Tag: orchestral

Big audience for the first NZSO Shed series avoiding the mainstream classics

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Shed Series: Symmetries
New Zealand Symphony Orchestra conducted by Hamish McKeich
Brahms: Hungarian Dances No 1 and 3 (orchestrated by the composer)
Lissa Meridan: Tuning the head of a pin
Mozart: Divertimento No 11 in D, K 251 – Rondo
Birtwistle: Bach Measures from eight Chorale Preludes from the Orgelbüchlein:
Russell Peck: Drastic Measures, II. Allegro
John Adams: Fearful Symmetries

Shed 6, Wellington Waterfront

Friday 31 January, 7:30 pm

The idea of using the first of its Shed concerts to open the NZSO’s 2020 series proved a winner, as there was a bigger audience than I’ve seen at these before and the result was an endorsement of idea of a less than formal affair to attract a different audience. Everyone I spoke to agreed that it had attracted people you wouldn’t see in the Michael Fowler Centre which has – mistakenly of course – the reputation of hosting forbidding, heavy-weight music.

It followed the same pattern as other Shed concerts: a mixture of light classical pieces, easy to grasp, some as the composer wrote them, some as a composer of today had arranged or transformed them. No ‘pop’ music but music influenced by jazz and pop styles, as well as a couple of contemporary pieces by a New Zealander and others.

Two of Brahms’s Hungarian Dances put the audience at rest, played in a genial manner, without too much finesse, but plenty of energy and rhythm.

Tuning the head of a pin
Though Lissa Meriden graduated from Auckland University she spent a few years as leader of the Sonic Arts Progamme at Victoria University from 2000, and is now based in Paris. Tuning the head of a pin was written in 2002, but according to McKeich it had not been performed here. As well as the usual chamber orchestra, it demands a huge and fascinating range of percussion. Such scoring sometimes seems merely a way of showing off a composer’s versatility without making the music more interesting or exciting. But I soon found myself more than a little absorbed by a sense evolution, in which the musical ideas did actually make use of exotic instrumental sounds inevitable. The spectacular scoring slowly played itself out and strings and winds introduced some comfortably diatonic sounds. Strong, highly varied rhythms continued but an agreeable character sustained it, holding the attention and I found myself rather delighted by the whole composition. Not least, it made clear that its successful performance demanded a versatile and well resourced orchestra.

Mozart Divertimento
The fifth movement from Mozart’s Divertimento in D, K 251 followed: a nice illustration of one of the clearest classical forms – the Rondo. It happily involved charming tunes that would, I hope, have been enjoyed by a not especially knowledgeable audience, though that is a dangerous observation as I had the feeling that many of the audience were musically very aware if not erudite. It was an excellent piece to end the first bracket.

Birtwistle on Bach
The second set of pieces, after the first interval as the orchestra moved to the south end of the space, opened with the arrangements by Harrison Birtwistle of five of Bach’s 45 Chorale Preludes (variously, between BWV 599 and 639). They were orchestrated with an eye (ear) to the unusual, perhaps even the eccentric. But in spite of such a first impression, one maintains an open mind and I found myself oddly intrigued by them; which is not to say I thought Bach emerged very intact or prominently. But that’s irrelevant as there would be little point in a major composer devoting time to such an exercise if the original work was still very audible and he hadn’t contributed something significant.

It was another opportunity for the reduced NZSO to exibit its brilliant versatility with unusual scoring.

Drastic Measures
A saxophone quartet (soprano, alto, tenor and baritone) then appeared on a low platform in the middle of the shed, to play the second movement, Allegro, of Drastic Measures, a jazz-style piece by Russell Peck. Spiky, witty, immediately attractive, and played with panache, it struck me as a particularly successful case of cross fertilisation by an imaginative composer, at home with jazz but not tempted into hyper-intellectual, avant-garde idioms. It ended with a sudden calm and a gentle smile. I was drawn to explore Peck’s music on YouTube and was even more attracted to the first movement of the piece, Cantabile e molto rubato.

After a second interval the orchestra returned to the north end. I hadn’t fully grasped McKeich’s first rather sketchy programme announcements, and it took a few moments to realise that here were the last three of Birtwistle’s eight Chorale Preludes. Having had an hour to acclimatise to the earlier pieces I found this second group kind-of familiar. Each piece expressed a distinct idea or emotion and I suspect someone who studied the words of the chorales themselves, would be able to recognise their musical interpretation.

Adams’s Fearful Symmetries
Then came the piece that was probably most looked-forward-to: John Adams’s Fearful Symmetries.  (Do you notice the fashion for music titles using two-word, abstract notions?) It arrests the listener from the first moment, though I confess that I’d never heard it before. But I recognised close relatives such as Adams’s Chairman Dances and Reich’s Three Movements. It’s driven by an incessant, heavy rhythmic pulse, that easily conjures the sounds of high speed trains such as exists in a YouTube recording of the Reich music, perhaps with the wonderful throb of a steam locomotive. Though there are long stretches with little variation, the changes are actually very marked over its 25 minutes and it holds the listener transfixed. Like most minimalist music, the changes, a single chordal shift or the arrival of different instrument, though no instrument had special attention. Those subtle changes of timbre and dynamics removed any risk of tedium, and the acoustic, lighting and general atmosphere suited the performance admirably.

If I’ve had reservations about programmes of earlier Shed concerts, and can think of many delightful dance-like pieces that I’d prefer to the Brahms dances, this scored very high and might have proven the Shed project beyond doubt.

 

Wellington Chamber Orchestra with rewarding and interesting music from Britain and Armenia

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Wellington Chamber Orchestra conducted by Ian Ridgewell, with Matthew Stein (trumpet)

Gerald Finzi: The Fall of the Leaf, Op.20
Alexander Arutiunian: Concerto for Trumpet and Orchestra
Charles Villiers Stanford: Symphony no.3, “The Irish”, in F minor, Op.28

St. Andrew’s on The Terrace

Sunday, 9 December 2018, 2:30 pm

It was tempting to describe this as a concert of unfamiliar twentieth-century music, however the symphony was composed and first performed in the 1880s.

An enthusiastic audience filled the church to hear this interesting programme, that began with the rather elusive, indefinite opening of the Finzi work.  This had once been intended to be part of a symphony, but it never eventuated, and after many years, the work was completed by a friend of Finzi’s after the latter’s death.  (Finzi’s dates: 1901-1956).

Like much of the composer’s work, it was gentle, nostalgic, and full of beautiful orchestral colours and melodies.  After the opening, a cor anglais gave a folksong-like melody, followed by the horns, then pizzicato strings and harp, the latter deliciously played by Michelle Velvin.  There was a superb passage for violas, sounding deep and resonant.  There was more superb writing for the cor anglais; no wonder it’s called the English horn!

The work revealed a considerable variety of dynamics.  All in all, it was most agreeable music.

The conductor for this concert was an Englishman, now resident in Wellington, and involved in music education.  I was intrigued with his conducting style; he held a baton, but, like many conductors, did not use the stick independently – it was simply an extension of his right hand.  I had just heard a couple of days before, a radio interview with visiting conductor Nicholas McGegan, here to conduct the NZSO (plus choir and soloists) in Handel’s Messiah.  He does not use a stick, and said that the white stick was used in past times to make the conductor’s beat visible in candle-lit auditoriums.  Since these days such places are lit by electric lighting, he saw no reason to use one.

The main drawback to the concert was the relatively small size of the venue, and its resonance.  Wellington desperately needs back the Town Hall and the Ilott Theatre, the latter being of a suitable size for this orchestra, which on Sunday numbered 59 players.  Too much sound, especially from the brass, can be pretty hard on the ears, and this was the case on Sunday.  The cymbals were simply deafening; fortunately they were not used frequently.

Alexander Arutiunian lived from 1920 to 2012; his trumpet concerto was composed in 1950 and is probably his best-known work internationally, although he had a busy composing, teaching and performing life in Armenia and the Soviet Union generally.

In Matthew Stein we had a superb soloist, not long  returned from study at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London, where he was a prizewinner.  (Pity he was listed on the back of the printed programme as ‘Piano’!)

His playing was brilliant.  The work was played without a break, but there are definite ‘movements’, with different tempi (Wikipedia gives five movements).  Subtle changes of dynamics were a feature throughout.  Its beginning was fast and furious for the orchestra, yet revealed many different colours.  The clarinet had plenty of sequences in the sun.  Occasionally the orchestra was too loud for the soloist to be easily heard.

After a very loud, repetitive section from the orchestra, the music became quiet and reflective, the soloist using a  mute (the second movement).  The music here was calm and somewhat wistful in character.  Here, the strings’ intonation was wayward, but generally, the playing was fine.  Along came lovely harp ripples, and more prominent clarinet episodes.

The strings got worked up in an insistent rhythmic pattern, and there was a general crescendo as the soloist’s removal of his mute signified another movement.  Extraverted phrases came from the soloist; the flute and percussion made fanciful contributions in this very fast movement.  As elsewhere, there was plenty of work for trombones and tuba.

A brilliant cadenza from the trumpet broke forth, with varied dynamics and rhythms, and featuring trills, all executed with skill and apparent ease.

The audience gave this performance a well-deserved rousing reception.  It was an exciting and varied work, played with élan.

