Tag: New Zealand School of Music

Interesting exploration of varied guitar music in NZSM’s students’ showcase

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

New Zealand School of Music: St Andrew’s Showcase week

Guitar students: Jake Church, George Wills, Dylan Solomon

St. Andrew’s on The Terrace

Thursday, 8 October 2015, 12.15pm

The last of the four showcase concerts from the New Zealand School of Music offered guitarists a platform. One of the four programmed players could not appear, meaning that a piece by New Zealand composer Mike Hogan, Hammerowen, was omitted.

Thus, in contrast to the hour-long viola concert on Wednesday, this one was about ten minutes shorter than the normal 45 minutes.

Two guitarists calling themselves Duo Kita, Jake Church and George Wills, began with two pieces from Brazilian composer Sergio Assad’s Summer Gardens Suite. It rather established the character of the whole concert: undemonstrative, gentle, subtle, discrete, for it supplied an appropriate though back-to-front opening piece, Farewell, a restrained and regretful lament.

Twentieth century guitar music sometimes seems to have little connection with the popular image of guitar music, probably coloured in the imagination by that of the great Spanish composers. In these two pieces the resources of the two instruments are carefully and imaginatively exploited and the expressive potential of a full range of dynamics (other than fortissimo, though careful amplification can achieve striking effects), and articulations deriving from the variety of plucking techniques. The second piece, Butterflies had little connection with either Schumann’s inventions or of Offenbach’s boisterous ballet score; dominated by a rather a hypnotic, self-reflective spirit that was driven by a repeated, rising four-note motif.

Jake Church remained in his place and then introduced the concert; unfortunately I did not catch certain key details (the microphone was iffy) and had to check things later. He explained that he was about to play a Bach suite that was different from that in the programme: the Suite in E flat, BWV 998 which, according to the usual reference source, was written for keyboard but later arranged for guitar. “Arranged for guitar, it is usually played in D major with a ‘Drop D’ tuning [that means the low E string is tuned down a tone to D]. Julian Bream played it in a BBC2 broadcast on television in early 1978 at the All Saints chapel of New Wardour Castle, when he announced it as ‘of vital importance’.” (Wikipedia). Church played the Prelude and the third movement, Allegro.

The Prelude was quietly cheerful with rolling triplets while the Allegro was a dance-like piece with quicker triplets, quite charming. I could well understand how guitarists were happy to purloin it, under what-ever pretext, from the plentifully-endowed keyboard players.

And Jake Church followed that with a Levantine Suite by Dusan Bogdanovich, born in Yugoslavia (presumably Serbia) just 50 years ago. One of the most distinguished contemporary guitar composers, his three movement work was an impressive exercise in quite complex counterpoint and rhythms, interesting textures, often delicately decorated, and Church’s playing was up to its demands. I confess to losing track of the shifts between the three sections, but there was an episode involving fractured scale passages, and it came to an end as the composer would have wished, without rhetoric or attention seeking.

Dylan Solomon’s offering was one of Scarlatti’s 500 or so keyboard sonatas , K 213 in D minor, a steady-paced, deliberate piece in which the original conception for harpsichord could be readily heard, without creating any sense that the guitar was inappropriate; a short pause in the middle led to a repeat that seemed somewhat of a variation on the first section, at least in tone and articulation. It was admirable.

Tarrega’s Adelita and Preludio No 2 was played by the other half of the Duo Kita, George Wills. It was a charming revelation of the gifts of a composer whom most of us would know only from the unforgettable Recuerdos de la Alhambra. Here was the same melodic gift, gently paced; the first piece sounded to me more improvisatory, ‘preludish’ than the more song-like second piece and I wondered whether Wills had played Adelita second for it sounded more song-like, restrained and perhaps infused by a feeling for whoever Adelita was.

George Wills brought the recital to an end with Danza Negra by Columbian composer Lucas Saboya. The title rang bells but I found it was a recollection of a Dansa Negra by Brazilian composer Guanieri – a piano piece played by Katherine Stott at the Nelson Chamber Music Festival earlier this year (useless trivia).

The real enigma rested with the programme note that referred to Saboya’s piece as part of Suite Ernestina, the last part of which contains an ‘allusion’ to a Danza negra by one Antonio Lauro’s Suite Venezolana. In a samba rhythm with a generalised South American character (meaning I’m not really able to pin-point the melodic and rhythmic styles), it involved virtuosic scales and other fast finger-work that Wills handled with impressive, idiomatic skill.

Though the recital was rather abbreviated, it gave the happy few who were there the chance to expand their musical horizons with both original guitar music and excellent adaptations from the classical masters from three most adept instrumentalists.

Violist Gillian Ansell and student Aidan Verity with viola concertos at NZSM Showcase

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

New Zealand School of Music; Showcase week – viola students

Stamitz: Viola Concerto in D, Op.1
Schumann: Märchenbilder for Viola and Piano, Op.113
Walton: Viola Concerto

Aidan Verity, viola; Gillian Ansell, viola; Rafaella Garlick-Grice, piano

St. Andrew’s on The Terrace

Wednesday, 7 October 2015, 12.15pm

Having been told the previous day, and by the listed outline of concerts to come in this week of NZSM student recitals that this was to be one of ‘viola students’, I was disappointed to discover that in fact only one such student was playing, plus her teacher, Gillian Ansell.  I hastily add that it is no disappointment to hear Gillian Ansell play, but over the years NZSM has excelled with its viola students, and we have heard numbers of such students perform at end-of-year recitals.  So today was a surprise.

The works were not performed in the order in which they were printed the programme, and no announcement was made to indicate that the order of the first two items was reversed. This might have confused some.

The student, Aidan Verity (spelt in the programme also as ‘Aiden’) is a very accomplished performer. Her Stamitz concerto, in a piano reduction version, as was the later Walton concerto, quickly revealed her gorgeous tone and highly skilled playing.  Her deeper tones were particularly mellifluous.  She was a confident and assured performer, and made double-stopping and fast runs seem easy.  Just occasionally intonation was a little suspect, but these occasions became fewer and fewer as she warmed to her task.  The overall performance was delightful, and in places magical.

It was quite an exacting programme to have, following Stamitz’s three-movement concerto, the Schumann work of four movements.  There were some tricky passages here, especially in the Rasch (quick) third movement, which demands some fast finger-work.  The final movement, Langsam, mit melancholischen Ausdruck (slow, with melancholic expression) is, strangely, in a major key despite its melancholy nature, while two of the earlier movements are in minor keys, despite the more lively characters.

Aidan gave the last movement, with its abrupt ending, a fine interpretation, making the music sing soulfully; a curious contrast to the brighter temperament of the previous two movements.

To have perhaps the most important viola concerto in the repertoire rendered by a professional violist of Gillian Ansell’s standing and experience at a lunch-hour concert was an unexpected bonus.  Here, as in the Stamitz work, Rafaella Garlick-Grice’s performance at the piano was remarkable; her rendition of the orchestral role was thoroughly accurate, supportive, and idiomatic to the different characters of the two concertos.

Gillian Ansell introduced the work, telling us of the link between her viola and this concerto.  As the excellent programme note told us, the first recording of the concerto was made by the noted English violist Frederick Riddle who was a previous owner of her viola, and she thinks it likely that that recording was made using what is now her instrument.

Ansell took a little time to settle, but then played splendidly, with a mellow sound.  However, despite the skill of the performers, I found the concerto did not ‘grab’ me; the absence of an orchestra subjected the work to too severe a test as the lack of orchestral colour, variety of timbres left it feeling a rather cold piece, even pedestrian in places. Yet this was an admirable performance by both Gillian and Rafaella which revealed the music’s lyric qualities but was simply not able to exploit them as fully as orchestral support would have allowed.   It goes without saying that the many technical difficulties were well within Gillian Ansell’s grasp.

