Tag: orchestral

Popular Russian orchestral show-piece, unfamiliar cello concerto and colourful, Hungarian, folk-based music

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

New Zealand Symphony Orchestra
Scheherazade

Kodály: Dances of Galánta
Lalo: Cello Concerto in D minor
Rimsky-Korsakov: Scheherazade

New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Miguel Harth-Bedoya, with Johannes Moser (cello)

Michael Fowler Centre

Friday, 17 June 2016, 6.30pm

The programme attracted a nearly full Michael Fowler Centre on Friday.  I had the previous day heard Eva Radich interview Johannes Moser on the Upbeat programme, on RNZ Concert.  What a lovely man he sounded!  His cello sounded lovely too, as we discovered in Friday’s concert.  How good it was that he played a different concerto!  While always loving to hear the Dvořák concerto, it was a great pleasure to hear something different – in fact, so different, and as interesting in the case of the Lalo concerto.

Galánta
The first work on the programme had a striking opening. The different modalities of Hungarian music were almost immediately apparent.  The composer’s collection of Hungarian folk-songs and dances are the basis of most of his music.  This work was composed in 1933.  We heard wonderful subtleties on the clarinet in a slow dance.  The large assembly of strings sounded particularly sonorous here, and when playing pizzicato while flute and piccolo produced soaring melodies.  The French horns had their turn at leading things – all five of them.  Percussion players had many delicate – and some not so delicate – interventions.

The work was a delight of colour, rhythm and finesse, contrasted with exuberance.  It was a feast of fine orchestration, and provided a jovial boost to any Friday weariness.  A furious rush of music towards the end was followed by a sublime clarinet solo, and a final burst of jollity.

Lalo’s cello concerto
The tall, youthful cellist came on; like the conductor, he was not wearing formal evening dress.  He played the concerto without a score.  Harth-Bedoya used the score only for this work (a necessary precaution in a concerto).  Moser’s cello produced a superbly warm, rich tone in his hands.  To have had two cellists of such calibre as Moser and Rustem Khamedullin in the space of a week has been a luxury.

Written by the French-born, Spanish-influenced Lalo in 1876-77, the concerto seemed to have hints of Brahms and Schumann – the latter’s concerto was written over 25 years earlier – and even of Elgar, whose concerto was written over forty years later.

The orchestra began the concerto grandly, and there was much work for the brass to do.  However, the soloist was to the fore almost throughout the work, mellifluous phrases following one after another, with staccato interjections from the winds; indeed, the latter ended the first movement (Prélude: lento – allegro maestoso).

The second, Intermezzo: andantino con moto – allegro presto, began with muted strings.  There was more gorgeous romantic melody from the soloist, and phrases of the utmost delicacy.  Sparse orchestration in this short movement meant no brass or percussion.

The final movement (andante – allegro vivace) opened enigmatically; the soloist with very quiet string accompaniment, initially only cellos.  Suddenly the brass erupted.  Dotted rhythms predominated here and elsewhere.  Parts of the solo in this movement were elegiac.  The playing was never flamboyant, the cello producing a variety of tones that were always lambent, passionate, tender, thoughtful, or whatever was needed.

An encore after a concerto now seems to be an expected addition to the programme.  Moser played the sarabande (another Spanish influence here) from the first Bach Suite for unaccompanied cello.  This he took slower than had Khamidullin on Wednesday in the latter’s sarabande from the third Suite.  It was soulful, considered playing, and at times the utmost pianissimo gave an ethereal quality.  The audience greeted the encore with rapture.

Scheherazade
The major work in the concert was Rimsky-Korsakov’s suite, based on The Arabian Nights.  Scheherazade calls for a large orchestra: there were five horns, nine double basses, a tuba, and large numbers of other instruments too, compared with the requirements of the Lalo concerto.

It is wonderfully dramatic music – I just wish that Radio New Zealand Concert did not play it, or parts of it, quite so frequently.  After the portentous opening depicting the Sultan, it was magical to hear the harp and violin duet denoting the princess (or Scheherazade herself).  These two themes are played countless times, often with melodic, rhythmic or tempo variations, throughout the work’s four sections.  Then the sea took over, relatively calmly at first.  The waves work themselves up gradually, before calm is restored with horn and woodwinds.