My friend and I moved to the back of the church in the interval, which rendered the brass fortissimo into forte or mezzo-forte.

Irish-born Stanford (1852-1924) was once highly regarded as a symphonist, but is now mainly known for his choral music, particularly his church music.  Much of this repertoire is beautiful an appealing.  One of the reasons we can be grateful to him is for his teaching and developing the talents of Vaughan Williams, Holst, Ireland, Frank Bridge (teacher of Benjamin Britten) and many others, as a teacher at music college and university.

A link with the other composers in the programme is the fact that all used folk-like melodies from their countries of origin; not necessarily actual known melodies, although  some genuine Irish ones are said to be present in this Stanford work.  Certainly the opening of the work sounded like one such.

The strings were a little shaky here, but things settled down again.  There were felicitous phrases, and some grand melodies in an Elgarian vein.  The composer’s orchestration was splendid, with an imaginative variety of use of the instruments.  However, I did not think the orchestra played as well in this work as they had in the Finzi.

The music was easy on the ear.  A passage with pizzicato strings and woodwind melodies over the top gave a slightly spooky atmosphere; were there leprechauns about?

The second movement had a sprightly tempo (or should that be spritely, being Irish?), that fell into a quick march, with brass to the fore.  Then a change of mood and rhythm brought a lilting lyrical section, but still with a lot of brass.  Then we were back to the march, followed by an abrupt ending.

The third movement started with the harp (significant, of course, in Irish music).  This was gorgeous, and was soon joined by flutes and clarinet.  These were ethereal sounds, into which the oboe entered, adding its piquancy.  Strings were sotto voce, horns too contributed to the other-worldly aesthetic.  A swaying theme developed, like a slow dance.

More woodwind melodies ensued, then the brass joined in a crescendo with a very four-square theme which I found rather too insistent, saying “Look out for us!  Here we come!”

While I love some of Stanford’s choral music (notably The Blue Bird), I wouldn’t declare this symphony ripe for widespread resurrection, whereas the other works on the programme could certainly stand more frequent airings.  Nonetheless, there were many lovely elements in the work, of which the harp episodes were among the most mellifluous.

The final movement was faster again, and featured more spooky pizzicato, this time on cellos and double-basses, to great effect.  This section ended like a folk-song, before the music became quite rumbustious, making a very positive declaration (what a contrast to much twentieth-century composition!).  Next was a hymn-like tune, which could well be a traditional Irish melody.  Not all the brass coped well here.  The music came close to pomposity.  However, Stanford’s orchestration was splendid.  A rousing, tuneful ending was triple forte, to send us on our way.

 

An “Enchanted Evening” from The Virtuoso Strings with Jonathan Lemalu

Posted on by Peter Mechen

Virtuoso Strings presents:
SOME ENCHANTED EVENING
(with Grammy award-winning bass, Jonathan Lemalu)

Music by JS BACH, MOZART, MASCAGNI, BELLINI, VAUGHAN WILLIAMS, COPLAND, BARBER, GERSHWIN, and RODGERS

Introduction: James Faraimo, Virtuoso Strings Charitable Trust Board
Opening Address: Justin Lester, Mayor of Wellington
MC: Luamanuvao Dame Winifred Laban

Jonathan Lemalu (bass)
Toloa Faraimo (violin)
Concertmistress (Avril Stil)
Virtuoso Strings Players and Guests
Kenneth Young (conductor)

Wellington Opera House, Manners St.

Monday 3rd December, 2018

It had all the makings of a large and vital extended-family affair, with the usual concert rituals and parameters given a relaxed and informal spontaneity that readily brought musicians and audience together. I liked the buzz of excitement in both the foyer and the auditorium, one growing out of a sense of being in a friendly crowd and anticipating the delights to come!

This was “Some Enchanted Evening”, a presentation by The Virtuoso Strings, a group drawing its members from young musicians in the Wellington and Porirua areas. The ensemble’s Concertmistress, Avril Stil, put things succinctly in her welcoming note printed in the programme, referring to the group’s determination to “change the classical music landscape of New Zealand and the world”, by dint of “hard work, dedication and a lot of practice and perseverance”. The results of what she was talking about spoke for themselves this evening.

Central to the operation was bass Jonathan Lemalu, the ensemble’s Patron, and the soloist in the vocal numbers performed in tonight’s concert. Inspired by the visionary zeal of the group’s organisers, Lemalu readily agreed to assist the venture in all possible ways, resulting in his patronage and his inspirational presence as a performer with the group. The singer paid tribute to the group’s principal sponsors in his welcoming programme note, the Deane Endowment Trust, and the Wright Family Foundation.

Beginning proceedings was an “official” welcome to everybody from James Faraimo, representing the Virtuoso Strings Charitable Trust Board, followed by an address from the Mayor of Wellington, Justin Lester. This prepared the way for the evening’s opening item, James Faraimo introducing the evening’s Musical Director Kenneth Young by way of inviting him to the podium to direct the first movement of Bach’s Third Brandenburg Concerto. This was quite a work-out for the strings, but under Young’s “steady-as-she-goes” guidance the players bent their backs to the task with great spirit, keeping their rhythms buoyant, attacking the beginnings of the lines fearlessly and “terracing” the dynamics so that the sounds had ear-catching ebb-and-flow. Though the intonation sounded a bit raw in places, especially the exposed, single-line sequences, other parts were strongly and vigorously characterised, such as the famous “descent” through the orchestral sections, finishing with the engagingly “growly” double-basses!

James Faraimo then introduced the MC for the remainder of the concert, Luamanuvao Dame Winifred Laban, Associate Professor and Assistant Vice-Chancellor (Pasifika) at Victoria University of Wellington.  After greeting us she then in turn introduced the evening’s soloist, bass Jonathan Lemalu, inviting him to take the stage and perform for us some more Bach, this time the beautiful “Mache, dich, mein Herz rein“ (Make my heart pure) from the “St Matthew Passion”. Lemalu treated the music reverentially, almost to a fault in places where it was difficult to hear him – his tones came through more readily to the ear during the less heavily-accompanied middle section of the aria. However, his capturing of the music’s spirit was extremely moving, as was the players’ rendering of the “lullaby-like” quality of much of the music.

Completely different in character was the following item, from Mozart’s opera “The Marriage of Figaro”, the aria “Non piu andrai” (No more will you go), during which Figaro gleefully describes to a young lovesick boy, Cherubino, how life in the army and in the thick of battle will make a “man” out of him! Lemalu’s acting skills came to the fore, here, characterising the words with glee, and gently mocking the boy’s amorous inclinations by presenting him with the grimmer realities of a soldier’s life! Though some of the vocal detail was hard to pick up, the more “martial” bits were put across by Lemalu with great relish!

Another great Mozartean “character” followed, that of “Papageno”, the bird-catcher from “the Magic Flute”. Lemalu lost no chance to “act up” to the audience while describing his living and his longing for a pretty little wife – the recurring flute-call here made the singer check his cell-phone, to the amusement of us all in the auditorium. After this, we heard a strings-only item, again operatic in origin, the beautiful “Intermezzo” from a much later opera than Mozart’s, a one-acter by Pietro Mascagni, called “Cavalleria Rusticana”. The lines were sweetly and sensitively realised, the phrasing kept simple and direct, Young resisting the temptation to inflate the piece’s overt emotion in any way.

The changes were rung again for the next operatic excerpt, again from Mozart, and this time from one of the most famous of all operas, “Don Giovanni”. Lemalu gave us an Act One aria from the Don’s servant Leoporello, who recounts to one of the Don’s abandoned female conquests the extent of his master’s sexual proclivities, a piece popularly known as the “Catalogue Aria”. Here, Andrew Atkins’ piano-playing helped out with some of the wind-parts of the original! Lemalu’s voice, though not ideally clear against the busy orchestral background during the first half of the aria, nicely caught the mock-serenade mood of the slower second part, with its naughtily-characterised final phrases.

I didn’t know the next aria, from Vincenzo Bellini’s “La Sonnambula”, one which sounded to me very like Rossini in places, but had heard and knew the splendid Vaughan Williams song “The Vagabond’ from the composer’s “Songs of Travel” – here most energetically sung and with great and forthright out-of-doors orchestral playing!

After the interval came the first of two items during this half of the programme that moved me almost to the point of tears, the first of which again being by Vaughan Williams. This time the soloist was a violinist, sixteen year-old Toloa Faraimo, giving us a performance of the composer’s orchestral rhapsody “The Lark Ascending” which was received throughout its duration with the kind of awed silence one associates with truly heart-stopping performances. For here was a beautifully-realised, exquisitely-sounded evocation of a world of loveliness and natural order and simplicity, played with exquisite timing and sense of atmosphere, soloist and orchestral accompaniment mindful as much of the silences as of the notes. Only one or two slightly “drooped” ascending note-tunings from Faraimo caused any sort of “blip” on the radar of the bird’s celestial peregrinations, the rest (including confidently-addressed double-stoppings and diaphanous cadenza-like warblings near the piece’s end) addressed with a serene patience and surety of focus that belied the violinist’s young years. Naturally the audience erupted at the end of it all, the reception all the more tumultuous in the wake of such rapt interweavings of beauty and stillness from the youthful player and his sensitively-wrought orchestral support.