To say the pianist’s contribution to this concert was major, is an understatement.  As in most of Schumann’s music for instrument and piano or voice and piano, the latter is vital, its part and varied.  To play two concertos substituting for orchestra in the one concert, plus another major work is a considerable challenge, and one that this performer fully met.

As I’d expected, there was a bigger audience than on the first two days; for Wednesday is the usual day for St. Andrew’s lunchtime concerts.  The timing of these concerts in the school holidays might also have contributed to the rather disappointing turnouts.  Though the programme ran a quarter of an hour longer than the usual lunchtime concert, I did not notice anyone leaving, which suggests that these concerts are not attended in the lunch-breaks by many workers in the area who had to return to their jobs.

 

Rich and entertaining fare from student cellists at St Andrew’s

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

New Zealand School of Music: Concert Week

Cello students: Jordan Renaud, Tierney Baron, Caitlin Morris, Lavinnia Rae, Olivia Wilding, Elena Morgan, Rebecca Warnes, Bethany Angus
Directed by Inbal Megiddo

Bach’s Cello Suite No 5 in C minor – Praeludium, played by Lavinnia Rae
Bach’s Cello Suite No 6 in D – Sarabande
Barber: Adagio for strings
Piazzolla: Libertango
Rossini: Overture to The Barber of Seville

St Andrew’s on The Terrace

Monday 5 September, 12:15 pm

Eight cello students from Victoria University’s school of music, led by head of cello, Inbal Megiddo, delivered a highly diverting concert, the first in the school’s end of year showcase which is taking place between Monday and Thursday this week.

The advertised programme was amended by the addition of a solo performance by one of their number, Lavinnia Rae. Hers was another piece from Bach’s Cello Suites: the Praeludium from the fifth suite in C minor.

I forgot to ask, and I couldn’t observe, whether Lavinnia had followed Bach’s instruction for playing that one, that the A string be tuned down a tone, to G. I assume it was, as that allows the top note, A flat, in certain chords in the key of C minor to be played on the “A” string, when it would otherwise have to be played on the D string, which is taken to play a lower note in chords. It also has the effect of slightly decreasing the brightness of that string.

Her playing was warm and confident, with an energising bite to those chords in the first part of the Praeludium. Her rhythm was fluid and flexible, creating a nice rhapsodic quality in its first section. Quite soon Bach presents a bit of a surprise with a shift to a 3/8, gigue-like, rhythm, its energy rising and falling, and becoming increasingly lively as it approaches the end with its sudden shift into C major. A lovely performance.

Then all cellists emerged, along with Megiddo, to play the Sarabande from the sixth suite (which also has its peculiarities, being written for an instrument with five strings, somewhere called a ‘viola pomposa’, which has an additional, higher, E string). The impact of a symphony of cellists playing in a somewhat harmonised version of the music created an entirely different effect, Italianate perhaps, a big warm study in baroque chordal expressiveness.

Samuel Barber’s Adagio is much more familiar in a variety of guises; here, Megiddo parked her cello and picked up a baton to conduct it. The players with the leading high parts were very secure and created a movingly elegiac spirit that probably few other ensembles could match in this chameleon-like music.

The admirably varied and imaginative programme then treated Piazzolla’s bandoneon-dominated Libertango to the civilising (is that what I mean?) effect of a phalanx of cellos, with Megiddo resuming a seat in the midst of her students. They began with a gentle tapping on the belly of some of the instruments, and then the music proceeded to demonstrate how Piazzolla would have scored it if he’d been born of Argentinian blood in, say, Vienna with the local Philharmonic at his disposal. In fact, the transition from bandoneon to cellos is not sonically such as leap, given players of talent and stylistic acuity. The playing was hair-raising in some respects, especially the handling of the accompanying figures in the bass, and there was challenge enough, in fingering and rhythms, in the upper parts too.

The last item was the greatest leap from one genre to another. For a piece as familiar as the overture to The Barber of Seville to be deprived of its brass and woodwinds, and to ask big, warm-hearted instruments like cellos to indulge in its brilliant and flashy emotional effects made for an experience that was almost bizarre and had me smiling even more than Rossini usually does. In fact there were moments of near satire and pure comedy; and in the accelerandi and crescendi, which so delighted this incomparable composer, the joke seemed to be on the players and the result was downright hilarious.

So this was one of the most entertaining concerts I’ve been to for a while.

HOME-GROWN SOUNDS OF CHARACTER

Posted on by Peter Mechen

Piano Music by Douglas Lilburn
(2015 – Lilburn 100th Anniversary)

Works and performers

Sonata (1949) – Jian Liu
Prelude (1951) – Gillian Bibby
Sonatina No.1 (1946) – Gabriel Khor
Sonatina No.2 (1962) – Louis Lucas-Perry
Three Sea-Changes (1945-81) – Jian Liu
Nine Short Pieces (1965-66) – Richard Mapp
Chaconne (1946) – Xing Wang
From the Port Hills (1942) – Gillian Bibby

Adam Concert Room, Kelburn Campus
Te Kōkī New Zealand School of Music

Friday 31st July 2015

Robert Hoskins’ typically perceptive programme notes for this concert quoted a significant remark made by painter Toss Woollaston to Douglas Lilburn, which the composer later recalled. Talking specifically about work by New Zealand artists, Woollaston stated that “environment should give it character”. Lilburn seems, on the showing of some of the most important of his piano pieces in this concert, to have taken Woollaston’s remark to heart.

One is tempted to suggest that this wasn’t music for the city-dweller by inclination – as with most of the work by one of Lilburn’s compositional heroes, Sibelius, these sounds consistently evoked a more-or-less solitary interaction with nature, evocations of wild, uncultivated spaces, with detail wrought by natural, rather than man-made forces. It’s a world that the average New Zealander still “knows”, even though many such environments are increasingly coming under threat of compromise by various hermetically-sealed variants of so-called “progress”.

However, in the Adam Concert Room, listeners were invited by the composer through his music and the excellent performances by different pianists, to re-explore and enlarge their experiences of and attitudes towards these worlds – here were works whose structures connected us with familiar, mainstream frameworks and procedures, but whose language brought those techniques into a more localized context of relevance and meaning. Tones wrought vistas of all kinds and characters known to us, while rhythms illustrated detailing of lines, textures and sounds readily associated with these places.

As with the music of Vaughan Williams (a tutor of Lilburn’s at the Royal College of Music in London), the pictorial and atmospheric qualities of these works were merely the beginning for the listener – it was the distillation of feeling that came of the interaction that mattered more, one that surprised by its depth (as Schumann said of listeners to his music) for “those who listen secretly”. All music has a “face”, supported by underlying flesh and bone, and more deeply, with a brain in behind – and here, Lilburn’s music, like any other composer’s when investigated properly, responded in its own unique and powerful way, with what pianist Margaret Nielsen, perhaps this music’s greatest interpreter, would undoubtedly call “character”.

Whatever one’s interpretation of the interpretative and listening processes, it became obvious as the evening went on that the music’s unique world was here responding to the enormous care and attention to detail demonstrated by each of the pianists called upon to pay homage to the composer to mark his hundredth anniversary birth-year. The performing line-up was indeed impressive, as much through its range and scope of age and experience as its remarkable consistency of executant skills and strongly-focused individual variation of interpretation.