The rougher seas return, repeating loudly the theme we first heard as the delicate solo violin and harp near the beginning.  The theme is varied and given many manifestations before returning to the gentle opening.  This ends the section entitled “The sea and Sinbad’s ship”.

This same theme opens the second section, “The Kalendar prince”.  This part follows the pattern of all the sections, in having a variety of tempo markings through its course.  Muted double basses accompany sumptuous oboe and bassoon solos most effectively.  Then a cello joins in, and takes over the solo.  Sinbad’s ship appears to strike some trouble, the brass sounding warnings.  But then everything becomes jolly and highly rhythmic before the bassoon again asserts itself over pizzicato, and the theme returns.

The excellent programme notes (apart from misspelling ‘sprightly’ as ‘spritely’ more than once) mention ‘Rimsky-Korsakov’s mastery of instrumentation’, so much to the fore in this section.  The following one (“The young prince and the young princess”) opens with lyrical music that almost sounded like English music, with its calm melody.  However, it becomes increasingly exotic, and the orchestration richer.  After various goings-on the harp and violin theme returns, then full orchestra takes over again.

The bombastic sultan theme reappears followed by the harp and violin, this time in most virtuosic twists for the latter; Vesa-Matti Leppänen’s solo passages were quite beautiful.  Syncopated rhythms and exciting percussion burst forth,  with lots of concerted string playing, along with brass and percussion interjections.  The strings repeat the big theme.

Wikipedia quotes Steven Griffiths about this work (A Critical Study of the Music of Rimsky-Korsakov,1844-1890. New York: Garland, 1989): “The reasons for its popularity are clear enough; it is a score replete with beguiling orchestral colors, fresh and piquant melodies, with a mild oriental flavor, a rhythmic vitality largely absent from many major orchestral works of the later 19th century, and a directness of expression unhampered by quasi-symphonic complexities of texture and structure.”.

The audience gave a very appreciative response; Harth-Bedoya more or less forcibly removed the orchestra from the stage at the end of quite a long concert.

 

Triumphant concert from Orchestra Wellington and Orpheus Choir: Beethoven and Haydn

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Orchestra Wellington, Orpheus Choir, conducted by Marc Taddei with Rusem Khamidullin (cello)

Haydn: Cello Concerto in C, Hob. VII-1
Beethoven: Symphony No 9 in D minor, Op 125 ‘Choral’ (soloists: Jenny Wollerman, Elisabeth Harris, Henry Choo, Warwick Fyfe)

Michael Fowler Centre

Saturday 11 June, 7:30 pm

First of all.
What’s happening to Wellington’s orchestra? In the last five or six years the orchestra, now known as Orchestra Wellington, has built a quite extraordinary record of successful concerts with pretty full houses, which seem to have gained their popularity through attractive prices; and imaginative thematic programmes, usually the entire series adhering to a common theme of some kind; plus the choice of soloists, whose concertos have often been related to the theme.

Ticket prices have been kept surprisingly low, vindicating the belief that any feared loss is more than compensated by the sheer number of seats sold; so as well as achieving a perhaps better financial result, there have often been sold-out concerts which must indicate that many non-regular concert goers have been enticed to come. And many of them are seduced by the power of great music.

I must also mention free programmes; such an intelligent policy, as it ensures people know about things like the number of movements (and so, when to clap), but more importantly offers a bit of basic information for newcomers to classical music. It is disturbing to note the numbers who turn away from programme sellers at other musical events when the price is mentioned: how absurd to waste all the effort and expense on a booklet that not very many read, when there is a glaring need to take every chance to enlarge musical knowledge in audiences that have been left ill-educated by our education system.

In 2015 and this year, a new policy has been adopted: selling the six-concert series, sight unseen in terms of programmes and soloists, for a really low price. This year, as information has been drip-fed, the season price has increased, to a level rather beyond the impecunious.
It works!