We needed to come back down to earth after this, and Jonathan Lemalu gave us just the thing in the form of three of Aaron Copland’s “Old American Songs”, the first the well-known “Simple Gifts”, here sung in simple, ballad-like fashion. The more declamatory “Zion Halls” I thought suited Lemalu’s gentler voice less than did the lovely “At the River”, the latter sung with ineffable longing and sense of quiet faith.

Samuel Barber’s “Adagio”, originally a movement from a string quartet, has long since found another “life” in a later, string-orchestra guise, as a much-loved and often-performed elegiac piece at times and occasions marked by great sorrow. Ken Young got a beautiful performance of this from his young players – after a lovely, inward-sounding opening, the cellos “opened up” the music’s expressive qualities, stimulating ever-burgeoning feeling and intensity which reached a climax, then quietly retreated , returning to the deep well of hushed emotion awakened by the piece’s opening.

All four remaining items in the concert (including the encore) were sung by Lemalu with a “to the manner born” kind of style, firstly Gershwin’s “I got plenty o’ nuttin’” from “Porgy and Bess, put across with plenty of swagger in the more forthright places, including a properly uninhibited “No use complainin’!” parlando utterance that summed up the spirit of the song in an instant!  I would still have liked more tonal weight from the singer, but by way of compensation got here and in other places some wonderfully alive responses from Lemalu to words and their evocations.

The most affecting were two whose strains instantly took me back in time to childhood experiences of hearing these performed “live” on stage, particularly so in the case of “Some Enchanted Evening” from Richard Rodgers’ “South Pacific”, but just as strongly (through being more richly-voiced in performance) the concert’s encore, a performance of the famous song “Ole’ Man River” from Jerome Kern’s “Showboat”. Here the singer’s deepest resonances were brought into play most effectively with the song’s lowest notes being caught well and truly, and used as the basis of building up intensity of feeling towards the climax – overwhelming in its effect, and a marvellous way to end this truly heart-warming concert.

Creative, thrilling and heart-warming conclusion to Orchestra Wellington’s 2018 season

Posted on by Peter Mechen

Orchestra Wellington presents “New World”

MOZART (arr. Busoni) – Overture “Don Giovanni”
MICHAEL NORRIS – Violin Concerto “Sama” (World Premiere)
DVORAK – Symphony No. 9 in E Minor Op. 95 (B.178) “From the New World”

Amalia Hall (violin – Michael Norris)
Andrew Atkins (conductor – Mozart)
Marc Taddei (conductor – Michael Norris, Dvorak)
Orchestra Wellington

Michael Fowler Centre, Wellington

Saturday 1st December 2018

Well, it was quite a night for Orchestra Wellington! – in front of an enthusiastic and appreciative audience at the Michael Fowler Centre on Saturday evening the musicians put everything they had into making the final night of the orchestra’s 2018 concert season one to remember. We were presented with a line-up of pieces which, if perhaps not all sure-fire crowd-pleasers, perfectly expressed the desire of the orchestra’s organisers to provide a rich and varied concert experience! There was a fascinating arrangement of one of Mozart most famous operatic overtures, along with the first-ever performance of a New Zealand work, a violin concerto by Wellington composer Michael Norris, both counterweighted after the interval by what is certainly one of the most popular symphonies of all time, Dvorak’s Ninth Symphony in E Minor, best known by its subtitle “From the New World”.

Before the actual music-making began, Marc Taddei, the orchestra’s Music Director, warmly thanked the audience for its support throughout the year, promising that the about-to-be-launched 2019 programme would continue to deliver the excitement and enjoyment of past seasons – in fact, even more so this time round by, in Taddei’s words, “pulling out all of the stops!” The 2019 season sported the title “Epic” by way of indicating something of the range and scope of the presentations, the conductor remarking that in each case the work or works featured in that particular concert introduced something “important” and “pivotal” to music, significant to the art-form’s development.

As an example (I thought this a particularly mouth-watering prospect!) the opening concert in April of next year was to feature both Berlioz’s “Symphonie Fantastique” AND Its rarely-performed sequel, “Lelio, or Return to Life”. Even on its own this choice of repertoire amply indicates the innovative spirit that informs the orchestra’s work in general and pays tribute to its enterprising music director and his supporting musicians and artistic management. A further innovation came with the display of a special recording of the orchestra playing a couple of Beethoven Symphonies (these are “live” performances from previous concerts….) captured on both CD and “180 gram vinyl”, the latter especially striking regarding colour and packaging, giving it extra distinction for a collector, though for some people the former at a mere $16.00 (as opposed to $40.00) might be perfectly viable a souvenir of the orchestra.

So, the 2019 season having been “launched” and associated things been given honourable mention, the concert began, Taddei at this point handing over the “conducting reins” to his Assistant Conductor, Andrew Atkins, who was scheduled to conduct the first item. With gestures whose flowing aspect often reminded one of a bird in flight, but which secured as finely-honed and dramatically-sprung a performance of the music as one could wish for, Atkins got a properly dark-browed aspect from the players at the work’s beginning, followed by an engagingly buoyant rendering of the music’s “giocoso” manner – in fact, Mozart himself interestingly styled the work as both a “dramma giocoso”, a dramatic comedy, and an “opera buffa” (comic opera).

Opera overtures are often linked by their composers to the ensuing stage action, Mozart’s music in the theatre in this case flowing seamlessly into the story’s beginning. However, to be performed like that in concert with no opera to follow would result in a kind of unresolved cadence at the piece’s end – so either the composer or a subsequent editor would “recompose” the concluding sequence to make a satisfying conclusive ending to the music. This time round, however, the orchestra played a version I’d never encountered before, one arranged by the brilliant Italian pianist and composer Feruccio Busoni, and which seemed to me to successfully incorporate more of the opera’s whole “flavour” for concert-hall performance. Busoni, at the Overture’s end returns us to the opening, darkly monumental “Stone Guest” music, reminding us of the Don’s eventual fate, and follows this with the music accompanying the opera’s “epilogue” (which Mozart added to the opera AFTER the premiere) – here, the Don’s adversaries, plus his much-maligned manservant, Leoporello, entone a moralistic conclusion – “This is the evil-doer’s end – sinners finally meet their just reward, and always will”, the sentiments (as befits a “dramma giocoso”) delivered with something of an ambivalent twinkle in the eye, a feeling conveyed here by the energetic, high-spirited playing.

By way of providing something of a contrast, next up was Michael Norris’s new Violin Concerto (an Orchestra Wellington commission), one which the composer had subtitled “Sama”, the Arabic word for “listening” and the name given to a Sufi ceremony involving different ritualistic elements. This work was expressly written for Amalia Hall, the orchestra’s Concertmaster, who, though still in her twenties has already developed an international reputation as a soloist, going on from competition successes in New Zealand to win various international awards in various parts of the world. Of coursed she’s already appeared as a soloist with Orchestra Wellington this year in a stunningly-delivered performance of Bartok’s formidable Second Violin Concerto (see the review at https://middle-c.org/2018/06/orchestra-wellington-a-golden-beginning-to-its-2018-season/), so we were thoroughly spoilt by having this second opportunity to enjoy her magnificent solo playing of music that was, to say the very least, extremely challenging. Incidentally, the Orchestra Concertmaster for the evening was none other than Justine Cormack, ex-APO Concertmaster and NZ Trio violinist, obviously happy to “help out” her conductor-husband and his orchestra in their time of need!

In three movements this concerto evoked a world of exotic ritual inspired by the “Sama”. We were straightaway transported into a mystical realm via “tolling” undulations from the harp and the orchestral winds, joined by ambient strings and then by the solo violin, entering quietly at first , but constantly responding to different aspects of the “Ard” expressed by the orchestral textures and impulses – it seemed to me a kind of “rite of passage” for the soloist and her instrument, both here in accord with the orchestral happenings, and there ostensibly “assailed” by overwhelming forces, which the solo violin did its best to combat, either by accordance or stoic defiance. Perhaps the orchestral irruptions were more manifestations of life-force than they were adversarial, though I still thought there were some baleful moments! However, these were balanced by writing for both violin and orchestra which expressed a gamut of illustration and incident characterising what Norris called “life and growth” throughout the movement, with variety, colour and energy abounding.

The second part, Fada, came cataclysmically into being via a hugely reverberant opening chord, the solo violin exploring the ensuing resonances in the manner of a spirit inhabiting a strange, almost surreal world in a trance-like state of being. There was as much “incident” as stillness throughout, the impulses mostly contained within the parameters of the dream-like writing, though the brasses stirred uneasily at one moment and roused one another in an outburst of disquiet before leaving the violin to join with the harp and the gently-thrumming strings, connecting as much by the sound of breath as by actual tones with the music’s cosmic heartbeat.

Perhaps the solo part’s “display element” was manifest more consistently in the final movement “Semazen”, the composer commenting on the “constant state” of “vortical force” expressed by the music, a reference to the well-known “whirling dervish” aspect of Sufi worship. Beginning with trance-like ritualistic invocations both ruminative and forceful, both soloist and orchestra gave us a rollicking parade of interactive impulses involving quicksilver figurations, galloping drums, galvanising irruptions from the winds and brass, and energetic underpinnings from the strings. The violin seemed “central” to the ritual, obviously a “Master of Ceremonies” but very much an integral thread in the work’s “one among equals” tapestry. The composer used his manifest musical forces with both elan and discretion, not least of all at the work’s very end, with the violin, having decided that its work is done, ascending and disappearing into the silence of the stratospheric spaces – what a work, and what a performance!