Jian Liu, Senior Lecturer in piano at the NZSM, welcomed us to the concert, readily conveying both his delight in being able to celebrate such an important centenary with an event such as this, and his great respect for the composer’s work, before beginning musical proceedings with the Sonata (1949), music whose innate strength was here given a kind of tensile quality, played as it was with enormous thrust and volatility. The sounds have a geographical quality – the sky above, the earth below, the hills all around – and Liu’s “glint” of tone and spring” of figuration made certain utterances leap forward, while imparting great strength and depth to more reflective passages.

I’d forgotten how uncannily reminiscent this music was in places of Schubert’s A Minor Sonata D 784 (no great surprise, really, as Lilburn was a devotee of the composer), the sounds similarly resonating around great octave statements, and ringing with bell-like tones amid the more urgent figurations. However, being rather less concerned than Schubert’s work with human sorrow and solace, the lines here readily “wreathe” around and about the shapes of each of the landforms, drawing in and impulsively intertwining the human spirit with the strange wildness of it all. Liu’s playing generated pangs of loneliness at the slow movement’s opening, though he also caught the grace and ease of those rhythmic trajectories which beautifully leavened the tensions for a few precious moments. And he gave full play to, the granite-like sounds which welled up towards the end , and just as quickly dissolved.

The finale begins almost like a ritualistic Spanish dance, before presenting us with a kind of “song of the high hills”, the wanderer perhaps giving vent to energetic exuberance (and in the process disturbing rabbits who seem to scamper across tussockland in mock fright!). Expectations, doubts, fears and satisfactions cross the wanderer’s face as the journey is launched further into unknown regions, and the journeyman is left to go on alone.

Gillian Bibby was next, giving us the Prelude (1951), and demonstrating an entirely different quality of sound to Jian Liu’s, richer, mellower and deeper-voiced, not, I feel merely a matter of different music, but of the pianist putting all of herself “into” the sound-spaces with great feeling. Especially resonant were the great chordal passages in the piece’s middle section, the warmth and feeling of those rolled chords an almost palpable experience for the listener!

To Gabriel Khor was entrusted the Sonatina No.1, another piece which for me evoked the spirit of Schubert at the onset with a running octave figure, the mercurial lines punctuated with powerful chords, delivered with, by turns, poise and energy. In this music sounds of birdsong alternated with sterner realities, the throwaway ending of the movement a portent of further austerities (the work of an intense young man!). After this I thought the second movement’s ritual-like opening a kind of paean of praise of creation, the movement’s wonderful contrasts of tone and dynamics fully realized by the young pianist, with an especially sensitive, beautifully ambient stillness in places. Then, what quirkiness the finale surprised us with! And how cleverly the composer maintained the obsessiveness of the rhythmic patterning, while managing both lyrical and declamatory sequences woven into the textures – here, it was all given a creditable and accomplished performance.

How interesting to experience so many different pianists in a concert! For here was another young player, Louis Lucas-Perry, ready to tackle the Sonatina No.2. proclaiming his own way of doing things by promptly changing the piano stool, and then embarking upon the “rhapsody of natural immersion” which informs the work’s ringing, singing opening, the music seemingly living upon impulse, as if in the grip of a “bright dream”. Louis Lucas-Perry’s playing took us into this world of ambient entrancement, the music’s peregrinations coloured by impulsive nature-rhythms and textures rising out of the composer’s much-cherished “then-and-now”identifications, something of a “landscape and memory” realization.

Jian Liu returned after an interval with the well-known Three Sea-Changes, the title containing an oblique tribute to Shakespeare and his magical oceanic evocations.  The music draws from different times and scenarios in the composer’s life, the first bright and lyrical, recalling a mood of exultation, obviously a feeling he associated with Brighton, near Christchurch, one which Jian Liu “orchestrated” magnificently at the piece’s climax – how different to this “exuberant and sunlit” view is the second evocation, that of Paekakariki, which Lilburn called “a more expansive view”, one with much longer lines and swirls of impulsive energy, Debussian in their impressionistic colour, and creating far more of a solitary view than the opening piece. Finally the last piece is more of an inscape, here played with great sensitivity by Liu, mingling an inner tenderness with ceaseless oceanic murmurings. Margaret Nielsen has said that these three, independently-written pieces were brought together by the composer as a kind of commentary on the three stages of human life.

The next item, Nine Short Pieces, brought the all-too-infrequently-heard Richard Mapp to the keyboard to play parts of a collection once famously characterized by the composer to Margaret Nielsen as “Crotchety at 51”. She chose nine of the pieces the composer had given her, and put them in what seemed to her like an effective sequence. Robert Hoskins sees these pieces as a kind of extension of the “Sings Harry” song-cycle, Lilburn’s settings of Denis Glover’s poetry. Even without analyzing the music, one can hear things like the self-deprecation of “Harry” the hero of the poems, in sequences such as the mock-Gothic opening of the first piece, the speech-like exchanges of the third (the piano writing recalling Musorgsky!) and the spiky, almost twelve-tone character of the fourth – “Soliloquies for piano” would have suited these pieces as a title equally well, especially as reflections of the thoughtfulness of the composer’s other music and the wondrous results of parallel homegrown artistic activities wrought by his contemporaries.

Richard Mapp played them with characteristic insight, all such evocations and angularities delineated for our pleasure and wonderment. In his hands the opening piece rumbled and resonated amid punctuating shrieks, alarms and other surprises, suggesting a kind of “savage parade” to follow – an expectation completely disarmed by the quirkiness of the following “question answered by a question” exchanges, and after that, a twelve-tone-like series of impulses bristling with abrupt agitations. I enjoyed his lovely “voicings” in pieces like No.5 with its tenor-and-baritone duetting, the lines long-drawn and resonant Denis Glover’s “Harry” in full philosophical flight, perhaps?), and similarly relished his skilful treatment of the different “characters” of No.6 – cool, crystalline and sharp-edged lines set against wonderfully resonant and vibrant ambiences filled with light.

Set amid such characterful performances of the rest of his music, the great Chaconne here became a larger-scale version of Lilburn’s established preoccupations – the way into this music had, in other words, already been well-prepared. PIanist Xing Wang brought out those attendant resonances and after-glowings in her beautifully-shaped exposition of the work’s opening, giving the sounds plenty of space, and allowing the music’s shape to guide her in places. Here she encouraged the many celebratory cascades of sound to take on a kind of free-fall aspect, before rounding out our trajectories and leading us more circumspectly into the heart of what resembled a pulsating organism, her playing tracing the sounds along delicate lines reaching out to distant realms, as if defining the work’s spaces.

In general terms hers was a whole-hearted engagement with all of the piece’s requirements, were they massive, deeply-rooted chords, steadily-pulsed outlines of melody arching over great spaces, or skitterish irruptions of impulse scattering their energies like unexpected sunshowers. And at the end she made a virtue of the abrupt challenge of Lilburn’s Sibelius-like coda to the work, giving us a direct, straightforward statement of arrival, reminiscent of the final moments of the Finnish master’s Tapiola.

Finally, what better way to conclude this composer-tribute than to have one of the pieces performed by a fellow-composer? The task fell to Gilian Bibby, who gave us a rendition of the 1942 piece From the Port Hills, the surviving item from a collection of five Bagatelles written during Lilburn’s Christchurch years. One responded immediately to the pianist’s warm, beautifully-rounded tones, which imparted a Brahmsian feel to the textures in places, the sonorities at such times deliciously rich and deep at appropriate points, but serving to highlight the delicacy with which some of the secondary material was floated so freely and radiantly.