This year’s series is called Last Words, and the first five concerts include works written shortly before the composers’ deaths. Perhaps no more than five presented great orchestral works in their last years, though Franck, Bruckner, Rachmaninov, Prokofiev, Shostakovich would seem to be candidates (one can think of several who wrote beautiful piano, chamber or choral music or opera in their last years, but didn’t produce orchestral music that made it).

Haydn from cellist Khamidullin
The Russian cellist Rustem Khamidullin won first prize in the 2014 Gisborne International Music Competition; this concerto date was presumably part of the prize. He was born in Ufa in the Russian republic of Bashkortostan (Chaliapin, Nureyev, and the distinguished bass Ildar Abdrazakov were born there too); his name suggests Volga Tartar origin, the same ethnic origin as the eminent composer Gubaidulina.

Anyone who was inclined to think that the early Haydn concerto was just a filler, would have had a big surprise, as Khamidullin delivered a performance of the first of the two concertos, in C major, that carried us far from any predictable expectations. Haydn’s fame is not founded on his concertos, though there are four for violin, the famous trumpet one, several for other wind instruments, perhaps about 10 for keyboard, and the other cello concerto written about ten years after the first.

Khamidullin immediately established an atmosphere that was quite entrancing: refined, of the utmost delicacy, almost spiritual in character, which Taddei’s direction implanted with the orchestra in absolute sympathy with the soloist. His playing was fluid, indulged sometimes in ‘scoops’ (portamenti) that no one of any sensibility could have criticised, as they were in perfect accord with the musical canvas that he was painting. And though the occasional bravura flourishes were brilliant, they too were much more an aspect of the dreamy and graceful interpretation, not only of the Adagio, but also of the more extravert outer movements.

He delighted in producing a warm intimacy on his lower strings, alternating, in the Allegro molto last movement, with exciting staccato phrases, crisp and lyrical. It was a flawless performance, accompanied by a suitably pared-down orchestra whose playing had the same light-footed and finely-spun quality.

Without a great deal of urging, though his reception was exuberant, Khamidullin sat down and charged through the violin show-piece, Hora Staccato (Grigoraş Dinicu), as if it been written for his own instrument.

The Choral Symphony
Beethoven, and certain other composers, seem to attract the critical ear of many critics (that’s their job, sadly), in respect of use of authentic instruments, employing the ‘right numbers’ of orchestral players, delivering ornaments in keeping with the aesthetic tastes of the music’s era, and adhering to the speeds suggested by the composer (if these are credible), or by those musicologists currently in fashion, who allow themselves to pronounce on those things.

The first thing that struck me with this Choral Symphony, was its fervent, ebullient character, part of which was tempi. The first words in my notes, in fact, included, ‘fast’, ‘secure’, ‘excitement’, which represented my response to a feeling of huge exhilaration. Taddei did not have the score before him, and while that must not be regarded as clear evidence of absolute mastery or musical superiority, it often suggests that a conductor doesn’t want to find his eyes wandering needlessly away from the faces of the players and singers, with whom a conductor’s first priority should rest.

Orchestra Wellington is of course fortunate in being able to borrow players from the NZSO (in a few key positions in the basses, one or two winds and timpanist Larry Reese) and having a few former NZSO players in its ranks. But the orchestra’s manpower consists almost entirely of native Orchestra Wellington players.  Trumpets, horns, woodwinds made impacts that were exciting, there was clarity and warmth in the strings, and the entire orchestra sounded as if the speeds demanded were well within their abilities.

The contrasts between the big thematic statements and the more meditative, evolving passages in between were dramatically captured, the tension sustained, though the music was quieter and elegantly crisp.

The Scherzo, Molto vivace, held no terrors for the orchestra, as replica, 18th century timpani, with hard sticks, inspired the orchestra to ever more exertion, with triplet quavers and the impact of incessant dotted rhythms, through momentary accelerations. Here were repeated displays of beautiful woodwind playing, Merran Cooke’s oboe distinctively, that often determined the movement’s character.