The final act of the orchestra’s 2018 season – the performance of Antonin Dvořák’s Symphony No. 9 “From the New World” – was preceded by a touching tribute made by Taddei to his Principal Second Violin Leader, Pascale Parenteau, who was stepping down from the position after a number of years, though still intending to continue in the orchestra as a rank-and file player. And then it was all hands to the pumps for the Symphony, though the quiet opening of the work was here lightly and fluidly played by the strings, like something almost airborne. A stentorian horn call awoke an answer from the winds, before strings and timpani flexed their muscles and strongly announced their intentions, moving the music on more urgently to and through the allegro molto.

Tempi were kept swift and straight, and the rhythms incisive, Taddei relaxing the trajectories just a little for the more lyrical wind-led themes of the second subject group, allowing the flute enough space in which to phrase most beautifully the famous “Swing Low Sweet Chariot” sound-alike theme, repeated just as sweetly by the strings. What a pleasure to be able to hear all of this again, courtesy of the first-movement repeat (not always played), with the players generating just as much rhythmic excitement and lyrical feeling the second time through. Throughout these more lyrical episodes I loved the prominence given to the wind counterpoints, obviously encouraged by the conductor to “play out”, giving the music such a winning and distinctive “al fresco” feeling.

Dvořák went to a lot of trouble to get the opening of the Largo slow movement right, indicated by the variants of the “chord progressions” in the composer’s sketchbooks – he also thought seriously about using a clarinet for the famous main theme before finally turning to the cor anglais (and in doing so, of course, ensured the instrument’s immortality!). As with the symphony’s opening, the brass kept things moving throughout their richly-wrought introductory chordings, allowing the cor anglais player Louise Cox to follow in kind, the playing lyrical without overt sentimentality, her tones beautifully-rounded while still suitably plaintive-sounding. Her playing was nobly supported throughout, the winds just as feelingly framing the soloist’s melody, the strings echoing the strains with rare beauty and the brass and timpani adding touches of grandeur to it all.

From the rapture of the slow movement’s conclusion we were plunged into a different mindset by the Scherzo, a tighter and more “symphonic” affair than any in the series of symphonies by the composer we’d heard thus far this year, though Dvorak had in mind a passage in Longfellow’s “Hiawatha” that the composer called “the feast where the Indians dance” and thus builds the excitement of the dance’s opening rhythmic gestures into something wild and forceful, contrasting this with charming interludes, including a Trio whose spirit seems more akin to his Czech homeland. I thought the playing outstanding in all aspects, feeling that the wind players, particularly in these interludes seem to “inhabit” the composer’s evocations, via the out-of-doors character of the playing. And Taddei and his players delivered the “surprise” coda, with its reminiscences of the symphony’s first movement, in a properly exciting and dramatic way, the brief (and uncharacteristic) moment of untogetherness by the horns mattering little in the drama of the exchanges.

This same energy carried over and into the finale’s opening, delivered absolutely without rhetoric, directly and powerfully, the brass resplendent, the strings intense and full-bodied, and the trajectories with their cross-rhythms between the sections most exciting! I loved the flexibililty of Mark Cookson’s clarinet solo, and the cheekiness of the winds later in the movement, answered in almost Mahlerian style by the brasses, who built up their opening statement magnificently. And what a resonant and heartwarming exchange between strings winds and horn which followed afterwards!

At this point I thought the whole ensemble imbued with a kind of “playing for keeps” spirit, which of course befitted the last few moments of the season – and out of it came the last charge towards the work’s stirring peroration, begun by the winds, galvanised by the horns, and flung skyward by the strings and the brass, unable to contain their excitement during the final measures until Mark Taddei and the players farewelled us with the last wind chord, held so beautifully and resonantly. It was a moment which will, I’m sure, sustain the orchestra’s many followers over the time before the band again picks up its instruments for the aforementioned new and tumultuous 2019 season!

 

 

NZSO in splendid Beethoven: the first and the last, under Edo de Waart

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

New Zealand Symphony Orchestra (led by Donald Armstrong).  conductor Edo de Waart

Beethoven:  Symphony no.1  in C major, Op.21
Symphony no 9 in D minor, Op.15

Madeleine Pierard (soprano), Kristin Darragh (mezzo), Simon O’Neill (tenor), Anthony Robin Schneider (bass), Voices New Zealand Chamber Choir (Music Director Dr Karen Grylls)

Michael Fowler Centre

Friday, 23 November 2018, 6.30pm

Such is the popularity of Beethoven’s Choral Symphony (no.9) that the Michael Fowler Centre auditorium was sold out.  There were two empty seats next to me, but I did not see many others.

The gentle prologue to  Beethoven’s first symphony (the symphony premiered in 1800) almost sounds like an ending, and reminds one immediately of Haydn, the great master of the symphony, who was still around for the first 40 years of Beethoven’s life.

Excellent programme notes needed much more time to read than was available to me before the concert, but, as at other concerts, I couldn’t read them during the performances because of the strange New Zealand custom of dowsing the lights during orchestral and choral performances, as though they were visual spectacles like plays, opera or ballet.  This is not the case in the United Kingdom, where I recently attended concerts at the Royal Albert Hall and London’s Festival Hall – all performed with full auditorium lighting.

Symphony No 1
The first movement soon bounced into its allegro con brio tempo after its andante molto  introduction. There is then a gradual build-up of volume. Fine woodwind and horn interjections arrived.  The orchestra for this work was  much smaller than that employed later for the Ninth Symphony; brass consisted of two horns and two trumpets.

Crisp, articulated playing was the norm.  Sublime oboe and flute playing was a predominant feature. The music included pleasant variations.

The second movement, andante cantabile con moto, had a tuneful, dance-like opening.  All was very classical and orderly, but modulation passages proved a little more adventurous than Haydn perhaps would have been.

Menuetto: allegro molto e vivace – Trio was the tempo marking for the third movement.  Its lively tempo had woodwinds to the fore; the timpani had plenty of interesting work to do, and an unusual prominence for music of the period.  This movement featured some lovely string playing.

The fourth movement began portentously.  After a rather short adagio introduction, which held the audience in suspense,  until a jolly dance broke out. The dance ends, and there is declamation of trenchant chords again.  The dance theme develops, becoming more complex and intertwined with declamation, syncopation featuring also.  Peace returns, then a wind-up to the end.

The Choral Symphony
After the interval, we were treated to a marvellous performance of Beethoven’s 9th symphony. This final symphony, composed between 1822 and 1824, was performed first in 1825 under the great composer’s ‘direction’, although he was by now totally deaf, and another did the actual conducting.  It received a rapturous reception.  A huge orchestra is required; its premiere in Vienna saw a larger orchestra than possibly had ever been assembled there for a symphony concert.  Many more of every section are required here than in the first symphony.

The first movement, allegro ma non troppo, un poco maestoso, begins with only a quiet harbinger of things to come, yet its quietude has an amazing quality in its softness.  Some have said that the opening resembles the sound of an orchestra tuning up.  Then comes the first of many outbursts, demonstrating the composer’s revolutionary use of extreme dynamics magnificent crescendo and diminuendo at various points throughout the work. The trumpets became prominent, adding to the rich colours.  A high level of excitement was engendered, accompanied by magisterial majesty,  Horns were splendid, and the whole orchestra made huge, dramatic sounds.

The second movement (Scherzo: molto vivace – presto) carried on much the same mood,  but with incessant rhythms.  Its great theme somewhat foreshadowed the fourth movement. The trio section introduces trombones into the orchestra for the first time in the work.

The adagio molto e cantabile – andante moderato third movement contains many interesting and entrancing variations.  Some brief fugal treatment ensues; what Tovey describes as ‘…fragmentary counterpoint which enhances the effect…’; the movement has an emphatic outrburst before ending quietly.

The mighty fourth movement, is almost of symphonic length in itself, following the relatively short third movement.  The soloists came on, ready for their contributions, the women both in beautiful red gowns.  It has a graceful, almost tentative introduction to the theme, principally from cellos and basses, and a peaceful, quasi-pastoral passage with lovely variations  Horns took over the theme.  The variation from woodwinds with pizzicato strings was utterly transporting.  Brass did their piece, but never too dominating.  Variation was in dynamics as well as on the theme.  A quiet wind-down, a diversion, splendid flutes, and a gradual rise in tension, especially from the strings followed.  Again, the theme came from cellos and double-basses, with the other instruments taking it up, with variations – but the violins gave it to us straight.

Finally we are awakened by soloists and choir.  Bass Anthony Robin Schneider’s invocation ‘O friends!… Joy!’ was intoned richly and incisively by his superb voice.  (A pity that the translation in the programme, and in Wikipedia, gives the mild ‘Oh’ of exclamation, not the dramatic ‘O’ of invocation).

The choir soon joined in. Their words were taken from the “Ode to Joy”, a poem written by Friedrich Schiller in 1785 and revised in 1803, with text additions made by the composer.  The varied tempi in this movement make for increased excitement, until the last words are hurled out at high speed.  The music became dramatic in its build-up; it always seems to be going somewhere.

