Tag: orchestral

Worlds within worlds brought to us by the Wellington Chamber Orchestra, with The Tasman Trio and Kenneth Young

Posted on by Peter Mechen

Wellington Chamber Orchestra presents:
MOZART – Overture to “Don Giovanni”
BEETHOVEN – Triple Concerto for Violin, ‘Cello and Piano Op.56
DELIUS – The Walk to the Paradise Garden
SCHUBERT – Symphony No. 8 in B Minor “Unfinished” D.759

The Tasman Trio:
Laura Barton (violin) / Daniel Smith (cello) / Liam Wooding (piano)

Wellington Chamber Orchestra
Kenneth Young (conductor)

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

Sunday 30th June, 2019

On paper, a programme for the prospective listener to savour – and this was an expectation I would guess was largely fulfilled, judging from the reception accorded the musicians’ efforts by the audience, and the feelings of satisfaction gleaned from the performers’ general aspect at the end! There was certainly a variety of colour, texture, mood and emotion to be had, with the pieces offering sufficient challenges to ensure the playing  maintained an ‘edge-of seat” quality, often something that can give amateur performance a “head-start” in terms of excitement and surprise for listeners’ edification. While too much tension can of course mar the ambience of some music, here only the Delius work seemed “vulnerable” in that respect – and it was in this music that the players created sounds of a beauty and sensitivity that for me captured the piece’s essence in a way that I’d not heard previously surpassed by this orchestra in any repertoire.

First things first, however; and this was Mozart’s Overture to his “dramma giocoso” Don Giovanni (“dramma giocoso” means, literally, “drama with jokes”). This was perfectly expressed by the music we heard, the opening taken from the work’s final act, featuring the entrance of the famous and unearthly “Stone Guest”, come to dinner ostensibly at the Don’s own invitation, but determined to secure Giovanni’s repentance for his iniquitous behaviour. The music’s “nightmarish” aspect at the Overture’s outset must have galvanised the sensibilities of those first audiences, who were plunged without warning into a “preview” of the events leading to the hero’s downfall and removal to the infernal regions, but were then whisked suddenly into the world of the work’s more comic sequences and situations. While no actual melodies from the opera itself were used, the dramatic opening chords, and eerie scale passages do recur in the final scene, accompanying the “Stone Guest’s” entrance.

Ken Young got a splendidly incisive opening to the work from his players, including some portentously “held” lower notes, supported by baleful brass – a few tuning discrepancies amongst the winds at the outset were properly sorted by the time the “infernal scales” of the opening were sounded. Then, the allegro mischievously activated the rhythms, the strings stirred, and the winds and timpani properly banished the gloom-laden textures with their sparking, forthright replies. Mozart kept hinting at the underlying darkness with the leading note of each phrase of the allegro – a heavily accented chord – but with each of these followed by impish, fleet-footed downward scamperings, and light-as-feather string phrases (a bit “squishy” at first, until the string players’ fingers warmed up!). Basically, there was great work from all concerned, throughout, even with the “cobbled-on” concert ending to the piece – in the theatre, the music slows down and goes straight into the stage action, but here, it was the conventional bang, crash and wallop, so as to make the music seem “rounded off”! (I prefer the music to just stop where the opera’s action begins, the imagination doing the rest……..)

It was then time to welcome the Tasman Trio, an Australasian ensemble formed just last year by two New Zealanders (Laura Barton and Liam Wooding) and an Australian (Daniel Smith), all of whom had been studying at ANAM (the Australian National Academy of Music) in Melbourne. Having heard, in living memory, a performance of this delicious work in St.Andrew’s from Te Koki Trio and the NZSM Orchestra (also with Kenneth Young conducting), I was anxious to re-enjoy the work at similarly close quarters, and interested in hearing a different group playing it – the soloists entered, there was a bit of “folkish-sounding” tuning, and then we were off!

The first low orchestral sounds filled us with expectation, the strings and horns doing well in their first sforzando-like entry, Young keeping the tempi steady, and allowing the triplet rhythms plenty of room. The first solo ‘cello entry was lyrical, poetic and inviting, joined by the other soloists just as sweetly, the piano adding a perkiness to the rhythm, taken up by the others in reply. The work’s frequent “running” passages were excitingly managed by all the players, and the orchestra responded with equal dexterity – the only problems (just one-or-two instances) were soloist-and-orchestra ensemble ones, the occasional rhythm either too hastily or too slowly ‘taken up” – but within a few bars all had come together again. As an ensemble the soloists dovetailed their passages perfectly, the occasional single-line moment of strain made up for with a correspondingly beautiful piece of phrasing from the same player. And I loved the beautiful “turn” by the players towards that moment of lyricism just before the first movement’s coda.

Songful rapture at the slow movement’s beginning! – lovely soft playing from ‘cello and then violin, though with the piano just a tad too heavy in response at first, I thought. Some nice support came from the horns as the soloists began their expectant arpeggiated figures leading to the finale. Having so well created a “mood”, the soloists then seemed to take a while to comfortably “settle” into the finale’s polonaise rhythm, but they grasped their concerted scampering lines firmly (tremendous triplet- playing by the trio) and set the scene for the orchestral tutti, which conductor and players seemed to relish wholeheartedly. Again the running canonic triplet passages were thrown off most excitingly – a real, visceral thrill to experience!

The characterful minor-key “dance” passages that followed wanted, I thought, just a shade more “schwung”, more naughtiness and suggestiveness from all concerned, here sounding to my ears expertly played, but a bit too regimented (I love it when in performances of this people seem to let their hair down, and really “savour” those polonaise rhythms) – still the players brought our beautifully that subsequent “Appassionata” moment (begun by the piano with portentous trills over which the others “reassembled” the main theme with growing excitement), and “dissolved” the subsequent canonic triplet rushings so teasingly, that all was forgiven in the ensuing excitements – the “running water” flow of the coda’s beginning, the more ritualised triplet lines, and the final “stately dance” of the music’s last paragraph. So – while perhaps not as majestically realised as with last year’s Te Koki Trio/NZSM performance of the work, the performance here put its own, equally spontaneous mark on the presentation, giving much pleasure and receiving well-deserved acclaim.

After the interval came a work I desperately wanted to hear “live” – Delius’s orchestral interlude “The Walk to the Paradise Garden” from his opera “A Village Romeo and Juliet”, one I’d previously only heard on record. And at the outset I should say that, even given my pleasure at being “treated” to Beethoven’s adorable Triple Concerto so expertly during the first half, this item was the concert’s highlight for me, with conducting and playing from Young and the orchestra members that utterly captivated me with its beauty and sensitivity. Every phrase, every solo, every surge of emotion, every hushed realisation of beauty was given its due, if not perhaps with quite the tonal splendour and individual  sheen commanded by professional players, certainly with sufficient loveliness of tone, confidence of phrasing and surety of ensemble so as to make Delius’s evocation of beauty laced with tragedy a truly heart-rending concert experience.