The third movement is long and beautiful, and it was only here that I had slight misgivings about the pace; not that it was too quick, but whether it quite sustained the transfiguring spirituality that has to dominate it. But the second theme, in the hands of the strings, took firm hold and later, horns, soon proved that Taddei remained in command of the propulsion and momentum of the movement, drawing attention to Beethoven’s imaginative command of orchestration, in spite of total deafness by this time.

Singers enter for An die Freude
The half-hour long last movement opened with the overwhelming confidence of a bigger and more famous orchestra, hard timpani and a cacophony of wind instruments, soon followed by cellos and basses presaging the baritone’s recitative-like opening, ‘O Freunde, nicht diese Töne’. Any earlier wondering about the weight of the cellos and basses after their commanding pronouncements, dissipated at once; yet where the big theme, later to take charge as ‘Freude schöne Götterfunken…’, was announced by cellos and basses, all the hushed spirituality was there.

The baritone’s lone entry, calling things to order, is probably scary even for the most experienced singer, but Warwick Fyfe was firm and confident, as if the first notes were comfortably within his range, every word clear. As well as the timpani, the bass drum, on the left, also made a stunning impact. Finally the choir arrived, very large, and clearly responding to a command to ‘give it all they’ve got’; not only was the force of Schiller’s words thrilling, but somehow their numbers made the fortissimo singing, perhaps not nice in a small choir, totally arresting. The words were remarkably clear and delivered as if the future of mankind really was in their hands. It was one of those inspirational occasions when one dreams of imprisoning the world’s worst criminals and terrorists in a mighty concert hall to hear this, and watching their evil character fall away as the spiritual power of words and music delivered an ecstatic message that none could withstand (as long as the Alla marcia didn’t have the opposite effect).

The soloists for the fourth movement were placed behind the orchestra, at the front of the choir, a position that is sometimes felt to diminish their impact. I was sitting on the left (facing the orchestra) and so was not able to tell whether there was any problem in the body of the auditorium; but when the soloists entered with ‘Wem der grosse Wurf gelungen’, it came with a reassurance that their sounds were undiminished.

Tenor Henry Choo and Fyfe found themselves alone with their ‘Freude trinken alle Wesen’ (Schiller’s third stanza); a happy pairing. And after the Alla Marcia, tenor Henry Choo was conspicuous in his solo with words from the fourth stanza, ‘Froh, froh wie seine Sonne’.

Certain parts are intensely moving: the return of the first chorus after the long, 6/8, Alla marcia episode, and the descent to the hymn-like ‘Seid umschlungen, Millionen’ for tenor and bass soloists, with its octave parts.  The women’s voices alone provided one of the most glorious passages, both through their dynamic impulse and their expression of such passion through the words. And though neither soprano nor mezzo soloists, Jenny Wollerman and Elisabeth Harris, had the exposure that tenor and baritone enjoyed, their singing in the quartet was always vivid , spiritual in its message, in perfect accord and interestingly, a bit apart from the tenor and bass singing with them.

All soloists singing alone, particularly their last passage with ‘Freude, Tochter aus Elisium’, contributed a particular ecstatic emotion, The chief glory of the performance was the power and almost unbridled ecstasy of the choir, partly a result of its sheer size, even more, the conspicuous care taken with diction and admirably scrupulous ensemble. And that energy never diminished till the choir’s final pages, their fortissimo clamour finally taken up by the orchestra, which sustained it with total excitement right to the final spacious chords.

The applause was tumultuous and it encompassed everyone from Mark Taddei, through the orchestra, the choir and all the soloists.

 

Memorable NZSO concert with rising young conductor and acclaimed pianist

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

New Zealand Symphony Orchestra conducted by Gustavo Gimeno with Stephen Hough (piano)

Brahms: Piano concerto No 2 in B flat
Gareth Farr: From the Depths sound the Great Sea Gongs, Part I
Shostakovich: Symphony No 1 in F minor

Michael Fowler Centre

Friday 13 May, 6:30 pm

I am sometimes tempted to think that the publicity by the NZSO, which I usually find rather cluttered with over-used superlative clichés, has the unfortunate effect of deadening the impact of those few occasions when something really very special is about to happen. It would have been a pity if constant, indiscriminate hype had numbed discerning concert-goers to an occasion when some extravagant superlatives were warranted.