At the end one’s impression was of having experienced a truly significant and unique body of work – music whose sounds draw their inspiration from the places we ourselves know, and which we can justifiably claim as our own. Very great credit to Jian Liu, to the NZ School of Music, and to all the pianists who contributed to the concert. One feels certain the composer wouldn’t have wished for a better-organised and more satisfyingly-realised tribute in this “marvellous year”.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Admirable, heart-warming concert closes an inspiring NZSM chamber music weekend

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Combined Final Concert of the 2015 NZSM Queen’s Birthday Chamber Music Weekend
The culmination of the weekend

Adam Concert Room, Victoria University

Monday 1 June, 1:30 pm

The New Zealand School of Music helped keep the Queen’s Birthday road toll down by attracting scores of secondary and tertiary students to a sort of immersion programme that would prepare secondary school competitors in the NZCT Chamber Music Contest and general tuition for chamber music groups in a communal atmosphere, and keep them off the roads.

It had been a busy week for many of the participants, as I noticed the names of about ten of the players in the Wellington Youth Orchestra on Friday evening were among those at this Monday afternoon concert.

The Chamber Music Weekend had coincided and in some way combined with the school of music’s Classical Saxophone Festival, and student saxophonists as well as a couple of tutors contributed to the concert. Otherwise the programme consisted of a series of string and piano trios. While Debbie Rawson led the saxophone section, Helene Pohl and New Zealand String Quartet colleagues Douglas Beilman and Rolf Gjelsten led in the general chamber music area.

The School of Music Saxophone Quartet opened the concert with a couple of pieces that they’d played in the Wednesday concert of the school’s Showcase at St Andrew’s on The Terrace. Excellent individual performances, though I felt that their sound would have coalesced better if they had placed themselves further back from the audience.

Almost all the groups announced their music, some well projected, some not so well; but the practice is very important, for to be a live musician involves more than just musical skill and talent. Delivery: speech comfortably paced; don’t gabble composers’ names and musical terms and titles; make it sound as if you’re really interested.

A string trio was next, by Taneyev (stress on second syllable – Tanyéyev), and played by the eponymous group. Though written early in the 20th century, for two violins and a viola, it sounded remarkably Haydnish, showing little of the influence of Tchaikovsky, his teacher and life-long friend. Here was a creditable performance from a promising young trio of a piece that was not overtly very interesting.

The Alsergrund Trio (cellist Tessa told us that’s the Vienna suburb when Schubert was born), played their namesake’s first piano trio and made a very good job of it, both individually and as an ensemble. Their playing of the first movement was bold and confident, fully justifying their courage in taking on one of the great masterpieces of the repertoire.

It would have come as a pleasant surprise to many to hear the set of three songs by Glinka (we hear too little Russian song), attractively arranged for piano and two violins – the violins making as if the songs really were lovely duets. (I wondered why the title of the three songs was in German: I don’t see a group of Glinka’s songs so-named).  All three players acquitted themselves beautifully.

The first half ended with the opening movement of Smetana’s anguished piano trio in which the oddly named Melodious Thunk (what connection with the great jazz pianist?) captured the drama and the close-to-the-surface emotion. All players were in command of it, though the piano was a bit loud: I was tempted single out cellist Bethany Angus, in particular, but it would be invidious to attempt singling out.

A solo saxophone piece opened the second half: Tomomi Johnston demonstrated an understanding of Piazzolla’s style, and we could hear the breathing challenges that she managed very well.

The rather forgotten but slowly being revived Benjamin Goddard has not been known for much other than his opera Jocelyn; famous for a lovely Berceuse. These movements from Six Duettini, were charming music which the three very young-looking players, called Trio Souvenirs, handled sympathetically and very musically.

The Debussy Trio played his very early and unfamiliar piano trio (only rediscovered in recent years); all three captured the tone of the work, which reflected Fauré’s very strong influence, in a performance of, was it two or three(?), movements. The three players didn’t blend very comfortably, but I suspect the reason lay more with Debussy’s inexperience in his teens; nevertheless they played with impressive confidence and accuracy.

Two of the weekend’s saxophone tutors broke the domination by violins and pianos with three amusing Conversations by Richard Rodney Bennett: two baritone saxophones exhibited accord and sympathy and mild dissent.

To play Saint-Saëns’s second piano trio, a particularly impressive group, named after the composer, awakened me to the first movement of a piece I didn’t know: another persuasive exhibit for the defence and rehabilitation in the court of his reputation.

Finally came the ‘other’ piano trio of Shostakovich; that written when at the Leningrad Conservatorium in 1923. Lyrical, light-hearted though far from straight-forward, with several moments of curious complexity, it has been called “the most romantic music that Shostakovich ever wrote”. It too was revelatory, in the hands of Trio Glivenko (Who? S. fell in love with Tatyana Glivenko as he was recovering from tuberculosis in Crimea, and dedicated the work to her). The trio included two musicians who’d greatly impressed me earlier, Bethany Angus and Claudia Tarrant-Matthews (now at the piano, having been the accomplished violinist in the Debussy), plus the equally talented Shweta Iyer: confidence, in total command.

I had hoped to discover more details about the music, about the groups that performed, where they came from, which ones were competitors in the forthcoming NZCT Chamber Music Contest, which were at university level. And I’d wondered why there were no groups of wind instrument players.

However, this was an admirable initiative which I hope becomes a regular event. School of Music director Euan Murdoch remarked during the interval that the high achievement of young New Zealanders in the field of chamber music is admired internationally. The work of Chamber Music New Zealand and the various programmes undertaken with the universities, particularly Victoria, are helping compensate for the increasing neglect of the arts in general, and classical music in particular, by most primary and secondary schools.

 

Inspiring lunchtime performances from NZSM string players

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

St Andrew’s-on-The-Terrace Lunchtime Concert Series

Undergraduate Strings of the NZSM

Caitlin Morris (cello), Laura Barton and Julian Baker (violins), accompanied by Rafaella Garlick-Grice (piano)

Music by SAINT-SAENS, JS BACH, MENDELSSOHN, SHOSTAKOVICH

St Andrew’s-on-The-Terrace

Wednesday, 22 October 2014

It was nothing short of astonishing to hear the level of musicianship and accomplishment on their instruments that these students demonstrated. As an undergraduate concert it was quite staggering.

The concert opened with the cello of Caitlin Morris, playing a section from Saint-Saëns’ Cello Concerto No.1, Op.33. Hers was dynamic and exciting playing. The tempo was quite fast, despite the ‘non troppo’marking of the opening. It was a little too fast, in my view, to bring to life some of the quick passages and figures in both the cello and the orchestral parts (the latter on piano, of course). Nevertheless, melodies were brought out well, and Caitlin’s playing produced excellent tone and subtlety of phrasing and shading of dynamics.

The double-stopping was executed seamlessly, while the accompaniment was at all times clear but never overwhelmed the soloist. The lyrical passages were very fine on both instruments, and Rafaella rendered the orchestra superbly – perhaps even Saint-Saëns would not have missed the full band if he had heard this excellent performance. The players were rewarded with warm applause from the audience.

Laura Barton played next – three items, all from memory. Bach’s unaccompanied Preludio in E from Partita no.3 BWV 1006 was first. This popular solo piece has its difficulties; there were some intonation inaccuracies, particularly at the beginning. Things improved as the piece proceeded. There was great clarity in Laura’s playing (and in her speaking voice introducing her programme, too); this was a very competent performance.

Saint-Saëns returned, in completely different mood, in the form of the well-known Havanaise, Op.83. It was played with panache and expressiveness. Technically demanding, it produced a few slight fluffs in pitch, but it was played with flair and musicality. Again, the sensitive accompaniment provided all the notes and moods that the orchestral score would have. As well as songs and dances, the music seems to have an element of bravado about it.