From the opening phrases, shared by bassoons, horns and cor anglais, we were immediately taken to a sound-word of enchantment, furthered by oboe, clarinet, flute and tenderly-phrased strings, each sound, whether solo or concerted, imbued with a real sense of the music’s power of evocation, a lovely overall sense of “drifting stillness” informing the quieter reflective moments, and a thrilling pulsation of feeling given full rein at the music’s climactic moments of bitter-sweet irruption. I thought it very, very powerful conducting by Ken Young and suitably no-holds-barred responses from his players, whether full-throated or finely-honed, the harp adding its singularly romantic voice to the plethora of instrumental response, everything superbly shaped and graded in aid of the music’s dying fall at the end. Delius’s first real champion, the conductor Sir Thomas Beecham, once remarked on the need for the performer to interpret music such as this with “the maximum virility allied to the maximum sensitivity” – which is what sounded like was happening here (local syntax!).

No let-up in intensity was allowed us at this juncture, with what was to follow – Schubert’s much-loved “Unfinished” Symphony, two movements’ worth of pure drama and poetry, whether by accident or design wrought within two perfectly-tailored and -complementary episodes by its composer! Many have been the attempts to “finish” the work, ignoring the fact that Schubert himself completed a further symphony instead of going back and “dealing to it” himself. Might something have told him that what he’d done was enough?

The contrast with Delius’s music was profound in effect, those exquisitely-tailored lines and subtle textures of the former here replaced by sinister bass mutterings, fraught woodwind strains, and weighty, oppressive blocks of string or brass sounds. It was music which seemed haunted by its own substance; and the performance certainly conveyed a threatening, baleful quality in the first of the two movements, almost to the point of rawness from the brass in places, Young encouraging his forces, it seemed, to pull no punches! The exposition repeat sounded a shade less raw, and more rounded in those same territories, as if the players were hearing more acutely the “pitch of the hall” (as comedian Michael Flanders used to say in his and Donald Swann’s “At the Drop of a Hat” revue).

Whatever solace the music had managed to give its listeners thus far seemed then to be put to the sword by the development and its black-as-night scenarios, haunted by wraith-like figures, consoling winds beaten back by shattering brass chords, not dissimilar in effect to those in a similar place in Tchaikovsky’s ”Pathetique” Symphony– remorseless and unforgiving! The return to the opening brought some relief, but the movement’s coda again provided little consolation! Throughout this performance we got from Young and his brave players the full force of this music’s astounding emotional journey!

The second movement was, thankfully, less harrowing, its tones sunnier, and its melodic shapes more song-like, the players beautifully-dovetailing the exchanges between the strings’ striding steps and the winds’ lyrical replies. We heard some lovely wind solos, clarinet, oboe, and flute, contrasted with some sterling, black-browed sounds from trombones and timpani, but then a heart-easing “playing-out” of the tensions towards the end, lullabic phrases from strings and winds alike (including the horns) assuring us that the sounds had brought us, finally, to a safe haven…..

 

NZSO marks Blake’s retirement with his haunting ‘Angel at Ahipara’, plus splendid Stravinsky and Tchaikovsky

Posted on by Steven Sedley

Winter Daydreams

New Zealand Symphony Orchestra
Fawzi Haimor, conductor and Carolin Widman, violin

Christopher Blake: Angel at Ahipara
Stravinsky: Violin Concerto in D Major
Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 1 in G minor, Op.13, ‘Winter Daydreams’

Michael Fowler Centre, Wellington

Thursday, 20 June, 2019

Tchaikovsky, Stravinsky, and a piece by a significant contemporary composer, Christopher Blake, might seem like popular programming, but as was evident by the large number of empty seats, the programme lacked wide appeal. Tchaikovsky’s First Symphony is seldom performed, Stravinsky’s Violin Concerto is very different from other more popular twentieth century violin concertos and Christopher Blake’s music is unknown territory. Yet it is important both for the orchestra and the audience to be confronted from time to time with the little known or unknown.

The theme common to all of these three works is the idea of exploration. Blake and Tchaikovsky attempted to give voice to a national identity, New Zealand and Russian, while Stravinsky looked for the bare bones of a violin concerto outside the lush romanticism of his contemporaries.

The inspiration for Blake’s Angel at Ahipara came from a black and white photo of a sculpture on a grave at a remote settlement of Ahipara, as well as from Colin McCahon’s colourful Northland Panels. Blake attempted to represent in music the idea of the Angel that Morrison expressed in photography and McCahon in painting. It is written for a string orchestra and describes seven aspects of the Angel in continuous development of largely minimalist themes, ranging from, peaceful, gentle, meditative, to the turbulent, reflecting the Angel giving hope, the soaring of his spirit, his vigil, the joy he brings and the storm that he calms. It is haunting, beautiful music that stays with you.

Stravinsky had misgivings about writing a violin concerto, but encouraged by Samuel Dushkin, for whom the concerto was commissioned and by Paul Hindemith, he produced a stripped down neo-Baroque work with chamber music texture. The concerto avoids virtuoso display and focuses on the dialogue between the solo violin and the orchestra. The four movements reflect Stravinsky’s interest in the Baroque. The sparkling Toccata has changes of meter, pulsating repeated notes and joyous violin acrobatics. The middle movements, the two Arias are lyrical, while the final movement, Capriccio is full of dazzling demonic energy. Carolin Widman played these with great authority and energy. It was a fine, insightful performance.

Tchaikovsky was just 25 when he embarked on his First Symphony. His teachers didn’t like it. It was different, it didn’t fit the German symphonic tradition. Tchaikovsky wrote a Russian work within the symphonic framework, using Russian folk song themes and strong dance rhythms. Unlike his teachers, Tchaikovsky liked the work and kept revising it. It is a long symphony, over 40 minutes long, but to the credit of the performance and Fawzi Haimor’s direction, it never flagged. An early work, it has its weaknesses. At times the flow of the music seems to stand still while another theme, another ideas is introduced, but these hiatuses lead to glorious, rich passages; and the second movement is one of the Tchaikovsky’s most enthralling pieces. The symphony required superb playing by brass and wind, and a luscious string tone from the strings.

At the end of the concert one came away with the feeling that your musical experiences had been greatly enriched, a testament to the playing by the orchestra under the direction of a fine conductor and with the contribution of a dazzling soloist.

 

 

Orchestra Wellington – gone vinyl to splendid effect with live Beethoven

Posted on by Peter Mechen

BEETHOVEN – Symphonies Nos.1 & 3
Orchestra Wellington
Marc Taddei (conductor)

Symphony No. 1 in C Major Op. 21
Symphony No. 3 in E-flat Op. 55 “Eroica”

(recorded “live” at the Michael Fowler Centre:
Symphony No. 1 on 13th May 2017 – Engineer, Graham Kennedy
Symphony No. 3 “Eroica” on 2nd December 2017 – Engineers, Darryl Stack, Steve Burridge

Orchestra Wellington OWTOWN 001/1-2 (LP issue)
(also available on CD – Concordance Records)

I was there at the 2018 concert when conductor Marc Taddei and Orchestra Wellington launched their ground-breaking classical recording release of two Beethoven Symphonies, recorded “live” at separate Michael Fowler Centre concerts the previous year – and what was more, caught on two splendidly appointed vinyl discs which were displayed most tellingly to a visibly gobsmacked and positively enthusiastic audience. Being an originally-pressed vinyl aficionado, I failed to take much notice of what Marc Taddei might have said about the CD issue of this release, though I registered that such a thing did and does exist, obviously giving the pleasure to be had from these splendid performances even wider currency.