Nevertheless, the language of the early May press release about tonight’s concert announced a performance by one of our era’s finest pianists, Stephen Hough, and a young Spanish conductor who has been seriously acclaimed in no merely routine manner. Gimeno has been garlanded with praise by very discriminating audiences, orchestras and critics from his 2014 debut with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, and on through the Orchestre National de France, the Leipzig Gewandhaus, the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic and the Dresden Staatskapelle, and others, all in little more than a year. He has just been appointed principal conductor of the Luxembourg Philharmonic; strangely, Bramwell Tovey, last week’s NZSO conductor, was their conductor in the early 2000s.

Brahms’s second piano concerto was placed first in the programme, and so the focus was mainly, as is normal, on the pianist rather than on the conductor, though the grandeur and rapture of the orchestra’s part could not be missed. Of course, that could be put down simply to the fact that our orchestra usually plays like that.

Untypically at that time, apart from Beethoven’s fourth concerto and Schumann’s, Brahms here uses the piano at the start, serenely, with velvety horns, but it’s quickly overtaken by a far more grandly dramatic spirit; and the piano is never absent for very long. The concerto was also a departure from the usual, in the 1880s, having four movements, widely criticised (e.g. ‘an inappropriate attempt to imitate symphonic form’), and in including no cadenzas of a formal sort.

But today, judgements based on such conventions seem tiresome and pedantic. The overwhelming response to the concerto is naturally to the weight, imaginativeness and excitement of the piano part, and that was vividly expressed, but this performance also demonstrated its overwhelmingly symphonic character, to which the pianist was an equal contributor. It fulfilled my own feeling that it is at least the equal of the second symphony and violin concerto before it and rather more weighty than the lyrical third symphony after it.

Stephen Hough’s playing was both meticulous and full of bravura and it was a delight to be able to watch his energetic and balletic playing as well as merely hearing it (I usually don’t bother to seek a seat with a view of the keyboard). It was one of those performances that unfurled just as I envisaged it in that ultimate ‘ideal’ version that takes root in the mind – an amalgam of all the performances you’ve ever heard and that you couldn’t attribute to a particular pianist or orchestra. Hough was responsive to each emotion or gesture, whether subtly lyrical and rhapsodic, or carelessly capricious, enjoying moments of bravura, or dancing with emphatic rhythms – through his hands, not with extravagant arm and body movement.

The orchestra handled the opulent music with arresting rhythmic flexibility, particularly in the scherzo, second movement. For all its weight, the economy of the orchestration is conspicuous, with very few occasions when more than one section, perhaps over a discreet bed of strings, or a soloist – oboe or cello for example – played at a time. Such economy allowed the conductor to exploit big moments the more dramatically.

Gareth Farr’s piece was moved to after the interval. Incidentally, I was not impressed when ushers allowed quite a large number of later-comers to take their seats between movements one and two, some down the front, climbing over people. Let people in by all means, quickly and silently, but insist they remain standing at the back.

Farr’s From the Depths sound the Great Sea Gongs has become one of New Zealand’s most popular orchestral pieces. It’s a showpiece for percussion, with a mesmerising array of rototoms, manned by three percussionists, dominated the stage, rather than actual gongs; so it’s a celebration of the percussion-driven music of various Pacific nations, including Japanese taiko drumming and Bali gamelan. Our Spanish conductor, raised in a musical culture in which strong and exciting rhythms feature largely, sounded totally in control of it. Of course, in contrast to the abstemious Brahms who, as I noted, uses his orchestra fastidiously, in Farr’s even larger, Straussian-sized band, everyone was fully committed: triple winds, five horns and so on. And they made a splendidly exciting, emphatically musical, noise.

In spite of its shameless exuberance, for which the composer would of course make no apology, it’s still real music, and its popularity is properly earned.