The third movement of Mendelssohn’s well-known Violin Concerto in E minor Op.64 followed. It was played with skill and flourish. While the Latin word ‘dexter’ means the right hand, Laura’s left hand was in no way sinister, and in fact was extremely dextrous. I would have liked a little more articulation and phrasing from both instruments at times. However, Laura’s tone was for the most part warm and radiant.

After this considerable contribution, came Julian Baker. He played from Shostakovich’s Violin Concerto no.1, Op.99, the third and fourth movements: Passacaglia: andante, and Burlesque: allegro con brio. The complex and demanding music was played from memory. This violinist makes a lovely sound. The contemplative, sombre mood at the commencement of the Passacaglia was a great contrast to the Mendelssohn we had just heard.The playing was strong and incisive when required; light and shade and a variety of tonal colours contributed to the satisfying interpretation.

Julian was secure technically, including in the extended sequences of double-stopping. The cadenza at the end of the Passacaglia and the solo first two-thirds of the Burlesque were played with consummate skill. Amazing glissando flourishes and the speed that became not merely allegro con brio but furioso seemed to hold no fears for the violinist.

This was an absolute tour de force, and the audience showed their appreciation by demanding that Julian Baker come on for a second bow.

Soloists add distinction to NZSM Orchestra concert

Posted on by Peter Mechen

Te Kōkī NZ School of Music presents:
FROM GENEVA TO KNOXVILLE

BRAHMS – Tragic Overture
TCHAIKOVSKY – Violin Concerto in D
BARBER – Knoxville: Summer of 1915
BARTOK – Dance Suite

Xin (James) Jin (violin)
Amelia Berry (soprano)
New Zealand School of Music Orchestra
Kenneth Young (conductor)
Sacred Heart Cathedral, Hill St., Wellington

Thursday October 2nd, 2014

In the wake of a couple of crackingly good recent concerts given by the NZSM Orchestra and its intrepid conductor, Kenneth Young, I found myself eagerly looking forward to this particular evening’s presentation. The programme followed the orchestra’s policy of mixing the familiar (Brahms, Tchaikovsky) with the less-frequently performed (Barber, Bartok), the repertoire obviously designed to present the student musicians with a wide range of technical and stylistic challenges.

For a number of reasons, it seemed a nicely-balanced choice of items. The documented love-hate relationship between Brahms and Tchaikovsky as personalities gave the concert’s first half an extra frisson of contrasted expression. Then, the excitement and exhilaration of difference continued throughout the second half by a shift of focus twentieth-century-wards, with Barber and Bartok.

The prospect of hearing an exciting young soloist  Xin (James) Jin play a popular work like the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto would have drawn many people to the concert; and while Samuel Barber’s music (apart from his ubiquitous Adagio) wouldn’t have perhaps quickened pulses in the same way, the presence of ANOTHER soloist (soprano Amelia Berry) would, I’m sure, have been enticing – a singer or instrumentalist performing with an orchestra has a theatricality which is always of interest, in addition to whatever it is they’re performing.

Well, as it turned out, the concert was fabulous in parts – and interestingly enough the “soloist-and-orchestra” sequences stole the show! The concerto got one of the most exciting performances of the solo part I’ve ever heard from Xin Jin, while soprano Amelia Berry’s rendition of Barber’s achingly nostalgic setting of childhood memories “Knoxville: Summer of 1915” touched our hearts in a completely different way.

Neither performance was perfect in all respects – in the concerto, the orchestral support for the soloist was heartwarming in the lyrical passages, but didn’t really ignite in some of the more vigorous “brandy-on-the-breath” parts of the finale. In the Barber work the unfortunately overbearing acoustic of the venue meant that Amelia Berry’s words were often hard to decipher, the very “up-front” tones of the orchestral playing working against vocal clarity, gorgeous though her singing “sounded” throughout.

As for the two other works on the programme, the playing was in places spectacularly fiery, but again, thanks in part to the acoustic, had an uncomfortable “unrelieved” quality – I found the Bartok, in particular, hard going in places for this reason, the orchestral sound too confrontational for comfort, to my ears. A pity that both of this orchestra’s recent concert venues, the Cathedral and St.Andrew’s Church, are simply too “tight” – both acoustically and physically! – to accommodate orchestral performance easily,  and full-on works like the Bartok Dance Suite exacerbated the problem.

The experience reinforced my feelings of frustration and anxiety regarding the present non-availability of the Town Hall for orchestral concerts of this kind. These musicians’ efforts deserve far better than having merely makeshift venues in which to perform, in short, places in which they can be heard to their best advantage, instead of being compromised.

So it was that I found the performances hard to accurately judge in some aspects – for example I found the central section of the Brahms “Tragic” Overture too insistent-sounding, missing that sense of quiet, stricken numbness, an almost spectral tread of growing unease which swings like a pendulum between despair and dignity, and which provides a contrast with the outer parts of the work. I did think that Ken Young pushed it along dangerously quickly as well – the results were certainly tense and knife-edged, but any “inner” reflection of tragedy wasn’t brought out, and the music for me lost some expressive breadth as a result.

The acoustic wasn’t so much of a problem in the Tchaikovsky work, as the composer’s orchestral writing is relatively lean in any case, allowing his soloist’s tones to readily come through – although Young and the orchestra certainly took pains to facilitate this quality throughout most expertly. I thought the first two movements brilliantly successful, the excitement generated by all concerned towards the end of the first movement positively scalp-prickling, and deserving the spontaneous burst of applause at the movement’s end!

We got some beautiful solo playing in the slow movement from both the violinist and the accompanying wind players – but when it came to the last movement, I thought Xin Lin’s astonishingly expressive energies and spontaneous irruptions weren’t sufficiently matched by the orchestra, though I did appreciate Ed Allen’s horn-playing in the “Russian Dance” sections. Somehow the whiplash timing of the orchestral interjections didn’t come off with enough élan, and that cumulative tutti just before the soloist’s final entry unfortunately hung fire – it’s all rhythm and timing, the players needing to throw themselves at the notes and be damned to the consequences! Still, the response of the audience to it all (and particularly to the soloist) was rapturous at the end, and deservedly so.

The Barber work, “Knoxville: Summer of 1915” is something of a concert rarity, here – I know Leontyne Price’s recording, but had never before heard the work live. It’s a setting of passages from author James Agee’s novel “A Death in the Family”, depicting a small boy’s recollection of summer evenings at home with the family. Barber described his work as a “lyrical rhapsody” and dedicated the music to his own father, who was ill at the time the piece was being written. It was premiered in Boston in 1948 by the singer Eleanor Steber.

I caught some beautifully vocalized sequences from the soprano, almost all in the quieter passages – the opening descriptions of people sitting on their porches, rocking gently, the gentle depiction of the night as “one blue dew”, and the very wind-blown Elgarian orchestral passages  during which the singer describes the family spreading quilts and lying under the stars. We clearly heard the heart-rending “May God bless my people”, and, at the return of the lullaby the comforting “Sleep, soft, smiling, draws me to her”.

Throughout the rest I registered the music’s emotions but couldn’t hear what was being sung – Amelia Berry’s voice, sweet and bright as it was, simply couldn’t couldn’t free itself from the orchestral fabric whenever the dynamics increased. We needed those words! – they would have fitted onto a single program page, avoiding any kind of disruptive turn-over – or else they could have been projected onto a screen. It would have increased our enjoyment of the performance hugely, even though the general nostalgic mood of the piece was movingly caught and held by soloist, conductor and players.