There were 60 voices in the Voices New Zealand Chamber Choir on this occasion – quite large for a chamber choir, but needed for Beethoven’s ecstatic utterances.  Their contribution was accurate and sonorous, with clear words, and animation.  The choir’s singing and that of the soloists was thrilling.

Only Kristin Darragh had some rather ugly notes near the beginning – possibly they were rather low for her tessitura.  Elsewhere, in the ensembles she was not easily heard at times; the soprano has the advantage (fully utilised by Madeleine Pierard, the superb soprano) of being at the top, while the bass stands out for being the lowest sound, and the tenor stands out because the .music is high in his voice.  Simon O’Neill had the right voice and volume for this role.

Martial airs came from the orchestra, excellently delineated, adding to the grandeur of the music. More percussion is introduced in this movement; bass drum and triangle both have notable solos.

All parts, solo and chorus, are written high in their respective voices.   I noticed that the soloists, when seated and not performing solo, ‘sang along’ with the chorus parts – a nice gesture.  The choir was absolutely great on the final section; the work finishes triumphantly for them, interspersed with beautiful ensembles for the soloists – but some detail was lost in all that was going on.

This was a wonderfully nuanced performance under the highly experienced Maestro Edo de Waart, and the audience showed appreciation most enthusiastically.

 

Edo de Waart reaffirms his comprehensive Mahlerian authority and insight with Number Seven

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, conductor Edo de Waart

Mahler: Symphony no.7 in B minor, Op.36

Michael Fowler Centre

Friday, 9 November 2018, 6:30 pm

The concert was one of Edo de Waart’s ‘Masterworks’ series.  A mammoth symphony of over 80 minutes in length was obviously not everyone’s cup of tea: the front block of seating downstairs was virtually empty.  But it was a tour de force for conductor and orchestra.  The huge variety of musical and instrumental content and the diversity of sounds, timbres and musical ideas bore out Mahler’s well-known saying that ‘the symphony is like the world, it must encompass everything!’

It is the only one of his symphonies with which I was not familiar, and of which I have no recording; it is probably the least frequently performed, not only on account of its length.  Such a long and complex work takes some getting to grips with.  Yet like all the composer’s works, there is much in it to delight as well as much to wonder at and to ponder on.  An excellent essay in the printed programme contained interesting and illuminating material.

The orchestra was led by Yuka Eguchi, assistant concertmaster (though this was not shown in the programme), and numbers of guest players were brought in to create the large orchestra required.

With five movements, the symphony is one of the largest in the orchestral repertoire, and is played without an interval, though the breaks between movements must have been welcomed by the orchestra’s members.

A theme for the symphony suggested by the composer (though he made many revisions to it) was ‘darkness to light’.  However, each movement has a distinct ‘personality’.  The first movement, very long, like the last, is entitled ‘Langsam [slow]– allegro molto ma non troppo’.  The opening seemed indecisive, that could not entirely be blamed on Mahler, but the brass soon made their presence felt; next, woodwinds were added, with strings playing at a low pitch, the tones very solemn.  Woodwinds take over again, before a general overall shindig breaks out.

More lyrical figures creep in, before the large percussion section has a good workout.  The clarinettists play their instruments unusually, holding them up horizontally in front of their faces.  The full orchestra plays military motifs, then all is quiet, with a few solo instruments having short statements, and many changes of orchestral colour.  The two harps created lovely ripples, and there were dramatic passages with typical Mahlerian harmonies and intervals.  The brass contributed numerous expostulations.  Everyone was busy; the percussion had their own outbursts, but eventually the music subsided, though soon quickened to a brass march, that illustrated the different tonalities and discordant chords in this symphony compared with the harmonies in Mahler’s earlier ones.

A problem here was the unhelpfulness of the programme in describing the additional brass instrument used.  When the player stood for his special bow at the end of the concert, I thought that he had a euphonium.  However, Wikipedia says that Mahler did not want that instrument, but describes the instrument variously as tenor horn or baritone horn.  The player sat next to the trombones, and in the list of players at the back of the programme he is stated as simply “Brass  Nitzan Haroz”.  Certainly here was a distinct sound at various points in the symphony.  Another failure of description there was in joining the fourth movement guitarist (Jane Curry) and mandolin player (Dylan Lardelli) under the heading ‘Guitar’.

The second movement, like the fourth, is titled ‘Nachtmusik’ (Nocturne).  It opens with a horn figure, echoed by a muted horn, then an oboe, before the other musicians gradually enter, including distinctive percussion.  A jaunty rhythm has the strings tapping their bows, but soon the contrabassoon makes a noteworthy contribution, and a marching tempo takes over the music; then a smooth theme, like a folk-dance, is played on violins, before one of Mahler’s Des Knaben Wunderhorn songs, ‘Revelge’ (or ‘The Dead Drummer’) sounded forth its sad but militaristic tones.  We heard the horn echo again.  We heard superb, rich, colourful, sonorous playing throughout.  The four flutes contributed largely, with lots of delightful little figures for woodwind before a fortissimo passage with spooky elements (as so often with Mahler).  The ‘kitchen department’ lived up to its nickname here and elsewhere, with splendid cowbells.  Lyrical motifs issued from all sections.

To the Scherzo third movement, Mahler had given the description (in German: Shadowy.  Flowing but not too fast.  It has a spooky character throughout, but also spiky and perky..  Horn, drums and double basses began proceedings, with many brief utterances from various instruments, notably frequent short solo violin fragments.  Likewise, the viola contributed lovely sonorous solo fragments.  After some hectic brass, the clarinets contributed to a quirky ending.  The ¾ time used in this movement led a commentator to call it ‘a most morbid and sarcastic mockery of the Viennese waltz’ (Wikipedia). Among the unusual instruments employed was the small E-flat clarinet, played by David McGregor.  Its distinctive sound was heard quite frequently throughout the symphony.

The fourth movement, another ‘Nachtmusik’, this time andante amoroso throughout, as compared with the varying tempo markings of its predecessor.  Brass is absent (except horns), and the use of guitar and mandolin create a serenade atmosphere.  A brief violin solo opens the movement, then a charming oboe intervenes, soon allowing the violin to resume.  I noticed that in this more intimate movement, Edo de Waart conducted without the baton.  Violin, flute, oboe, mandolin and guitar continued the serenade-like character of the music.  This movement was in many ways more colourful than the earlier ones. There was always something new happening; some great horn melodies emerged and the movement had a gentle ending.

Now for the powerful Finale – a rondo, that opened with timpani and brass, and great excitement.  There is repetition of a main theme from the first movement.  A jaunty dotted rhythm makes its appearance, then the woodwind take over, followed by strings – but the brass cannot be suppressed for long.  Muted trumpets were most effective.  There such a variety of sounds!  Tapping the top (wood) of the bass drum was done with a sort of whisk.  I learned in Wikipedia that this was a rute.

“The rute… from the German for ‘rod’ or ‘switch’), also known as a multi-rod, is a beater for drums. Commercially made rutes are usually made of a bundle of thin birch dowels or thin canes attached to a drumstick handle… A rute may also be made of a bundle of twigs attached to a drumstick handle. The Rute is used to play on the head of the bass drum.”

Shrill flutes and piccolos contribute to the continuing variety of the movement, as did the high-pitched, sometimes squeaky sound of the E-flat clarinet.  A huge musical wake-up ensues, and then subsides.  Peals of bells and full brass brings the movement, and the symphony, to an end with grandeur, although a soft passage intervenes, and finally an enormous proclamation, with all players flat out.  The climax resulted in great acclamation from the audience.

It is noteworthy that the Dutch premiere of this symphony took place only a year after its initial performance in Prague in 1908.  It seems that the Dutch have an affinity with Mahler.  Not only is our present conductor a notable interpreter of Mahler, but there are others, including Bernard Haitink.  If we didn’t already know that de Waart is a great Mahler conductor, we found out when he conducted Symphony no. 5 in 2016.

 

Great performances of unfamiliar Bartók and major Dvořák introduced by young geniuses

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Orchestra Wellington conducted by Marc Taddei with Christopher Park (piano); joined by Arohanui Strings (Sistema, Hutt Valley), led by Alison Eldredge

Simon Eastwood: Infinity Mirror, for Arohanui Strings
Smetana: The Moldau (Vltava from Ma Vlast)
Bartók: Piano concerto No 1
Dvořák: Symphony No 8 in G Op 88

Michael Fowler Centre

Saturday 27 October, 7:30 pm

Each year, one of Orchestra Wellington’s concerts is embellished by a contribution from Arohnui Strings, the Sistema-inspired children’s orchestra based in the Hutt Valley. They took their places at the beginning of the concert in the place of most of the regular strings of Orchestra Wellington, interspersed by a few of the professionals to lend some body to the sound. The nerves and excitement of the young players infected the audience too as they opened the concert, under conductor Marc Taddei, with Simon Eastwood’s Infinity Mirror, commissioned for them by SOUNZ (Centre for New Zealand music). The string elements were sympathetically scored for the young players while there was supporting music from marimba, xylophone and timpani, creating a happy ensemble.  It was followed by Dvořák’s Humoresque (which is actually No 7 of his eight Humoresques, Op 101), and the young string players clearly relished the chance to play an actual classic of the repertoire.