Then came one of the most famous first symphonies, up there with Schumann’s, Brahms’s or Mahler’s; and written much younger than any of those. It was written during the early Leninist years of the Revolution, when the relationship between the regime and writers and artists was good and when books and music from abroad were freely available and visits by western European musicians were common.

So touches of Stravinsky and Hindemith and several others ‘progressive’ composers can be heard in this student piece; the influence of Petrushka is strong, particularly in the first two movements. But the word ‘student’ gives entirely the wrong idea of the maturity of the work, which lies in the character of the music itself, and the absence of any hint of ordinary youthful exuberance. Though one could sense his anticipation of a career in which the huge talent of which he was well aware, would flourish and be recognized.

There are many events in the music that one assumes have an emotional meaning, such as the stunning piano chords that bring the second movement to a rude conclusion, seeming to announce an end or a banishment. The Lento that follows seems to draw attention to what some consider at the dominant theme: Death; hardly an expected subject in a first major work by a teenage composer; and Death also commands the last movement, conspicuous in such gestures as the bare timpani eruption, three times repeated. And it might be expunged in part through the anguished and beautiful cello soliloquy.

Gimeno’s view of the work, was both powerful and vivid, seeking clarity of texture, and revealing as much as possible of the characteristics mentioned above. It is permissible to wonder that a conductor who is perhaps no more than a decade older that Shostakovich was at its composition (19), could draw from it such energy and emotional depth, as well as sheer orchestral virtuosity.

This concert, for its pretty big audience, will surely find itself on lists of the most memorable of the year.

 

Vibrant and wholehearted – Wellington Youth Orchestra and ‘cellist Matthias Balzat

Posted on by Peter Mechen

Wellington Youth Orchestra presents:

BEETHOVEN – Symphony No.1 in C Op.21
TCHAIKOVSKY – Pezzo Capriccioso for ‘cello and orchestra Op.62
ELGAR – Variations on an Original Theme “Enigma” Op.36

Matthias Balzat (‘cello)
Wellington Youth Orchestra
Andrew Joyce (conductor)

Cathedral of the Sacred Heart, Hill St., Wellington

Tuesday 10th May, 2016

A joy, right from the beginning, this concert, which featured bright-eyed and bushy-tailed orchestral playing from a talented ensemble of young musicians, squaring up to a couple of well-known classics and an engaging cello-and-orchestra concert rarity.

Under Andrew Joyce’s on-the-spot direction, the music in every instance took off, the Beethoven with bright-eyed and chirpy accents, the Tchaikovsky piece with bold, impassioned wing-beats, and the Elgar with gentle, early-morning ruminations developing into gestures with warmth and strength. In the case of each piece the music’s character was quickly established and consistently maintained, the players responding to their conductor’s clearly articulated beat and guidance regarding dynamics, accents and timing.

I thought the Beethoven Symphony was an inspired choice for these players, a work by a young composer eager to make his mark upon the world, and ready to challenge conventions and established rules right at the outset. Here we got strong, almost confrontational chording from the winds at the beginning – a kind of “are you listening?” statement, designed to break into idle concert chit-chat and grab people’s attention. I liked the big-bonedness of that opening, making the following allegro all the more disarming with its light touch and cheeky aspect, and contrasting with the insouciance of the winds’ delivery of the “second subject” (what dry old terms these are!).

We got the repeat as well, to my great delight, though Joyce and his players didn’t give the “surprise” chord at the beginning of the development too much emphasis, keeping it nonchalant and droll – a kind of “Well, what did you expect?” sort of statement. The recap. came across strongly and with textures beautifully blended, with some athletic counterpoints bouncing off the strings’ bows with great élan in places, nicely rounded off by festive touches from the brass.