For, to borrow from the words of the old song, I only had eyes for the startlingly, vividly-presented  2-LP vinyl set, one disc snow-white, and the other fire-engine red, both discs being enthusiastically brandished by the conductor (oh! – those poor, precious record surfaces – careful!!) their colours replicated with the words “Orchestra Wellington LIVE” on the outer gatefold sleeve housing the LPs. The publicity I’ve seen since makes much of the recent phenomenon of a “vinyl comeback” amongst the music-buying public, with artists across the board declaring for a number of reasons their newly-found allegiance to the grand old, tried-and-true medium; so a venture like this puts the Orchestra into the forefront world-wide of matters pertaining to the presentation of music in a lasting format.

I was thrilled to get hold of a copy of the LP set, though its arrival coincided with “troubles” developed by my equipment, so that I had to take the recordings for their first hearing to a friend’s abode and listen to them on his (admittedly, far superior to mine in quality) system.  We played the opening movement of the “Eroica”, and, thanks to the skills of recording engineers Darryl Stack and Steve Burridge, found ourselves in what sounded like “the best seats in the hall”, the full flavour of what I remembered from the actual concert coming across as an even more beautifully-balanced sound-picture, and with plenty of “audience ambience” to add to the occasion’s impact.

I reviewed the concert at which the “Eroica” was played in Middle C soon afterwards – https://middle-c.org/2017/12/cataclysmic-conclusion-to-orchestra-wellingtons-diaghilev-season/ and hearing the performance again merely confirmed my opinion as to its quality – what struck me afresh when I finally got the chance to hear the whole of the symphony on my “restored” sound equipment was a characteristic that it shared with all of the “great” performances I had heard, whether monumental, like Klemperer’s or Barbirolli’s, or swift and incisive, like Toscanini’s or Karajan’s, a sense of an unbroken, vibrant musical line sounding and resounding throughout the whole work. This was brought about less by speed than by a sense of unremitting forward movement, enabled by incisive orchestral attack and clearly-focused phrasings – not a bar, not a phrase, not a musical sentence in this performance reflected anything but the inevitability of the whole, the viewpoint of an eagle’s eye. Even what seemed like the most discursive sequences, such as the famous Trio of the Scherzo, featuring the three playful horns, or a most charming variant of the finale’s opening “Prometheus” bass theme in triplets, here ear-catchingly played by solo strings, kept the argument moving forwards, whether teasingly or quirkily, always with the work’s end in the conception’s ear.

New to me was the performance of the First Symphony, which took up Side One of the first of two discs. Taddei and his players gave Beethoven’s somewhat off-beat opening to the work plenty of sounding-space before the strings nimbly set the allegro dancing, the rushing figurations turning to gossamer at the conductor’s tempo, in places the playing sounding as light and airy as thistledown! Having been brought up in this Symphony with the renowned “Kingsway Hall bloom” on the strings in Klemperer’s 1950s version (captured for all time in what was perhaps London’s most well-known recording venue), I thought the sound here beautifully balanced by engineer Graham Kennedy while honestly reflecting the hall’s clear but ungiving quality. If there was little “bloom” the players at least generated whole spadefuls of bubbling energy, each one thrusting upwards, eager to be released.

I enjoyed the ongoing concert ambience in between the symphony’s movements – leaving the microphones “on” was an inspired, enlivening idea, readily recapturing the “whole” occasion’s atmosphere, one which the performances had worked so hard to help bring about in the first place.
The second movement’s brisk, eagerly-phrased dance firmly placed the work in the “Haydn” era, Taddei and the players generating moments of dramatic insistence in the movement’s development section, both strings and timpani accentuating their dotted-rhythm figurations to thrilling effect!  I liked, also, how the Scherzo’s gait wasn’t rushed, but had space in which to “point” the rhythms, and allow the timpani’s contributions plenty of clarity, the Trio similarly relaxed and contrastingly lyrical in character – I have to confess I especially enjoyed the unexpected second-half repeat when it came, in the recap of the opening!

The finale sounded here very Leonore No.3-ish at the outset with trumpets and drums prominently sounding, Taddei then getting his strings to “tease” in a delightfully po-faced way before the allegro skipped its way into the sound-picture. Brimful with infectious energy as things got properly going, the playing gave detailings like the timpani figures opportunities for plenty of robust prominence, with the churning vortex mid-movement gaily teased back into the mainstream by the chirpy winds. It was left to a celebratory, festive-sounding coda to round off the work, bringing forth instant and enthusiastic acclaim from an appreciative audience at the end.

So, these are two remarkably compelling and attractively presented performances! Very great credit to all concerned for this venture, in my view admirable and successful on all counts! Orchestra Wellington’s Marketing Manager Marek Peszynski has already aired some further recording ideas and options – one waits with bated breath to see what will come of it all. The idea of combining popular repertoire with contemporary New Zealand pieces is a laudable one, but there are some New Zealand classics that could do with some help along the way – David Farquhar’s challenging, ambient, descriptive and resonant First Symphony for one! We will all have our wish-lists, but I’d like to think that we’ll also equally get behind and support whatever this remarkable orchestra and its inspirational music director, together with its enterprising and progressive administration, will come up with next!

 

 

Stroma enhances Wellington with music inspired by where sea meets sky

Posted on by Steven Sedley

Stroma Conducted by Hamish McKeich

Ingram Marshall: Fog Tropes (1981)
Mark Carter, Mathew Stein, (tpt), Samuel Jacobs, Julian Leslie (hn), David Bremner, Shannon Pittaway (trb)
Deidre Gribbin: What the Whaleship Saw
Anna van der Zee and Megan Molina (vn), Nicholas Hancox (va), Robert Ibell (vc)
Eve de Castro-Robinson: Pearls of the Sea (2005)
Bridget Douglas (fl, bass fl), Carolyn Mills (harp)
Tristan Murail: Treize couleurs du soleil couchant (1978)
Bridget Douglas (fl), Patrick Barry (cl), Anna van der Zee (vn) Robert Ibell (vc), Kirsten Robertson (piano)
Anna Thorvaldsdottir: Reflections (2016)
Anna van der Zee (vn), Nicholas Hancox (va), Robert Ibell (vc)
John Rimmer: Where Sea Meets Sky 2 (1975)
Bridget Douglas (fl), Patrick Barry (cl), Megan Molina (vn) Robert Ibell (vc), Kirsten Robertson (piano) Thomas Guldborg (percussion)

Hannah Playhouse

Thursday 30 May, 7:30 pm

Stroma is a mixed chamber music ensemble drawn from musicians of the NZSO. It performs contemporary experimental music. This programme included music by New Zealand, American, Irish, French, and Icelandic composers, but in particular, it honoured the 80th birthday of John Rimmer, one of New Zealand’s most iconic composers.