That was followed by Alison Eldredge leading a dozen or more very young musicians across the front of the stage to play the famous last section of the William Tell Overture, plus a Maori item. All of which occupied about half an hour. As a result the concert lasted till about 10 pm.

Denis Adam
In his opening words, Marc Taddei spoke about the death last week of the man who has for several decades been one of New Zealand’s most important benefactor of the arts: Denis Adam; and he dedicated the performance of the Dvořák symphony to his memory. There have been obituaries in the press and references from all those indebted to his Foundation’s generosity, acknowledging his wide-ranging philanthropy. Middle C must add its name to those by recalling that the Adam Foundation was the leading financial supporter of Middle C when it began in 2008, to enable a website to be created and for the reviews to be collected and printed.

At a more personal level, the Adam Foundation gave funding to support a concert series that I had undertaken: two series of lunchtime concerts, in 2000 and 2002, during the New Zealand International Arts Festivals. It will be recalled that daily lunchtime concerts were an important part of the early festivals, from 1986 to 1998. When the festival in 2000 dropped these popular concerts that gave prominence to New Zealand musicians, I decided to tackle the job, along with my wife, Jeanette. We were very lucky to find a talented manager and planner in Charlotte Wilson (now a RNZ Concert presenter), who in the space of about three months did most of the organising and negotiating with fifteen groups of musicians.

The series was very successful, and a surplus was carried over for another series in 2002. It too ended with a modest surplus which has been used to support classical musical enterprises since then.

Vltava
The grown-up musicians then took over, with a piece that was my first love as a nine-year-old, hearing it played in the then ‘Broadcasts to Schools’ which had the important effect of implanting classical music sounds, permanently, in unprejudiced, receptive minds: Smetana’s Moldau, the German name of the river which later became known by its proper Czech name, Vltava. The performance captured the moods of the river as it passed through Bohemia’s countryside and towns, but it struck me that it hadn’t had quite the studied attention that either the Bartók or the Dvořák music demonstrated next.

Bartók
In most ears Bartók’s music can sound more alien and unapproachable than that of any other Balkan/Central European composers (it had not been that way with Liszt whose music has come to be denigrated as not truly ‘Hungarian’). Interestingly, while other composers used the indigenous music of their country in a recognisable framework for listeners in western Europe, Bartók took the more challenging route, sacrificing easy popularity by treating the Magyar music of his country in ways he felt were faithful to its non-Western character.

His first piano concerto was not a work of impetuous, iconoclastic youth as Prokofiev did; Bartók was 45 when he wrote his first concerto (and you might feel that he should have been over his impulse to shock and upset; many great composers were dead by that age!). However, it is a useful weapon in the armory of an adventurous young pianist like Christopher Park; in his hands it was utterly committed: brilliant, fearsome and astonishingly idiomatic.

For the orchestra and conductor, however, the challenge would have been of a very different order; because of its technical and interpretation difficulties it’s rarely performed. Geoffrey Norris, in a Gramophone article a couple of years ago speculated about its treatment:

“Are the concertos rarely performed because they are not popular, or are they not popular because they are seldom performed? In a pragmatic sense, the comparative sparsity of performances could well be explained by finance or, at least, by the demands of orchestral schedules. Particularly in this straitened age when rehearsal costs have to be ruthlessly budgeted, the hours needed to get the First Concerto up to scratch could be punitive. Even present-day British orchestras, acknowledged for their swift, reliable sight-reading, have been known to find a first run-through of the First Concerto troublesome. Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring is said to be a doddle by comparison.”

In the light of that view of the concerto’s (he’s speaking, mainly, of the first two) difficulties, here we had a part-time orchestra with very constrained rehearsal time, tackling it.

Piano Concerto 1: 1st movement   
While it opens with chilling ferocity, reminiscent of parts of The Rite of Spring, that is not the prevailing character of the piece, for after the hard-hitting piano and timpani and the fierce response from brass, convention is acknowledged with sombre bassoons, bass clarinet, and strings in staccato melodic snatches that offer sign posts that are not hard to recognise when they reappear.

Bassoons soon supply an almost conventional tune and later, they offer a hesitating, rising motif all of which contribute to a structure whose parts become recognisable, almost old friends later on.

I’m tempted to say that the piano has the hardest time of it, but then Christopher Park had had an intensive relationship with it for much longer than the orchestra. He had become its master, hitting all the right keys at the right time, as well as capturing its radically non-western idiom as if he’d lived with it from childhood. For Marc Taddei and the orchestra, in spite of the limited time (equals ‘funding’) available, the music’s alien character seemed of little consequence; almost masking its extraordinary success in keeping pace and meeting the technical difficulties. Each time I was tempted to think a passage wasn’t too challenging, I would be struck by another fearsome orchestral flare-up that demonstrated both Taddei’s impressive grasp of the entire work and our orchestra’s real acumen.

Though I’ve listened to recordings of the concerto, this was my first live hearing and the impact of the real thing was a revelation: the orchestration, the careful, studied employment of particular instruments, to far greater purpose and deliberateness than in much 20th century music.

At the start of the 2nd movement, a discreet side drum presages the piano and one by one, timpani, snare drum, cymbal; then very specific percussion; after a couple of minutes, a lone oboe then a clarinet, flute, bass clarinet, cor anglais, but no strings at all. Though not a conventionally contemplative movement, these sounds stayed with me in the most haunting way. But it was of course Christopher Park’s piano that perpetuated the sense of astonishment, for his feat of memory to start with, for his technical panache and profound intellectual grasp of Bartók’s musical idiom and intent.

An entirely new energy emerges as the 3rd movement, launched by various drums, muted trombones, then the piano; again, always in the limelight, commanding wonderment. The orchestration is always precise, deliberate, and this imposes special demands on players, as more general, indiscriminate scoring can conceal smudges; I won’t say there were none but the energy and tempo were of far greater importance and a matter of both astonishment and delight.

Applause was enthusiastic, and Park played an encore, from an utterly different planet: the 20-year-old Chopin’s Nocturne in C sharp minor (Lento con gran espressione), Opus Posthumus.

Dvořák: the Eighth
The common ground for this year’s series, the last five of Dvořák’s symphonies: No 8 followed after the interval. That distance was vital to settle the head and emotions after the extraordinary impact of the Bartók. No 8 is in the sanguine key of G, not subject to painful soul-searching or grieving. The opening, after the calm introductory cellos, then trombones, released its alternating tuttis and folk-tune like themes in a delightful way. Here was a focused energy, that was perhaps a bit lacking in Vltava; the brass was vivid with precision and clarity, and the strings, perhaps not at quite the strength that a Dvořák symphony demands, were splendidly secure.

But their playing of the lovely woodwind-led second movement, Adagio, was both dynamic and poetic; I always especially loved the slow descending scales on strings with a pensive oboe; the long, near-silences that mark the movement seemed exactly in tune with the composer’s spirit; and there are disturbed moments, of unease, atmospheric horns, throbbing strings. It’s a movement rich in changing emotions: for me the Adagio is the very centre of the work; until, that is, we reach the striking and moving parts of each of the other movements.

As so often with third movements, even one as charming, a sort of waltz, as this, its first phase opens peacefully, followed by the more pensive, though equally beautiful second part – a sort of ‘Trio’ to a traditional Scherzo. Every movement has its striking contrasts between unsullied delight and long moments of uncertainty, regret; and all these phases were clearly and vividly created in a great performance. So the last movement, after its brilliant trumpet fanfare drops to a slow, stately episode with the orchestra’s cellos biting into their rising arpeggios; but suddenly bursting with brio as the whole orchestra creates its own driving version of that arpeggio. The last movement is full of variety, yet with just the right amount of repetition and reflection, with a limpid clarinet handling it wistfully as the end approached.

If I have suggested that earlier parts of the symphony held the greatest intellectual and emotional interest for me, hearing the work live in the hands of Taddei (without score before him) and the orchestra, after many years without the opportunity, bringing it to a heart-warming conclusion through its disparate last movement, renewed my understanding of the wonderfully inventive and universal character of the Eighth Symphony.

Exuberance and poetry from pianist and conductor Lars Vogt with the NZSO

Posted on by Peter Mechen

The New Zealand Symphony Orchestra presents:
LARS VOGT PLAYS MOZART

BEETHOVEN – Overture “The Creatures of Prometheus) Op.43
MOZART – Piano Concerto No. 21 in C Major, K.467
WEBERN (orch. Gerard Schwarz) Langsamer Satz
MOZART – Symphony No. 36 in C “Linz”

Michael Fowler Centre, Wellington

Friday 26th October, 2018

Review for “Upbeat” RNZ Concert (with David Morriss)
Monday 29th October 2018

There’s always great interest whenever somebody decides to take on the dual role of soloist and conductor in the performance of music – we had Freddy Kempf here with the NZSO a few years ago playing the entire cycle of Beethoven Piano Concertos, for example, which, from all accounts , was a great success. And now, with even more historical precedent in the case of Mozart’s Piano Concertos, here was Lars Vogt demonstrating his skills in that respect with one of the most famous of all Mozart’s concertos, popularly known as the “Elvira Madigan” concerto, due to its use in a 1970s Swedish film of the same name. How did his playing and conducting of the concerto come across for you?