Bartok it was, to finish, and it certainly made an impact! The orchestral playing in places was some of the best of the evening – just as well, because when projected outwards with any kind of force it was a pretty unrelenting sound-picture! The first piece had more of a droll aspect, dark, galumphing rhythms alternating with big, blowzy textures, reminiscent of the “drunken peasant” depictions in the same composer’s “Hungarian Sketches”. The infamous second movement, with its laser-beam brass glissandi, nearly lifted the cathedral’s roof, an onslaught relieved only temporarily by the harp in conjunction with strings and winds. I liked the “Hungarian hoe-down” aspect of the third movement, and appreciated the respite afforded our sensibilities by the “molto tranquillo” fourth movement, with its nicely-realised exotic, almost Iberian atmospheres.

But golly! – what a riot of a finale! As I’ve said, it was almost too much in places, though undeniably exciting, the rhythms, textures and colours changing without warning, the overall mood of the piece capricious and volatile. It left us a bit winded, I think, everything in the sound-picture a bit claustrophobic in effect, but still exhilarating, in between gasps! There was no doubting the commitment and skill of the players, spurred on by Ken Young’s boundless energies – perhaps it wasn’t the most elegant finish to a concert, but the sounds were those which stirred the blood most satisfyingly. In all, great stuff from the NZSM Orchestra!

Saxophone feast from the New Zealand School of Music

Posted on by Frances Robinson

New Zealand School of Music Saxophone Ensembles
Artistic Director: Debbie Rawson

J. S. Bach Aria: Erbarme dich, Mein Gott for Saxophone Sextet (Arr. R. A. Moulds)
Soloists: Reuben Chin, Katherine Maciaszec
Nigel Woods Schwarzer Tanzer for Saxophone Quintet
Karen Street Tango for Saxophone Quintet
T. Albinoni Concerto in D Minor for Soprano Saxophone: Grave-Allegro-Adagio-Allegro.(Arr. D. Rawson)
Soloist:  Reuben ChinJean Rivier Grave and Presto for Saxophone Quartet (1966)

W. A. Mozart Rondo Alla Turca for Saxophone Sextet (arr. M. Mijan)

Sopranos: Reuben Chin, Debbie Rawson
Alto: Kim Hunter
Tenors: Katherine Maciaszec, Nick Walshe
Baritone: Graham Hanify

Old St.Paul’s lunchtime series, Wellington

Tuesday 30th September 2014

The Bach aria which opened this concert must be one of the most sublime vocal duos ever written, and it has been sung with breathtaking beauty by all the great oratorio artists. Hence it has to be a very demanding challenge to achieve a successful transcription for saxophones. The power of the original is such that I found it impossible to banish that version from my mind, and hear the saxophone transcription entirely on its own merits. However, it was very adequately played by both soloists and others, and Reuben Chin’s soprano sax tone was smooth and pleasant, never hinting at the sharp edge that is commonly heard in pop sax playing. But the music did seem somewhat hurried to do justice to the grace and beauty of its melodic lines. I wondered if Reuben had listened to some of the great vocal renditions, shaped as they are by periods of piano relief, with each phrase delineated by those momentary breaths, both physical and musical, that allow each phrase to be absorbed and confirmed by mind and spirit.

The Nigel Woods number, translating as “Black Dancer”, recalled the idioms of Kurt Weil and the Berlin nightclub scene of the 1970’s. The schmaltzy tunes were passed between the various instruments, with Graham Hanify’s baritone sax melodies being particularly throaty and seductive. The group obviously relished the music, and it offered a completely different perspective from the previous work on the possibilities for sax ensemble writing.

Karen Street’s Tango also sat very comfortably for the quintet, displaying the benefit of her own wide professional experience as a sax player. The score captured very successfully the laid back, louche mood of the tango, but she cleverly interrupted this with a brief central, highly animated section before lapsing back into slow seduction. Again the players drew the listeners into their obvious enjoyment of the music.

The Albinoni Concerto was a transcription Debbie Rawson did in 1979 after she heard overseas a riveting trumpet solo performance. Her saxophone version proved remarkably effective, with Reubin Chin giving a very polished delivery, marked by sensitive slow movements. The solo part sometimes needed more “space” to be heard through the supporting ensemble in the first allegro, but the balance in the final allegro was good.

Jean Rivier is a noted French composer whose contributions to the classical saxophone repertoire are much prized by players. The harmonic idioms in this work are very interesting, and the opening Grave was given due elegance and style by the players. The Presto makes considerable technical demands, with some very tricky rhythms, challenging unison sections and high speed passagework, all of which were pulled off with exemplary skill.

The transcription of Mozart’s Rondo Alla Turca took off at an almost hectic gallop, possibly fuelled by exam nerves which tend to ramp up the tempo! (This concert was being assessed as part of university course requirements). Much to the players credit, there was barely a concession to snatching a breath, and most of the notes made it! It was a spirited end to an excellent, entertaining concert, offering a window into a repertoire that I imagine few regions of the country have the opportunity to enjoy. Wellington listeners clearly appreciate this, as there was an excellent turnout on a day when many might have been tempted to soak up the wonderful spring sunshine  outside.

Debbie Rawson is once again to be congratulated on the way she is nurturing and expanding young talent in this tertiary course, not to mention all her numerous other endeavours in the woodwind and band worlds.

 

 

 

Old St.Paul’s lunchtime series, Wellington

Tuesday 30th September 2014

NZSM’s “A Night at the Opera” generates a feast

Posted on by Peter Mechen

Te Kōkī New Zealand School of Music presents:
A NIGHT AT THE OPERA

Arias, Ensembles and Scenes from Opera
performed by the NZSM Classical Voice Students

Katrina Brougham, Alicia Cadwgan, Emma Carpenter, Declan Cudd, Georgia Fergusson
Jospeh Haddow, Elyse Hemara, Jamie Henare, Rebecca Howan, Luana Howard
Rebecca Howie, Hannah Jones, Brooks Kershaw, Aluapei Kolopeaua, Priya Makwana
Olivia Marshall, William McElwee Katherine McEndoe, Nino Raphael, Tess Robinson
Olivia Sheat, Daniel Sun, Christian Thurston, Shayna Tweed, Luka Venter.

Director: Frances Moore
Music Director: Mark Dorrell
Repetiteur: Heather Easting
Designer: Alexander Guillot
Lighting: Lisa Maule

Adam Concert Room, Kelburn Campus
Te Kōkī New Zealand School of Music
Victoria University of Wellington

Friday 19th September 2014

Earlier last week I had the good fortune to catch Radio NZ Concert’s “Upbeat” interview with Margaret Medlyn, one of the tutors of Classical Voice at the NZ School of Music in Wellington. She spoke about the then oncoming “Night at the Opera” presentation involving the voice students and featuring arias and ensembles from well-known operas and operettas. She said that the concert’s semi-staged aspect with costumes and lighting was especially valuable for the younger students, as it gave them a chance to experience a theatrical context in which to perform and to put into practice what they had been studying. But she also thought that all the performers as well as the audience would relish the theatrical aspects of the presentation, adding value and interest to the musical experience.

The presentation was in the capable hands of director Frances Moore, a former first-class-honours student at the School of Music here, and subsequently a Fulbright Scholar at New York University, while working as an assistant director with the Manhattan School of Music’s Summer programme. She’s returned to New Zealand to continue studies at Toi Whakaari, and pursue a career as a director of opera. Here, she certainly made the most of the depth and diverse range of talents among the student performers, encouraging them to relish their opportunities by singing out and giving themselves up entirely to their characters and their interactions. She was aided and abetted by Alexandra Guillot’s inventive set and costume designs, and Lisa Maule’s very appropriate, on-the-spot (sic) lighting, both helping to bring the different scenarios of each item to life.