The programme started with fog horns, recorded in San Francisco Bay. A brass sextet of two horns, two trombones and two trumpets engaged in a dialogue with the fog horn against a background of the swirling sea and the squeals of sea birds. Ingram Marshall is an American composer influenced by minimalism trends of the 1960s. He says about Fog Tropes that “It is possible to listen to your pieces as a kind of tonality ‘behind the fog’, with gradual changes in layers of sound and ‘shadows & lights’. It seems that sometimes there’s a kind of impressionist colour in which we could find smaller sound particles.” It is these shadows and light that the listener can seek in this work.

From fog horns the programme moved to disaster at sea, the sinking of the whaling ship, Essex, in 1820. Deidre Gribbin is from Belfast. What the Whaleship Saw is a work for string quartet. It depicts the calm sea, then the storm that led to the tragedy. It is an impressionistic work. The strings generate sounds of sheer beauty without melodic progression, the peaceful calm sea is shattered by the disaster of the wrecked boat, then calm music again as the boat sinks but echoes of sea shanties appear in the background to illustrate the ill-fated sailors.

New Zealand composer Eve de Castro-Robinsons’s Pearls of the Sea follows up the sea theme. It writing for an unusual combination of instruments, a bass flute and a harp is a challenging exercise. The work is inspired by a poem by Len Lye. It exploits the aural potential of both instruments, the flute explores the range of sounds that can be produced, like the Japanese shakuhachi, trombone, foghorn and even low tom-tom. The harpist stretches the limits of the usual use of the harp by banging on the frame of the harp, and sweeping the strings to create a swooshing sound.

From the sea, the programme moved on to colours. Tristan Murail, a French composer, is associated with the ‘spectral’ techniques, the use of properties of sound as the basis of harmony. His Treize couleurs du soleil couchant tries to capture colours in sound. Like Monet in his painting, it uses patterns of sound as building blocks of music and repeats the same musical idea thirteen times as Monet did in paint the same scene over and over again. It is scored for a combination of instruments widely used by modern composers from Schoenberg to Messiaen, violin, clarinet, cello and piano.

Reflections by Icelandic composer Anna Thorvaldsdottir is a string trio in which instruments form overlapping ‘waves’. The music is composed as much by sounds and nuances as by lyrical material.

The final work is by John Rimmer, leading New Zealand composer and Associate Professor of Music at Auckland University. It is a tribute for his 80th birthday. His Where the Sea Meets the Sky 2, is an impression of a plane journey across the Tasman Sea. In this, he tries to capture the qualities of light seen through an aeroplane window. It was prompted by a poem of Ian Wedde in which the sea does not meet the sky. Originally Rimmer wrote this work for an electronic synthesizer, which he reworked for a live ensemble, a combination of flute, clarinet, violin, cello, piano and percussion, which aims to capture the electronic sounds of the original version.

Hamish McKeich, musical director of Stroma, and the thirteen musicians from the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra challenged the audience to think of the nature of music. The music was far from the usual concert repertoire, strange for some, lacking in usual points of reference, but it enhanced the musical experience of those who took the trouble to listen. The Wellington musical scene is richer for having an ensemble such as Stroma in its midst.

 

Orchestra Wellington’s triumphant concert of two last completed works by great composers

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Orchestra Wellington conducted by Marc Taddei

Mozart: Symphony No 41 in C, ‘Jupiter’
Bruckner: Symphony No 8 in C minor (1890 version)

Michael Fowler Centre

Saturday 25 May, 7:30 pm

This promised to be a major concert, and as soon as the first arresting sounds of the Jupiter Symphony filled the MFC, I felt assured that it was probably the most important concert of Orchestra Wellington’s year.

And so I scanned the spaces above the orchestra to assure myself that it was being recorded; and I was dismayed to see no sign of RNZ Concert’s microphones. In the light of the broadcaster’s routine recordings and broadcasts of the Auckland Philharmonia’s performances every Thursday evening, this struck me as an extraordinary decision. Is it another facet of RNZ’s announced plans last year to shift half its operations to Auckland in the interests of balance of some sort? Differences in performance standards between the two orchestras are becoming harder and harder to discern; is RNZ oblivious to the need for all Government operations to avoid the proliferation of activities in Auckland to help achieve more balanced growth nationally? It would be better if Radio New Zealand were to re-establish a presence in Christchurch, if balance really matters.

The Jupiter Symphony
Mozart’s last symphony (that was the concert’s theme, Bruckner’s eighth was his last completed work) is pretty universally considered one of his greatest works. There are endless ways to approach a piece of music, and even more in the case of works of genius such as Bruckner’s most important symphonies: the emphasis in the first movement was on its energy and its rich and elaborate evolution as an inspired and magnificently constructed masterpiece. An emphatic pulse dominated most of the first and last movements though Bruckner never allows uniform tempo or dynamics to dominate any movement. Speed is not the essence of greatness and that was soon clear when the contrasting second theme arrived, quite markedly more discreet and it was these dynamic and tempo contrasts that lent special interest to this performance. Marc Taddei took care with the scale of the sounds, limiting the strings to 10, 8, 6, 4 3, and used baroque timpani, vividly exhibited by Dominic Jacquemard.

The orchestra next showed its refinement in the slow movement where it’s possible to surprise an audience with the most secretive approach to the lovely melodies that emerge as if from profound meditation, with such gestures as sharp quasi-staccato chords from strings occasionally punctuating the quiet. Then the minuet, third movement was played with a brisk, quite danceable rhythm with a strong first beat, that with its rising motif seemed to express a kind of pleading.

The last movement is marked Molto allegro, but is often played rather spaciously in response to the complex contrapuntal interplay that illustrates an aspect of Mozart’s genius that he had not previously explored very much. Other performances that have given more space to the fascinating emergence of Mozart’s handling of the several themes that tumble upon one another and create a marvellous exhilarating experience. The last movement usually takes about 10 minutes, and while I didn’t time it, this seemed to have been despatched in a bit less time.

However, in terms of scrupulous attention to dynamics, the hushed opening phrases and the sudden retreats into meditative passages, the secretive feeling created at the approach of each phase of the movement’s evolution, one was simply electrified throughout. Then there was the sheer excellence and accuracy of the lively orchestral playing and Taddei’s very conspicuous attention to the roles of every section and solo instrument, not to mention the overall architecture of the symphony.

Bruckner’s Eighth Symphony
As if a fine performance of the Jupiter was not enough genius for one concert, Taddei filled out the theme of ‘last rites’ (not his words) with, I might surmise, the greatest of the other last symphonies (other than Beethoven’s) in his judgement: one more than twice as long as Mozart’s. It must also have been a close contest between Brahms’s 4th and Mahler’s 9th (we are speaking of ‘last completed works’: both Bruckner’s ninth and Mahler’s tenth were incomplete).