He is obviously a brilliant pianist and, on this showing, a talented and exciting conductor. In fact I found more interest in what the orchestra was doing under his direction than I did with what he was doing at the keyboard – his playing was predictably brilliant, but at times I thought the passage-work became a bit mechanical – he would ever-so-slightly race the figurations faster than I wanted them to go, giving the music in places a “machine-like” quality, I wanted him to “savour” the music more, and allow it a bit more light and shade.

Of course other people will have “heard” the music somewhat differently – simply where one is sitting in the hall makes a tremendous difference to how one “hears” the music, and the microphones placed over the top of the orchestra will pick up a different kind of “quality of sound with anything we play to that which I heard on Friday evening. I thought, for instance, that from where I was sitting the violins seemed to be dominated by, even sound underpowered next to the wind and brass instruments in tutti – but others could well feel different, depending on where they were sitting. Music, as we know, evokes very subjective responses, and it would be a very boring world if we as listeners all felt the same way about everything we heard.

The slow movement we’ve just heard part of had a silken, light-as-a-feather quality throughout, but with plenty of variety in the exchange of phrasings between piano and orchestra. The only thing was that, at this tempo it was all over so quickly! – It came across as more divertimento-like than as a serenade, beautifully done though it was.

All-in-all, do you think he was able to successfully combine the functions of both soloist and conductor in this performance? We know that Mozart did this – conduct his own concertos from the keyboard – and most successfully, by all counts. 

I find myself wondering whether these people who direct from the keyboard need to be so demonstrative in their direction of the players. I was speaking to someone from the orchestra who had played in the Freddy Kempf performances of the Beethoven concerti shortly after, and I remember this person saying that they wished Kempf had simply sat still and directed the players from the keyboard and not jumped up and down from his seat all the time. I imagine it varies from musician to musician what they feel is necessary to do to achieve control when conducting, but I still found it distracting, as I did Kempff’s movements.

I wondered whether there was an element of anxiety in Vogt’s playing, wanting to get to the next orchestral entry to bring the players in, or trying to keep an “edge” to the overall performance. The playing in the slow movement we’ve just heard was lovely – but for me, the finale was the most successful movement, because it had an overall “bubbling exuberance” spirit from everybody that was extremely well-captured, as was a slightly more wistful sequence in the music’s alternate minor-key sequence from the opening

Also in the concert there was a real rarity – an early work by Anton Webern which I’m sure most people on hearing would never associate with the actual composer! Rather like a piece of early Schoenberg, do you think?

This was Webern’s single-movement work “Langsamer Satz”, which I thought was a beautiful piece! I found myself thinking, “How could this have been written by Webern?” – because it was so romantic-sounding, which is the antithesis of what most of the music by Webern I’ve heard sounds like! I thought this piece had the makings of some kind of modern classic, like Schoenberg’s Verklarte Nacht, or Barber’s Adagio for Strings.

Of course Webern’s original, written in 1905, was for string quartet (Webern himself never heard the work, incidentally). It was the only movement he completed of a planned string quartet, and was lost for well-nigh 60 years.  After being rediscovered and played, the piece came to the attention of American conductor and composer Gerard Schwarz, who thought it would sound more effective if transcribed for string orchestra, with a bass part added. This was done and first performed in 1982.

Concluding the concert was Mozart’s “Linz Symphony  – one of a trio of Symphonies named after cities the work had a particular association with – the “Paris”, the “Linz” and the “Prague”. Mozart was supposed to have composed this work in four days – does it sound like a “rush job to you?

Not even slightly – of course Mozart was renowned for his ability to put things together inside his head before they’d even been committed to paper – and this symphony seems as though it almost “wrote itself” in that respect – he must have been truly inspired by his surroundings or put in a frame of mind that gave his imagination full reign, because the work has a wonderful “spontaneous” quality right throughout. The only detail in the playing I found difficulty in “placing” in an overall sense was the conductor’s somewhat abrupt way with the opening chords, before the music relaxed in the quieter sections which followed. I found it hard to marry the two sections together, because the music has always seemed to me to continue in the same rhythmic vein, albeit muscular and arresting at the beginning and suspenseful and charged in the subsequent passages. I thought it could have all been done in one tempo. Apart from this, I thought the overall conception of the movement beautifully brought out the music’s different characters in a flowing and unified way.

The name “Linz” (after the city of Linz) suggests something with a certain “public ” character, as if drawing attention to the characteristics of a city as a whole, something, of course representative of a great number of people, something easily identifiable with a place’s particular set of characteristics.

Yes, you’re right – it seems to be a very “public” statement, doesn’t it, especially compared with other symphonic works like the two G Minor symphonies. The very opening is a “call to attention”, with a kind of rumbustiousness that follows, driving the music forward, the second movement is dance-like rather than ruminative and deep, and the third movement – well, the third movement is an out-and-out invitation for people to kick off their shoes and join in the Minuet. It was so infectiously played, here, that in the trio section, one could almost imagine the dancers’ impatience to get back to the dance when the Minuet finally returned!

There used to be a famous rehearsal recording of this symphony available, one conducted by the great Bruno Walter in the 1950s – 1955 I think….. It illustrates how much Mozart interpretation has changed over the years, as you can hear if you own Walter, Klemperer or Karl Bohm recordings of these works – and yet Mozart remains the same spirit in the hands of each conductor.

I was sitting close to John Button, the DomPost critic, and asked him at halftime whether he remembered the Walter rehearsal recording – he immediately said, “Yes, especially Mr Bloom, the oboe player!” Walter talks a lot with “Mr Bloom”, the oboist in the orchestra, whose name was hereby captured for all time on these records! I believe this recording was from 1955, which is pretty old, now – and yet the chance to hear a famous conductor painstakingly rehearse a work that he knows and loves is one I wouldn’t think anybody interested in music and music interpretation would want to miss.

What would you say unites those different styles of playing so that you could say – yes, it still sounds like Mozart? What did you hear on Friday evening that bore a relationship to those older performances we know?

Well, after the somewhat abrupt start, with those assertive, swiftly-played chords I’ve already mentioned, I thought the playing and conducting brought out a sense of “line” that I hear on those older recordings – and that was what I think gave Lars Vogt’s conducting of the symphony such overall strength. It was a consistency – a kind of “connective tissue” – which I felt was made up of things such as the feeling of the players being encouraged to “own” their musical phrases, so that this sense of “caring” about the music was constantly being presented to us  – that’s what I mean by “line” not everything played legato, or anything like that, but, as I’ve said, a consistency.

The other prevailing sense for me was Vogt’s bringing out the music’s character – and I felt this was better, more strongly achieved in the symphony than in the concerto because the conductor was free to conduct and “focus” the music’s on-going consistencies, generating a truly infectious exuberance and not just note-spinning, which I thought parts of the concerto weren’t entirely free from. Again, there are parallels with an older style of music-making, the best of the modern performances just as concerned with the music’s overall feeling as with some kind of so-called “authentic” way of playing it. This came to full fruition, I think, in the symphony’s finale, which seemed to engage every player and bring out the music’s essential joyfulness.

 

Admirable concert of well-chosen music from Wellington Youth Orchestra under Mark Carter

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Wellington Youth Orchestra conducted by Mark Carter with Samantha McSweeney (flute).

Beethoven: Coriolan Overture, Op 84
Copland: Appalachian Spring
Mozart: Andante in C for flute and orchestras, K 315/285e
Tchaikovsky: Suite from The Nutcracker
Riley Centre, Wellington High School

Sunday 14 October, 6 pm

The last musical occasion I was in the Riley Centre (alias, the school hall) at Wellington High School was, I think, for the splendid International Viola Congress in 2001, led by the indomitable Professor Donald Maurice (as was the most recent one in Wellington in 2016). My recollection of the acoustic then was confirmed on Sunday. The orchestra has tended to confine itself in recent, post-Town Hall years, to smaller and acoustically constricted places like St Andrew’s and the Sacred Heart Cathedral; this hall struck me as better suited to the character of the orchestra, in allowing all instruments to be heard clearly but not in an acoustic that was inclined to draw attention to inexperience.

The Egmont Overture is a fine piece for a youth orchestra: I can attest from personal experience, having played it in the predecessor of the Wellington Youth Orchestra, back in the 1950s. I have never grown tired of the dramatic character of the work that blooms into a triumphant Coda at the end. And I hope current orchestra members still derive the same emotional delight from it.

Here, conductor Mark Carter transmitted a strong sense of its heroism as well as its deeper humanity. Balance between strings and woodwinds was excellent, and the violin sections in particular sounded like thoroughly rehearsed professionals.

I don’t think I’ve heard Copland’s Appalachian Spring played by amateurs before and was delighted to realise how well is suits young players. There’s a lot that’s not too difficult technically, but a lot, on the other hand, that demands finesse and can reveal weaknesses in intonation and control of articulation and dynamics. The leisurely opening music is dominated by strings, flutes and soon clarinets, admirably finding the right open-air, springtime feeling (though Copland did not compose the ballet, for Martha Graham, with a specific scenario or even a title in mind: the title was suggested at the last minute when Martha suggested a line from a poem by Hart Crane).

The quiet opening exposed the players, rather to their benefit, and they showed reassuring pleasure in their charmingly animated playing. Later came a fine, attenuated trumpet on top of more general brass, and further opportunities to admire fairly important bassoons as well as the solo opportunities for trombones (the latter were all Youth Orchestra players – though several other sections, including the strings, were strengthened by a few guest players).