I’d recently attended and much enjoyed “Der Rosenkavalier” in a “scaled-down” performance edition out at Days Bay, courtesy of music director Michael Vinten, so I was more than usually receptive to the similar treatment accorded tonight’s items – the normally orchestral accompaniments were by turns brilliantly realized by pianists Mark Dorrell and Heather Easting, giving the singers, whether solo or in ensemble, complete security of support at all times, the playing’s energy and sense of fun creating many delightful and alchemic moments. I couldn’t see the pianist(s) from where I was sitting in the Adam Concert Room, but I understood that Heather Easting provided the Britten, Mozart, Donizetti and Puccini accompaniments.

Technically, the items went with a hiss and a roar, with only a handful of unsynchronised ensemble moments disturbing the flow, and which the performers simply pulled together again with confidence and élan. The concert began with an excerpt from Offenbach’s Orpheus in the Underworld, sung in English, and designated as “Act One – finale” in the programme – as I later found, trying to pinpoint that same sequence on a “complete” recording I had of the operetta led to all kinds of discrepancies and confusions which suggested that the work had been mercilessly “hacked about” over the years, and with all kinds of “performing editions” emerging from the fracas. Comparing notes on this matter with Mark Dorrell a day or so later considerably relieved my confusion, and restored my faith in my ears!

The gods as presented here were a rum lot, indeed, with delightfully ungodlike characteristics shining forth for all to savour – each singer relished his or her opportunities, most notably Alicia Cadwgan’s delightfully kittenish Diana and Christian Thurston’s suitably machoistic Jupiter, the perfect foil for the suave Pluto of Declan Cudd, whose manner, apart from his highest notes, was easeful and insinuating, causing a sonorous and forthright rebellion among the ranks of Olympus’s celestial inhabitants! It made me long to see and hear a performance of the complete work, whatever the edition and its corruptions and inconsistencies!

From the fripperies of Offenbach’s satire to the stark realities of Britten’s “Peter Grimes” was a quantum leap for the sensibilities, a “plunge-bath after a sauna” effect, whose marked contrast worked extremely well. This was the quartet sequence “From the gutter” from Act Two of the opera, showcasing the voices of Olivia Marshall, Hannah Jones, Rebecca Howan, and, as Ellen Orford, Katherine McEndoe. Olivia Marshall in particular, as Auntie, impressed with the beauty and steadiness of her line, ably supported by her nieces Hannah Jones and Rebecca Howan; while Katherine McEndoe as Ellen engaged our attention with her strength and focus of utterance. The voices in ensemble readily conveyed that stricken, passionate quality called for by the music – beauty of a disturbing, intensely-wrought kind.

Intensities of a different order were generated by the Act One “Padlock” Scene from Mozart’s The Magic Flute, leading to those exchanges between Tamino and Papageno and the Three Ladies that must be among the most beautiful of all operatic moments. First we had Luka Venter as Papageno with his powers of speech bound by enchantment, his frustration and eventual relief at being released warmly and amusingly conveyed. The Three Ladies, Shanya Tweed, Elyse Hemara and Georgia Fergusson, were terrific! – in fact, a little too much so, in fact, as they needed more light and shade, more ease in their singing – but they were still admirably focused, direct and transfixing in their impact.

Declan Cudd as Tamino, along with Luka Venter, his Papageno, gave us a bit more of the lightness of touch that the music needed – but I was waiting (as I always do) for that lump-in-throat moment begun by the wind instruments in complete performances of the opera, when the women sing about the Three Boys who will guide Tamino and Papageno along their appointed journey. Here, I thought the utterances from all concerned were too rushed, wanting the air and space which would generate a certain “charged” quality, as if, for a moment, creation had paused to witness here a kind of celestial laying-on of hands. The scene still worked its magic – and I did like the appearance of the three “Knaben” high up in the balcony at that point, opening the vistas in a way that the music so beautifully suggests.

I was delighted that we got the chorus “Comes a train of little ladies”  from Sullivan’s “The Mikado” as well as the “Three Little Maids from School” – in the opening chorus the voices truly caught that sense of rapturous wonderment at the words “And we wonder, how we wonder….”, with marvellous surges of tone, and a beautiful dying fall at the end. It was the perfect foil for the “three little maids”, Hannah Jones’s Yum-Yum strong and focused, but the others (Katherine McEndoe and Rebecca Howan) closely in attendance. Their three-pronged exuberance  mischievously nudged and poked at the figure of the bemused Pooh-Bah, who declined (perhaps by way of protesting a little too much!) to “dance and sing” as the three girls confessed (“So, please you Sir, we much regret”) they were, by nature, apt to do. Jamie Henare, strong-voiced as Pooh Bah, had a fine time not quite completely evading their clutches!

The first-half closer, appropriately enough the finale of Act One of Rossini’s “Il Barbiere di Siviglia”, was an ambitious piece of singing and staging which, thanks to plenty of energy, wit and engaging vocal characterisation, backed up by strongly-focused direction and presentation, came across to us most entertainingly. William McElwee’s Count Almaviva was delightful, dramatically outlandish and vocally sweet, if just a bit coloratura-shy in places, while Brooks Kershaw’s Bartolo/Barbaro/Bertoldo responded with plenty of appropriate puzzlement and stupefaction at the count’s appearance as a drunken soldier. Alicia Cadwgan’s Rosina charmed us from the beginning with her quicksilver responses regarding the “letter business”, the characters readily catching the “spin” of the composer’s interactions in their adroitly-dovetailed ensemble.

The arrival of Figaro (Christian Thurston), along with Don Basilio (Jamie Henare) and Berta (Tess Robinson) properly galvanised things to the point where the police were called, and an exciting, tarantella-like ensemble swept us all along, emotions bubbling, simmering and seething with everything ranging from pleasure to bewilderment, ensemble thrills and spills treated as part of the experience. As its riotous way unfolded we were thoroughly engaged by the goings-on – I don’t think the most polished professional presentation could have given us more pleasure than we got here from these exuberant and fearless young performers!

A different kind of sophistication awaited us after the interval with Sondheim’s “A Little Night Music”, the scenario allowing Emma Carpenter’s voice to shine as Anne, both solo, and combining nicely in duet with Alicia Cadwgan’s Petra. Hannah Jones turned in an alluring Desiree, while as a couple Christian Thurston’s robust Carl-Magnus and Tess Robinson’s stratospheric Charlotte also gave pleasure. The performance caught the piece’s essentially “chic” surface nature while allowing us glimpses of the characters beneath the precarious facades – most enjoyable.

“Donizetti’s wonderful Don Pasquale” read the programme-note, and the music certainly lived up to the effusive introduction – this was a committed, no-holds-barred performance of the duet “Tornami a dir” (Tell me once more), which the composer styled as a “nocturne”, performed by Declan Cudd and Olivia Marshall. The former’s tone was freer and fuller in his lower register, though none of his high passages were shirked – while his opposite, Olivia Marshall, brought a confident and secure voice to the music given Norina, his sweetheart. For me, at any rate, the couple’s fervour and commitment easily carried the day.

Back to Mozart and his “Magic Flute” we went, this time with the Three Boys (Olivia Sheat, Luana Howard and Rebecca Howie) very much in vocal focus, delightfully attired in “Davy Crockett from Bavaria” style hats, and turning their tones in well-wrought ensemble towards dissuading Pamina from taking her life over her Prince Tamino’s apparent rejection of their love. As with the excerpt from “Peter Grimes” Katherine McIndoe impressed upon the memory with her focused commitment to the character, conveying her confused emotions with plenty of force and immediacy.