The orchestra had been expanded to cope with Bruckner’s demands: strings descending from 13, 11, 10…; three each of woodwinds; eight horns, four of which doubled on Wagner tubas (all on the right); three each of trumpets and trombones, three harps (an uncommon sight), totalling about 80. Fewer strings than the NZSO would have mustered it’s true, but one would have to be rather pedantic and gifted with uncommonly acute hearing to perceive it, let alone complain.

The last performance of the Eighth, this time of the first version of 1887, was Simone Young’s with the NZSO in August 2015. It was reviewed by Middle C.
See more details in the Appendix

Most of Bruckner’s symphonies have interesting, controversial histories; the result of the scale and structure and their unconventional musical character, quite strongly influenced by Wagner; but more especially as a result of the extensive revisions that he made, usually as a result of criticism by conductors, critics, colleagues and friends.

Not everyone is interested in the tortured history and context of the eighth; I am.

Bruckner finished the Eighth in 1887, but it was neither published nor performed then as conductor Hermann Levi, to whom Bruckner sent it, said that he couldn’t ‘make it his own’.
See Appendices

Bruckner ran into further critical hostility at the first performance. The most notorious was from the Brahms-devoted (and therefore antipathetic towards Bruckner) Viennese critic Eduard Hanslick who had routinely attacked Bruckner’s earlier works.
See more detail in Appendices

Orchestra Wellington’s performance was of a monumental yet totally absorbing character. Considering that this is Wellington’s ‘second’ orchestra, with a number of extra players, the performance was tight and cohesive, full of energy, and thoroughly deserving of recording. While there was singularly fine playing from most instruments in solo passages, a lovely subtle solo oboe for example, and evidence of very effective rehearsal in the clarity and richness of string ensemble; and Dominic Jacquemard’s excellent timpani was often thrillingly conspicuous even if occasionally a little too prominent. The fine body of horns, four of them doubling on Wagner tubas, always created rich, heart-warming choruses.

The Scherzo is untypical of the usual bubbly wake-up after the ‘boring’ slow movement (well, this is before the slow movement). The outer layers are both richly inventive even though built on typically Brucknerian repetitive themes, far from merely jolly, superficial fillers. It was not only a journey into the sunlight but a wonderful, emotionally enriching experience that to my ears expressed the best of both worlds: sparkle and the most opulent of horn-led passages through the steady triple rhythm that made this a Scherzo that was far more than an episode to entertain the cloth-eared who need overtly jolly music.

The middle section, Trio – Langsam, lasting about five minutes, provided a perfect space in which to relish this variation on the homogeneous character of the whole hour-and-a-quarter-long symphony; much of it resting purely to strings with subtle, discreet horns, trumpets, woodwinds.

The most transfixing, spell-binding movement is of course the great Adagio, Feierlich langsam, doch nicht schleppend, which lasts about half an hour. Here was the full justification for the eight horns and the frequent substitution of four of them by Wagner tubas delivering long-breathed, elegiac chorales, never hinting at anything overtly religious in spite of Bruckner’s profound religious convictions. I think that perhaps here is best found the beauty of a quartet of Wagner tubas, including in Wagner’s own use of them. The magic of three harps could be understood here too, though it did help to be able to see the three players together. The slow passage towards the ultimate brass-rich climax was paced beautifully, with the arrival of cymbals and triangle, quickly subsiding with the return of the gentlest, aching four-note, descending melody from horns. I should have asked for an encore.

But the last movement, Feierlich, nicht schnell, announced by arresting demi-semi-quavers from strings or brass only momentarily changed the scene. It’s followed by what could pass as an extension of the Adagio of several minutes before the somewhat astonishing, spell-binding, timpani-led episode. There were moments when, uncharacteristically, I did feel that passages demanding opulent string playing could have benefitted from more players, but it didn’t detract from the gravity and grandeur of the music during that episode; generally the strings more than adequately balanced the sounds of the brass.

Of the gigantic finale Bruckner is alleged to have said: “Hallelujah!… The Finale is the most significant movement of my life.”

The near capacity audience in the Michael Fowler Centre might have said the same if it had occurred to them. Though there was long and rapturous applause I was surprised that no one stood to acknowledge Marc Taddei’s achievement. That he conducted the work without the score might not have been so remarkable in the Jupiter Symphony, but it was in the case of this masterpiece nearly three times as long.

 

APPENDICES

The NZSO’s first performance of the Eighth was from Franz-Paul Decker in 1985 (the orchestra had lived nearly 40 years without it!), and there have been performances by Matthias Bamert in 1999 and Laurence Renes in 2007; and there was an Auckland-only performance under Heinz Wallberg in 1991. As mentioned above, Simone Young’s 2015 performances were of the original version.

Rejection and revisions
When Bruckner invited him to conduct the symphony (he had conducted the hugely successful first performance of the Seventh) Hermann Levi replied that he found it “impossible to perform … in its current form. As much as the themes are magnificent and direct, their working-out seems to me dubious; indeed, I consider the orchestration quite impossible. I just can’t make it my own!” He added: “Don’t lose your courage, take another look at your work … maybe a reworking can achieve something”.

Those criticisms led to a tortuous series of revisions, cuts and ‘corrections’, even the insertion of new music, that have provided rich material for scholarly examination and created a confusing range of possible performance options.

He reworked it by making cuts, enriching the orchestration, and writing a new sombre, spiritually subdued ending for the first movement, “with a deathly fade to silence”, as Alex Ross wrote. He submitted a second version in 1890 for publication. It took two years to find a publisher, in 1892, and it was premiered under Hans Richter later that year.

The first version was longer than the revised 1890 one, though not all recorded performances reflect that: Eliahu Inbal’s performance of the 1887 version, which I have, runs 74.83 minutes (but Sergiu Celibidache’s wonderful performance of the Novak 1890 version lasts an hour and forty minutes!). The 1887 version, which was premiered after Novak’s publication in 1972, was conducted by Hans-Hubert Schönzeler in 1973 (his biography of Bruckner is extremely perceptive and absorbing and thoroughly worth looking for); the earlier version has now had many performances, including by Georg Tintner, Michael Gielen, Kent Nagano, Franz Welser-Möst and Simone Young.

Reception of the first performance
Hanslick wrote of the symphony’s first performance of the 1890 revision, in Vienna in 1892 not quite as savagely as he had of earlier works; he noted generously that it was ‘interesting in detail, but strange as a whole, indeed repellent’. Bruckner’s admirer Hugo Wolf however wrote that the symphony was ‘the work of a giant’ that ‘surpasses the other symphonies of the master in intellectual scope, awesomeness, and greatness’.

Quotes on the critical treatment of Bruckner
Alex Ross in a review of the Eighth Symphony in The New Yorker in 2011, wrote:

“Bruckner, with his vast, slow-moving structures and relentlessly sombre tone, can seem impassive, even inhuman. He has always aroused as much distrust as love. Mocking Bruckner is a hoary pastime, going back to the days when the Viennese critic Eduard Hanslick dismissed him as a proponent of “nightmare-hangover style.” There is also the matter of Bruckner’s posthumous link to Nazism; Hitler embraced Bruckner as a German national hero and used bits of his music as sonic décor at the Nuremberg rallies. Although Bruckner did little to encourage such treatment—the mainstay of his world view was devout Catholicism, not pan-German nationalism—the association lingers in the public mind.”