This longish piece, containing a great deal of slow, delicate music as well as much that’s sprightly and animated, can lose audience attention and patience in unskilled hands: not here.

Then came the Mozart Andante, written as an alternative slow movement for one of his flute concertos. It proved semi-familiar to me and was well worth hearing. It evolved, slowish and attractive, the solo part beautifully played by flutist Samantha McSweeney who is in her second year at Victoria University school of music.

The concert ended with the Nutcracker Suite; at least, most of the dances from the Suite. Here, there were charming episodes from flutes and other winds, including rather impressive horns (admittedly including a couple of guest players) excellent harp contributions and throughout, seamless, well integrated strings. Though there were, of course, minor blemishes, it was possible to listen to these all too familiar pieces with the same delight as from a professional orchestra.

I don’t believe citing individual players for praise is helpful for a band of young players however; generalities are more appropriate. Certainly, the polish and confidence, what seemed a real balletic flair, audible in Nutcracker, and elsewhere, was singularly impressive and evidence of both the overall level of musicianship and the result of first class direction by conductor Mark Carter.

 

Monumental NZSO concert of Russian masterpieces with cellist Johannes Moser

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

New Zealand Symphony Orchestra conducted by Peter Oundjian with Johannes Moser – cello

Borodin: Overture: Prince Igor
Shostakovich: Cello Concerto No 1 in E flat
Prokofiev: Romeo and Juliet, selections from the ballet

Michael Fowler Centre

Saturday 13 October, 7:30 pm

Plus a review of Johannes Moser’s solo cello recital
Bach: Cello Suites Nos 1 in G, 4 in E flat and 3 in C
St Andrew’s on The Terrace
Sunday 14 October, 3 pm 

The NZSO concert Saturday 13 October

This Russian programme might have been expected to be a winner, but it wasn’t, in terms of audience size.

However, in terms of musical quality and sheer excitement, it was a tremendous success. It’s a surprise to me that Shostakovich’s 1st cello concerto didn’t fill every seat; does that suggest that our musical horizons are getting narrower every year? For it’s a truly stupendous work, and we heard one of today’s most brilliant cellists sitting at the front of the stage.

Secondly, does a crowd smaller than is expected suggest that the general run of classical music lovers doesn’t hear properly some of the greatest ballet music ever written; that there’s a huge gulf in taste and intellectual curiosity between ballet groupies and Beethoven groupies?

Even the opening overture should be better known and more sought after than evidently it is.

Borodin’s Prince Igor Overture
My first encounter with it, on the radio many years ago, was associated with the then popular story that Borodin had not written the overture down, but that Glazunov had heard him play it on the piano, and with his phenomenal memory, went home and scored it completely. Roughly true but both Rimsky-Korsakov and Glazunov left written accounts. Rimsky wrote: “…Glazunov and I settled the matter as follows between us: he was to fill in all the gaps in Act III and write down from memory the Overture played so often by the composer…”

Glazunov’s own account is this:
“The overture was composed by me roughly according to Borodin’s plan. I took the themes from the corresponding numbers of the opera and was fortunate enough to find the canonic ending of the second subject among the composer’s sketches. I slightly altered the fanfares for the overture … The bass progression in the middle I found noted down on a scrap of paper, and the combination of the two themes (Igor’s aria and a phrase from the trio) was also discovered among the composer’s papers. A few bars at the very end were composed by me.”  

These quotes are from the splendid Wikipedia article on the opera which is fascinating, evidently authoritative and very much worth reading.

Productions are rare in the west, and I was lucky enough to catch it conducted by Mark Ermler in the Olympiahalle in Munich in 1989. A film from the Metropolitan Opera was screened here a couple of years ago.

Borodin’s great historical opera may be heavy-going for some, but it’s got a lot of hit tunes and the Overture contains some of them. It opens calmly, remotely, but in a couple of minutes conductor Peter Oundjian had successfully anticipated the opera’s epic grandeur with fierce brass heroics on top of general orchestral energy. What a splendid introduction to the later direction of Russian music, parallel with Tchaikovsky and Rimsky, but on through Rachmaninov, Glazunov, Medtner, Prokofiev, Shostakovich, Kabalevsky, Schnittke, Weinberg (?)…

Shostakovich Cello Concerto – Johannes Moser
This was Johannes Moser’s second visit to New Zealand. In 2016 he played Lalo’s cello concerto, impressing, but it’s not a work on which super-star reputations are often built. However, he could not have made a more astonishing impact than in his performance of Shostakovich’s First Cello Concerto. It was written in 1959 a few years after Stalin’s death, for Rostropovich who famously committed it to memory in four days, and played it with the Leningrad Philharmonic under Mravinsky the same year.

Even more memorably (for us), Rostropovich played it with the NZSO under Maxim Shostakovich in one of the orchestra’s most famous events, in the 1988 International Arts Festival in Wellington (an era when we had truly great international festivals). I will never forget sitting side-on in the MFC gallery, hearing and watching that monumental performance.

Now this weekend’s performance was on a par, from a cellist who had likewise utterly absorbed the work. He played with a ferocity that was chilling, often producing a sort of vibration (different from vibrato) that created all the emotional power that a full orchestra might have supplied; for the work is scored only for strings orchestra and modest pairs of woodwinds (though they are not merely decorative in their contributions), timpani, celeste… and one horn (Samuel Jacobs) whose role was pivotal, somehow providing all the chilling, suspenseful, intense atmosphere that made more elaborate orchestration superfluous.

The cello dominates the first movement, but there are fleeting, less troubled, almost lyrical and rhapsodic passages in the second movement, plenty of scope to hear the orchestra’s dramatic strength under Oundjian’s highly expressive leadership. The four movements are played without break, so the extended and often magically beautiful cadenza which slowly takes shape at the end of the second actually comprises the third movement.

The last movement returns to the troubled spirit of the first, involves the cello in impressive passages combining bowing while plucking strings with the left hand. The work ends with repeated assertions of both the composer’s self-awareness and the emotional value of the signature DSCH (his name abbreviated in German musical notation) as an enigmatic motif. Just in case we were to forget who the composer was: but neither this performance, nor the work itself will ever make that likely.

A charming encore by John Williams was something of an antidote, perhaps a bit long considering the environment.

Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet 
The second half was taken with a memorable performance of about half of Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet ballet music – about an hour. The programme book did not attempt to list the numbers included: most were familiar from the three orchestral suites that Prokofiev himself put together, but there were certain episodes not so familiar. Again, perhaps there was a bit much; without the important accompaniment of the staged ballet, the music itself, even in all its variety, dramatic strength, visual evocativeness and its ability to conjure one’s recollections of the ballet itself, doesn’t quite hold a concert audience as does a Mahler or Bruckner symphony of similar length.

Nevertheless, this was a performance that should have reinforced the belief that we have here an orchestra of real international distinction, able to capture a huge range of musical colours and narrative characteristics. A score like Prokofiev’s, though not demanding all the peripheral instrumental forces that some Strauss or Mahler scores do, make prolonged demands on everything from heroic virtuosity to chamber music subtlety and refinement with equal conviction.

So at its end, apart from delight at having lived through the previous two and a quarter hours, I remained all the more disturbed that an obviously remarkable concert had not pulled a full house.

 

Solo recital by Johannes Moser
St Andrew’s on The Terrace
Sunday 15 October, 3 pm

The added attraction of a solo recital by the soloist was advertised for the following afternoon. It’s a practice that the orchestra should adopt routinely with its soloists who could often serve to attract people to kinds of music – chamber music or song – that might normally be outside their main interests.

At St Andrew’s on Sunday, 3 pm, Moser played three Bach solo cello suites: No 1 in G, No 4 in E flat and No 3 in C. The church was near full. And the three performances were of spell-binding, compelling strength. We have come a great distance from the days when it was proper to play these and other baroque music as if in a straight-jacket, as if baroque instruments and their players didn’t allow rhythmic, dynamic expressive variety. These performances were hugely fluent and expressive with episodes in the preludes and the sarabandes, for example, that were emotional, pensive and full of humanity, and where clusters of notes and double-stopping turned them into impressive ensemble works rather than just one person on one cello.

And on the other hand we heard lively dances in which Moser’s suggestion that the suites could be heard as if describing the phases of a social gathering, from introductory, exploratory preludes through somewhat formal, conversational allemandes to more relaxed, letting-hair-down courantes, gigues or bourrées (in nos 3 and 4), was an interesting way of envisaging developments.

It was indeed a most rewarding hour-an-a-half, both for the audience, and I hope for the orchestra management which should be inspired to expand on this example.

In earlier years, such concerts were organised routinely – just one example, I recall recitals by Julius Katchen in the St James Theatre; but they were frequent.

But I see nothing to indicate such recitals in the 2019 programmes. Surely some of the soloists featured would be delighted to offer small-scale recitals – mezzos Susan Graham and Anna Larsson; soprano Lauren Snouffer; pianists Joyce Yang, Denis Kozhukhin, Steven Osborne, Louis Lortie; violinists Carolin Widmann, Jennifer Koh; trumpeter Håken Hardenberger, the orchestra’s own horn-player Samuel Jacobs … or the quartets of singers in the Choral Symphony and Messiah???