I thought the Rossini ensemble as we saw and heard just before the interval would be hard to beat, but the company at least matched its earlier achievement with the evening’s concluding item, a colourful and heartfelt delivery of the Waltz-Song and Soldiers’ March from Act Two of Puccini’s “La Boheme”. It all came vibrantly together – Tess Robinson’s appealing Musetta floated the insinuations of her melody quite irresistibly, at first angering her estranged lover, Marcello (Christian Thurston), and then winning him back over, to the annoyance of her elderly escort  Alcindoro (a lovely cameo from Nino Raphael), and the amusement of the watching Bohemians.

Though there wasn’t much for them to do as spectators, William McElwee’s Rodolfo and Hannah Jones’s Mimi looked and sounded lovely together, while Luca Venter’s Schaunard and Jamie Henare’s Colline amply completed the Bohemian contingent. Then as the military band approached, it was indeed “half the population of Paris” which seemed to be milling around on the stage as if on holiday, the contingent then marching off to the concluding bars of Puccini’s music in grand style.

All credit to the NZ School of Music’s Classical Voice Faculty and to the students whose performances this evening would have richly justified their tutors’ efforts – it was a great show, whose creative flair and sense of occasion lifted it far above the conventional hotch-potch method of random assemblage of  “vocal gems”, and produced something really worthwhile and memorable. I’m sure Margaret Medlyn, for one, would have been delighted.

Forbidden Voices liberated in NZSM conference on music and musicians banned by Nazis

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

New Zealand School of Music: Recovering Forbidden Voices:
 Responding to the Suppression of Music in World War Two

Die Welt von Gestern (The World of Yesterday)
Schreker: Sonata for violin and piano in F major
Zemlinsky: Serenade in A major
Korngold: Violin Sonata in G major, Op 6

Duo Richter-Carrigan (Goetz Richter – violin and Jeanell Carrigan – piano)

St Andrew’s on The Terrace

Saturday 23 August, 8:15 pm

This evening’s concert was session number 11 in the weekend’s conference of talks, concerts and panel discussions dealing with the suppression of music and other arts during the second world war, primarily through the Nazi suppression of what they considered ‘Entartete Kunst’ – ‘Degenerate Art’. It’s been a mixture of music and the spoken word, the latter examining aspects of the hideous impact of Nazism on art and artists wherever the regime gained control. Jews were by no means the only artists, musicians, writers to suffer, and music by Shostakovich and Messiaen have been heard in the concerts.

To this point there had been a performance of Hans Krasa’s children’s opera Brundibar (reviewed by us), concerts of chamber music by Schulhoff, Weinberg, Ullmann, Gidon Klein, Schoenberg and Shostakovich, as well as contemporary composers whose lives were deeply affected by fascism and communism; lectures and discussions about the repression of Jews and other minorities, and musicians in exile like Martinu; a celebration of the work of conductor/composer Georg Tintner, who sought refuge in New Zealand from WW2, but was largely ignored. He began to make musical headway only after going to Australia in 1954.

One of the ironical effects of the Nazi treatment that made so much art, music and literature disappear, was the West’s pursuit of the avant-garde in many of those fields since the end of World War 2, resulting in those composers remaining ignored for several decades, only now being revived, as here.

For Middle C the conference has presented a bit of a problem as various things have prevented each of us from paying the kind of attention that we should have liked, and which it deserved.

This lecture-recital began with a brief talk by the violinist Goetz Richter expanding on the theme music and the aesthetic of revenge – the revenge being that of Hitler against the bourgeois society that had rejected him as a creative artist (according to Richter). Unfortunately I was not sitting close enough to hear it well and Richter delivered it at a pace that was not well adapted to a thesis that was dense with complex propositions and argument.

Goetz Richter is a violinist, trained at the Hochschule für Musik, Munich. with a PhD in philosophy from Sydney University, a past associate concertmaster in the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, now an
associate professor at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music.

Jeanell Carrigan is senior lecturer in ensemble studies at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, having obtained her musical education in universities in Queensland, Sydney, Wollongong and studies in Europe with various piano pedagogues including Alfons Kontarsky and Karl Engel.

The duo has been playing together for 30 years.

The programme included works by three German or Austrian Jewish composers born with 25 years at the end of the 19th century. Each was written when the composer was young: the Schreker aged 20, the Zemlinsky at 24 and the Korngold at the age of 15. It was the Korngold piece that was the longest and most ambitious, and may have proved the most challenging in execution.

The three movements of Schreker’s piece are: Allegro Moderato, Andante con Moto, Presto. While his sonata bore the marked influence of Brahms, and sounded the most conventional of the three, given the time of its composition, after major chamber music by Debussy for example, Korngold’s sonata of only 14 years later was much more complex technically. Though, unlike the music that Schoenberg was writing by then, it was melodically still accessible; however, it does not sound as imposing or perhaps as promising as does Strauss’s violin sonata of ten years earlier.

Schreker’s second movement was quietly meditative, breathing calmly with a performance that was warm and burnished, yet quietly adventurous harmonies peep through. There may well have been hints of the later Schreker of the operas such as Der ferner Klang, Die Gezeichneten, Der Schatzgräber – which I’ve just missed during visits to Germany over the past decade as they have been unearthed, given interesting productions and been widely acclaimed.

The Zemlinsky piece of 1895 was a Serenade (or suite) in five fairly short movements: Massig; Langsam, mit grossem ausdruck; Sehr schnell und leicht; Massiges Walzertempo; Schnell. It was a charming piece, distinctly lighter inspirit than a sonata, its rhythms and melodies more striking and engaging than some of Zemlinsky’s music of more serious intent. The main theme of the first movement was quite joyful, while the second, that I’d noted, in the absence of movement names in the programme, as a Largo, was lit by its variety of twists in melody and rhythm and quixotic mood changes, ending with a passage of heavy piano chords. The fourth movement, a waltz, risked becoming schmaltzy had it not been so well crafted, so inventive and playful – tossing the waltz rhythms back and forth between the two instruments. The last movement called the Schumann of the early piano pieces to mind.

Then the astonishing Korngold sonata. One of the characteristics that caught my ear was the melodic tendency of spirit-lifting upward grasps such as Scriabin performs, and from then on I tended to feel the presence of the Russians like Rachmaninov and Medtner. A long work, it presented the players with daunting technical challenges with mighty fistfuls of notes at the piano and passages of both dazzling virtuosity and quiet beauty from the violin – in the third movement especially. Though later in the Adagio it slipped into a commonplace, late romantic character.

The four movements are: (1) Ben moderato, ma con passion; (2) Scherzo: Allegro molto (con fuoco) and Trio – Moderato cantabile; (3) Adagio: Mit tiefer Empfindung; (4) Finale: Allegretto quasi andante (con grazia).

The last movement impressed me however as more rigorous in shape and structure, with quite striking melody: the piano soon announced a fugue which evolved interestingly between the two instruments. Perhaps as a result of the discipline imposed by the fugue, and the commanding and illuminating performance by Richter and Carrigan, it came to seem the most imaginative and substantial music in the whole sonata.

So this was one of those recitals that the timid or unadventurous would avoid, but which revealed three composers and three works by those composers that were revelatory and most important of all, thoroughly engaging and enjoyable at the hands of two musicians of the top rank. It served to show how little we know of the Australian music scene that such splendid players, who have been playing as a duo for three decades, were unknown to me and, I imagine, to almost all the audience (which was sadly small).