A Guardian article (Tom Service, December 2013) summarises what the author suggests should be the listener’s reaction:

“This is a piece that is attempting something so extraordinary that if you’re not prepared to encounter its expressive demons, or to be shocked and awed by the places Bruckner’s imagination takes you, then you’re missing out on the essential experience of the symphony. If you think of Bruckner only as a creator of symphonic cathedrals of mindful – or mindless, according to taste – spiritual contemplation, who wields huge chunks of musical material around like an orchestral stone mason with implacable, monumental perfection, then you won’t hear the profoundly disturbing drama of what he’s really up to. That unsettling darkness is sounded right at the start of this symphony. Instead of setting out on a journey in which the outcome is certain, in which everything is its rightful place in the symphonic, tonal, and structural universe, Bruckner builds his grandest symphonic edifice on musical quicksand.”

Another colourful characterisation quoted by The New Yorker in 2014, from the 1923 book Musical Chronicle by critic Paul Rosenfeld, wrote that Bruckner, “a balding Austrian church organist, echoed not so much the elegance of ‘waltz-blooded Vienna’ as ‘the uncouthness of the Allemanic tribesmen, his ancestors, who smeared their long hair with butter and brewed thick black beers’.”

 

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!

A beautiful concert of Romantic symphonic music from the NZSO under Thomas Søndergård

Posted on by Steven Sedley

New Zealand Symphony Orchestra conducted by Thomas Søndergård
Denis Kozhukhin (piano)

Beethoven: Coriolan Overture, Op. 62
Schumann: Piano Concerto in A minor, Op. 54
Sibelius: Symphony No. 6 in D minor, Op. 104
Sibelius: Symphony No. 7 in C major, Op. 105

Michael Fowler Centre

Saturday 18 May, 2019, 7:30 pm

This concert had no challenging contemporary works, no surprises. It was romantic music, all within the bounds of the traditional, standard symphonic repertoire, but it was all beautiful music. The programme spanned 127 years of musical development from Beethoven’s Coriolan Overture of 1807 to Sibelius’s Seventh Symphony of 1924. Over that period the world changed and this was reflected in the music. The individual responsibility, accountability, sensibility and the individual’s role in nationhood became the focus of the European cultural landscape.

Coriolan, the classical hero, or perhaps anti-hero was the subject of Beethoven’s Coriolan Overture. It was inspired by Heinrich Joseph von Collin’s 1804 play. Coriolan is an ambitious and arrogant character who turns against his own people, but succumbs to his mother’s pleading not to destroy Rome. He cannot, however, reverse the onslaught he started and kills himself (unlike in Shakespeare’s version, in which he is murdered). The music depicts the drama, the conflict between war and compassion and ends with the fading chords of Coriolan’s slow death. The contrasts in the music, the sense of drama were beautifully, clearly articulated.

A generation later the cult of the individual as hero, something started with the adulation of Beethoven, was dominant. The virtuoso gained ascendancy in the concert halls. Schumann’s Piano Concerto was, in its time, a significant departure from earlier concertos. Schumann wrote in 1839 that:
“Modern pianistic art wants to challenge the symphony [orchestra], and rule supreme through its own resources; this may account for the recent dearth of piano concertos.”

After composing a large number of works for solo piano, he took up the challenge to write a concerto, but having lamented the state of piano concertos, it took him six years before he completed this concerto and was satisfied with it. He saw in the work the reflection of two opposing impulses in himself, the boisterous, impetuous and passionate on the one hand, and the dreamy, gentle and poetic on the other. There is a lovely interplay between the orchestra and the soloist, starting with the beautiful oboe solo enunciating the theme and the piano’s reply. Kozhukhin responded to the orchestra with great sensitivity and mastery, taking up the theme but also enhancing it. His playing was magical, drawing the listener in, with every phrase, every note full of meaning. It was a sensational performance. Kozhukhin rewarded the enthusiastic applause of the audience with an encore, playing Grieg’s To Spring, from his Lyric Suite (Op 43 No 6).

By the time of Sibelius the dominance of the grand romantic symphony was drawing to a close. Playing two Sibelius Symphonies written after each other was interesting programming, and hearing No. 6, followed by No. 7 shed new light on both of these works. No. 6 starts with a sombre opening,  followed by playful passages. There is darkness and light. Unlike in some of Sibelius’s other orchestral works, the themes are fragmented, there are no overarching melodies. The folksy tunes are overlaid on top of each other and interrupted. There are abrupt transitions. This is the most difficult and least often played of Sibelius’s symphonies, yet listening to it one can appreciate its beautiful if personal qualities.

The Seventh on the other hand is dramatic, starting with mournful chords that seem to mark the end of an era. The traditional musical forms, tonality, structure, were all falling apart. Sibelius was familiar with the new trends but did not adopt them. He was always a loner, a composer with a unique voice, his own sound and view of music. In this symphony he abandoned the usual four movement structure. Instead he created a work made up of multiple sections distinguished by frequent changes of tempo, which cohere into a seamless whole. The symphony was in gestation for many years. In the end Sibelius seemed to have considered that he had nothing further to add. At the time when serious classical music was dominated by the music of Schoenberg and his followers, by the barbarism based on folk idioms of Bartók,  by the harsh brutal dissonance of Stravinsky, Sibelius wrote a grand romantic symphony that wallowed in rich sounds. This was his final major work, and it has the stamp of finality about it.

Playing the two symphonies one after the other worked well. It provided an enriched insight into Sibelius’s world. This was a great concert. The orchestra under Thomas Søndergård played with lovely sonority and attention to subtle details. It was, however, Denis Kozhukhin’s wonderful playing that made the concert memorable.

 

Adventurous, surprising, unorthodox, informal concert by the NZSO in a waterfront shed

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

New Zealand Symphony Orchestra 
Shed Series: Conductor: Hamish McKeich

Haydn: Symphony No 38 in C, Hob.1:38 (‘The Echo’)
Leonie Holmes: Elegy
Revueltas: Homenaje a Federico Garcia Lorca
Ravel: Le tombeau de Couperin
Penderecki: Polymorphia
Jonny Greenwood: 48 Responses to Polymorphia (New Zealand premiere)

Shed 6, Wellington Waterfront

Friday 10 May 7:30 pm

Good Music in Sheds
The “Shed series” of concerts were a new enterprise for the NZSO last year, when there were three concerts of music that was a bit off the beaten track and in an atmosphere unfamiliar to traditional audiences, though essentially classical rather than popular or rock music; perhaps the word ‘crossover’ might here apply. Last year, it was suggested that they would appeal to audiences aged under 40 which was one of the reasons that Middle C failed to review them, as well as the feeling that we might be a bit out of our depth.

