with both voice and guitar gorgeously captured by producer Wayne Laird’s microphones.

Along with reiterations of parts of Gibbons’ work and a kind of “Swan swan” tongue-twister, we’re treated to a setting by Farquhar of his own text “Anxieties and Hopes”, with guitarist and singer interspersing terse and urgent phrases of knotted-up fears and forebodings regarding the imminence of death. As well, we’re served up a setting of the well-known “Roasted Swan” sequence from “Carmina Burana”, Jenny Wollerman poignantly delineating the unfortunate bird’s fate on the roasting spit. As in the concert presentation I found the effect of these songs strangely moving, and beautifully realised by both musicians.

As for the “Ring Round the Moon” set of dances, I suspect that, if I had the chance, I would want to hear this music played on almost any combination of instruments, so very life-enhancing and instantly renewable are its energies and ambiences. I’m therefore delighted to have its beauties, charms and exhilarations served up via the combination of violin and piano, which, as I remember, brought the live concert to a high old state of excitement at the end! And there’s a lot to be said for the process of reinventing something in an unfamiliar format which one thinks one already knows well.

What comes across even more flavoursomely in this version are the music’s angularities – though popular dance-forms at the time, Farquhar’s genius was to impart the familiar rhythms and the easily accessible tunes with something individual and distinctive – and the many touches of piquant harmony, idiosyncratic trajectory and impish dovetailing of figuration between the two instruments mean that nothing is taken for granted. Martin Riseley and Jian Liu give masterly performances in this respect – listen, for example, to the ticking of the clock leading into the penultimate Waltz for a taste of these musicians’ strength of evocation! Only a slight rhythmic hesitation at a point midway through the finale denies this performance absolutely unreserved acclaim, but I’m still going to shout about it all from the rooftops, and challenge those people who think they “know” this music to try it in this guise and prepare to be astounded and delighted afresh.