We took the plunge with the second of 2019’s Shed Series, in Shed 6 on the Waterfront. It’s a large space (though smaller in audience capacity than the MFC) which is used for a variety of more popular events, pitched at a more casual audience. Last year for example I was there to hear a talk by the stimulating United States music critic Alex Ross (“The Rest is Noise” and “Listen to This”) along with live music from Stroma and soprano Bianca Andrew.

A similar routine is being followed this year: a start with a very approachable, early Haydn symphony, a couple of pieces, one by a familiar composer (Ravel) one by a commonly avoided one (Penderecki); plus a New Zealand piece and a couple by unclassifiable composers: here, Mexican, Revueltas and rock guitarist Jonny Greenwood.

Though the audience is provided with some miscellaneously placed seats, but most had to and seemed happy to stand, to walk about exchanging a few quiet words with friends, getting a drink from the bars on the west side of the auditorium as well as lending an eye and an ear to what the orchestra was doing. The orchestra was subject to another rock influence, Split Enz: in the first half of the concert the orchestra was at the south end, later in the north; and the auditorium was lit rock-style, though with enough light for a critic to see what he was scribbling. Players wore black or near-black clothes – no tails and white ties.

The series is masterminded by NZSO associate conductor Hamish McKeich, and he spoke casually yet informatively about each piece.

Penderecki’s Polymorphia and its successors
Central to this concert might have been Penderecki’s Polymorphia (of 1961) and the 48 Responses to Polymorphia by Greenwood. (Greenwood’s There will be Blood film score was played last year). Both Penderecki’s and Greenwood’s pieces would have slightly stretched the tastes of the average NZSO subscription series audience. Penderecki’s gets a huge variety of reactions: terrifying prophetic, disturbing, horror, angst, someone on YouTube wrote: “I just love it. I cried like a baby” and “This may be the greatest thing I’ve ever heard”.

It’s played by 48 strings, though much of the central, steady crescendo of sound seemed to emanate from percussion instruments that I couldn’t see.

The beginning presented the singular phenomenon of seeing infinitismal gestures by conductor and even less by players, rising slowly from utter silence to a sea of confused though somehow musical sound, tapping strings as well as bowing. The first four minutes or so are scored aleatorically, that is, allowing players to bow spontaneously, at will but within the composer’s prescription. The central section begins with normal pizzicato chords but drops back to the shape of the first part, slowly crescendo-ing again like a screaming swarm of Hitchcock Crows. To build to an amazingly coherent, musical cacophony, finally creating a powerful emotional impact. And it ends on a quite disorientating C major common chord, followed by mighty noisy acclamation.

Guitarist of Radiohead, Jonny Greenwood, collaborating with Penderecki, wrote his 48 Responses for the same orchestral forces. In a RNZ Concert interview he would have pleased McKeich and the NZSO:

‘While he’s used to playing in front of large crowds with recent Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees Radiohead, [Greenwood] thinks the orchestra is the ultimate acoustic gig. “There’s no way of hearing such musical colours any other way,” he says.

‘Greenwood anticipates the kiwi audience will feel the same way. “I hope that they are spurred to see far more live orchestral concerts. There might be a few magical moments in my piece, but there’ll be thousands in next week’s NZSO concert. Get your tickets now!” he laughs.’

His nine ‘Responses’ may not have had ‘thousands’ in the audience, but I hope it was recorded (I didn’t spot any microphones) and will be broadcast later for many thousands. These responses were certainly less overwhelming and astonishing than Penderecki’s, but still agreeably reflecting the Polish composer’s creation. The audience however, responded whole-heartedly.

Et al. Haydn, Holmes, Revueltas, Ravel
Well, the rest of the concert was relatively uneventful. The one item that did not reflect on death was Haydn’s Symphony No 38 (though I suppose its name ‘The Echo’ gets it past the theme censors)  from his early years at Esterhaza and it promised well for his future as a great composer. Leonie Holmes little Elegy was a much more conventional piece, among several rather more radical items: nicely written for a well-imagined variety of instruments.

Revueltas was a leading Mexican composer of the first half of the 2Oth century (he died at 40 in 1940). Homenaje a Federico Garcia Lorca, his reaction to Garcia Lorca’s assassination in 1936 was typical of world-wide shock at this early mark of Franco’s murderous intentions. It uses traditional Mexican instruments – or rather approximations available in a symphony orchestra – and the result is surprisingly radical in rhythm and vivid colour, recreating a somewhat primitive, peasant quality, ending in the sort of dance-hall that Copland was inspired by about the same time.

Ravel’s orchestration of four pieces of the six piano pieces from Le Tombeau de Couperin took us back to familiar musical territory. A bit overdue as a funeral ode for Couperin (François died in 1733); each of the six pieces is dedicated to one of his friends killed in WWI and it’s probably not irrelevant that Ravel’s mother died in 1917.  But the tone is reflective rather than tragic: McKeich quoted Ravel’s own remark: “The dead are sad enough, in their eternal silence”. One member of the audience drew attention to the absence of any ponderous funereal character, by walking with her percussive, hard heels, through the crowd and out the door, leaving it to bang shut.

Nevertheless this was a most appropriate work in the midst of a concert of very different music, anchoring it to the universal store-house of classical music that needs to be present in any intelligent programme of music that seeks to represent more than the music of the past five minutes.

These concerts, and there are two more of them this year, are an important enterprise; judging by the size, character and final noisy ‘response’ of the audience, they work, and their presentation, in style, in venue, in the appropriateness of McKeich’s pithy and pertinent remarks, is excellent.

 

Orchestra Wellington takes Vivaldi and Piazzolla to Upper Hutt with great success

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Classical Expressions, Upper Hutt
‘Eight Seasons’

A chamber orchestra drawn from Orchestra Wellington, conducted by concertmaster Amalia Hall

Vivaldi: Four Seasons
Piazzolla: The Four Seasons of Buenos Aires
(solo violin in both: Amalia Hall)

Expressions Arts and Entertainment Centre, Upper Hutt

Monday 6 May, 7:30 pm

This programme was presented in the Opera House, Wellington on Saturday 4 May. Even considering venues in the central city, there is probably no auditorium as well appointed as Expressions in Upper Hutt’s Arts and Entertainment Centre where I was very happy to catch them.

There were 22 musicians on the stage, perfectly accommodated both visually and acoustically.  In the place of the usual concertmaster, Amalia Hall, was Martin Riseley, associate professor and Head of Strings in Victoria University’s School of Music; Amalia conducted and took the part of solo violin. Those two, along with other section leaders, comprised the ‘Concertino’ players in the Vivaldi pieces.

Yet it was still something of a surprise to hear, right from the opening bars of the first Allegro, playing of such polish, with varied colour and expression, sounding like any of the notable baroque-style chamber orchestras that one hears on the best commercial recordings: crisp and elegant. Though one hears them often on RNZ Concert, and as ‘elevator’ music in all kinds of public places, the experience of a live performance awakened one, with surprise, to the wonderful variety between each movement: so the following Largo had a surprising chill about it, drawing attention, as well as to the soloists, the simple pairs of quavers from the ‘Ripieno’ (the rest of the orchestra) players. And there was still something cool and gently discreet about the third movement, Allegro, as if winter has hardly disappeared.

After each of the Vivaldi pieces, the orchestra played the equivalent Piazzolla concerto (don’t think he called them concerti). All their very different characteristics were fully to be expected. Nevertheless, I can imagine some might have felt they broke up the integrity of Vivaldi’s pieces; though I did not: we are so used to hearing snatches of them in all sorts of situations.

Piazzolla’s Spring conveyed an attractive feeling of lingering cold and increasing stretches of warm weather. Both Vivaldi and Piazzolla employed the solo violin in flamboyant passages which Amalia Hall delivered spectacularly. In Autumn, Brenton Veitch’s cello also enjoyed an extended and meditative episode, later mirrored in another similar solo by Amalia. The colour was generally darker in Winter, and again there was another soulful solo from Amalia, this time with all the cellos. The harpsichord also had attractive passages in this season and double basses were prominent in some of the Piazzollo pieces.

In some ways Piazzolla created a richer more complex picture than Vivaldi, having the freedom to use musical styles of 350 years more complexity (they were written in the 1960s). Even though one could argue that both composers shared a common Latinesque origin, the Argentinian, tango influence removed Piazzolla’s entirely from any useful comparison. One of the oddities was the occasional reference to tunes from Vivaldi: the work of an arrangement commissioned by Gidon Kremer from Leonid Desyatnikov. The insertions were brief, quite cleverly blended, and momentarily drew a smile; nor did they spoil the nature of Piazzolla’s very different composition; Piazzolla seems to be a composer who musicians commonly make free with, arranged for almost any instrumental combinations.

One is never quite sure about the appropriate response to some of Piazzolla’s gestures: the frequent glissandi (perhaps whip-lashes, is a better description), scratchings below the bridge.

Though in the past I have not warmed particularly to Piazzolla, this live performance from an excellent, thoroughly rehearsed ensemble, was both interesting and enjoyable and significantly altered my feelings about the composer. And the linking of the two composers’ descriptions of the seasons was an interesting approach.

This enterprising concert was a complete vindication of the collaboration between Orchestra Wellington, and the Upper Hutt Music Society and the Entertainment Centre.

A large and enthusiastic audience filled the auditorium.

Darth Vader, Storm Troopers, The Millenium Falcon… and the NZSO. Sounds unlikely? Don’t judge it until you’ve heard it.

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STAR WARS: THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK IN CONCERT

Film with live Orchestra

Music by John Williams
Presented by the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra
NZSO Associate Conductor Hamish McKeich

TSB Bank Arena, Wellington Waterfront

6:30pm  Sunday 28th April 2019

Important note from reviewers Lindis Taylor and Peter Mechen:

 Star Wars isn’t the usual cup of tea for Middle C – or its visionary but old-fashioned reviewers.

So, from Middle C’s Intergalactic critical arm, Cosmic Comparisons, we sent two of our young people along to tell us what they thought.

 Jeremy Mechen and Julia Wells report in! – (materialise….reconstitute…..welcome!)

 

What is The Empire Strikes Back?

The Empire Strikes Back is the second film in the original Star Wars trilogy. It continues the story of the conflict between the evil Galactic Empire and the Rebel Alliance/the good guys. Fun fact: it is the second highest grossing sequel of all time. The score was composed and conducted by John Williams and was played on the film soundtrack by the London Symphony Orchestra.

The NZSO playing Star Wars? How does that work?

The screening/concert was held in the TSB Bank arena on the Wellington waterfront. There was a large screen at the front with a projection of the film, then underneath was a stage with the orchestra. As the film played on the screen above, the orchestra played the score. There were recordings used for the voices (plus subtitles on-screen) and also for more unusual sound-effects, such as blasters and lightsabres.

What did you like?

Julia Wells: Firstly, I loved the enthusiasm and energy of the audience. The TSB arena is a huge venue, but the place was crowded – there was barely an empty seat to be seen. The audience was mainly young/middle aged and absolutely thrilled to be there. We saw lots of big grins, Star Wars T-shirts and even a glow-in-the-dark lightsabre. Someone whooped the first time Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher) appeared on screen.

The orchestra was fantastic – it was magical when the title caption started scrolling and they began to play the iconic Star Wars theme. The highlight for me was the imperial theme music (the musical riff for the bad guys), which recurs throughout the film. It had a drama and richness that you just don’t get with a cinema screening.

In general my favourite bits were the climatic moments, particularly the fights scenes (for example, the Alliance fighter pilots’ defence against the Imperial Walkers). However, the softer and sweeter bits of the score were also lovely – the scene when Luke Skywalker starts to explore the planet of Dagobarth stood out for me.

Jeremy Mechen: The takeaway for me was the enormous potential that these type of performances have. When I heard about the orchestra’s plans to play the score of Star Wars live I knew it would be a popular event. Star Wars’ position in the cultural zeitgeist spans generations, and so walking into the packed arena of diehard fans didn’t surprise me. What did, was how inarguably well the organisers and the musicians pulled it off. As the iconic yellow on black text scrolled across the screen the music burst into life to a cheering crowd. The movie had begun.

Merely five minutes had passed and I was enthralled. The camera panned over the otherworldly vistas as the music rose to a crescendo, and for a couple of minutes the subpar quality of the screen didn’t matter – I was completely transported to another world.  It also didn’t hurt that the environment shots are a part of the film that has aged much more gracefully than certain other aspects, like the visual effects.

Overall the experience was undoubtedly greater than the sum of its parts. The NZSO did an amazing job in demonstrating the unparalleled strength of a live orchestra. What might have otherwise been background music was transformed into a gripping soundscape that rose and fell throughout the movie, and iconic moments like the imperial march were brought to life in a way I’d never heard before. I have no doubt John Williams would have been more than happy with the performance.

What didn’t work so well for you?

JM: This is not exactly a negative, but I think at some points it almost became too cohesive an experience. The orchestra did such an impeccable job of synchronizing with the action; and Star Wars is such an engaging film, that I occasionally had to remind myself that I was hearing the soundtrack live, and not just listening to a very impressive recording.

JW: This is not a comment on the NZSO’s playing, but some parts of the film have not aged well. It was first released in 1980s, and post #MeToo, some of Han Solo’s interactions (read: harassment) of Leia now appear more creepy than charming. It’s certainly a product of its time. However, there’s still a lot to love in the film – it’s a classic for a reason.

Would you go again?

JW: Yes, definitely. I think this is an awesome thing for the NZSO – not to try to attract a wider audience to their classical concerts (I don’t think it will), but because on its own terms it’s a great performance. I hope in the future they will consider trying out other film/TV scores. Game of Thrones, anyone? I’d be there.

JM: Without a doubt. The worlds of movies and video games have so much to offer in terms of beautiful orchestral scores, it’s a shame they’re often overlooked compared to more traditional offerings. It’s not about subtracting from the culture of classical music that already exists, it’s about exploring the huge amount of genuine talent that exists in the world today.