A poised, and patiently built-up slow movement was beautifully weighted by conductor and players, with lovely colours from the winds in the development, and great ensemble work – then at the recapitulation the ‘cellos distinguished themselves with a beautifully-shaped counter-melody. At times the high string passage-work lost its sweetness, but such lapses were only momentary. The Menuetto (really, a scherzo!) skipped along energetically, with only a lack of synchronization between lower and upper strings troubling the occasional extended phrase. The winds again made a lovely contrast in the trio, though the strings struggled with the unanimity of some of their awkwardly syncopated replies.

The finale’s droll cat-and-mouse phrases created great expectation straight after the opening chord, with the violins then running away merrily at the allegro, a little TOO smartly in places ! However, in the development section things locked together well, with the dovetailing of the rushing, see-sawing passages nicely managed. No repeat this time, but the strings were obviously relishing the cut-and-thrust of their exchanges, and the all-together orchestral banter of the coda, with everything brought together for the final, triumphant chords. Overall, I thought it a most satisfying performance.

Tchaikovksy’s soulful, long-breathed world of heartfelt expression seemed a long way from Beethoven’s, at the outset of the second work on the programme, the Pezzo Capriccioso for ‘cello and orchestra. The passionately-sounded ‘cello line was addressed with great feeling and beautifully-modulated tones from soloist Matthias Balzat, whose performance overall was, to put it mildly, both brilliant and commanding. Throughout the piece’s lively middle section, the soloist’s bow danced upon the strings and the left hand literally flew over the instrument’s fingerboard, striking the notes rapidly and truly, and making a spectacular impression.

Matthias Balzat is already a veteran of a number of instrumental competitions, at which he’s achieved a great deal of success – a first prize in the 2014 National Concerto Competition, and a second prize in the 2015 Gisborne International Competition. He’s currently studying with James Tennant at Waikato University, and is obviously a young musician who’s worth watching out for.

After the interval we settled down to enjoy Elgar’s affectionately-wrought set of musical tributes to the people he felt closest to as a man and as a composer. The work is a straightforwardly conceived set of variations on a theme, the title “Enigma” being bestowed by the composer without explanation, as if there’s a hidden theme or a kind of link between the variations that has never been explained. The different variations are more individual allusions to certain shared experiences with the composer, rather than “character portraits” as such.

At the beginning the theme itself was beautifully shaped, tenderly and lyrically delivered, with a sonorous lower-string counterpoint brought out most soulfully towards the end. The first variation (CAE), depicting Elgar’s wife Alice, featured beautifully floated interchanges between strings and winds, with noble brass at the conclusion, a complete contrast to the repetitive figurations of a pianist friend (H.D.S-P.), steadily and mechanically completed. There was pleasure, too, at the wind-playing in R.B.T., clarinets and bassoons having great fun bringing wide-ranging tones and registers into play.

Andrew Joyce kept the driving rhythm of the following variation (W.M.B.) absolutely steady following its exciting attacca beginning, a completely different kettle of fish to the romantic charm of R.P.A., the strings rich and sonorous, the winds chatty and charming, if not quite always together. Ysobel allowed the solo viola a moment of glory, which was beautifully played, while the following Troyte highlighted the timpanist’s rhythmic skills just as tellingly in a wildly swirling episode – and how well and excitingly the strings “pinged” their entries in this piece, throwing the snarling brasses into splendid relief!

Some beautiful wind playing – charming conversation and gentle laughter – during W.N. gave us some relief from these previous storms and stress, before the music took us to the centrepiece of the variations, the much-loved Nimrod. Here, the composer recalled discussions with a friend on the beauty of Beethoven’s slow movements, the players respond to their conductor’s encouragements with patient, long-breathed playing, and together building towards something majestic and visionary. Afterwards, Dorabella brought out sensibilities back to earth with finely-judged wisps of exchange between winds and strings and another graceful viola solo.

Anything but graceful and finely drawn was G.R.S., the initials belonging to the owner of a bulldog whose favourite pastime of diving into the river to fetch a stick thrown by his master, was here set to music by Elgar. As in the earlier “Troyte” the string-playing pinged and crackled with precision under the conductor’s guidance.

String-playing of a vastly different sort was inspired by the immediately following B.G.N., a ‘cello solo, played here with fine intonation and warm tones, and then repeated by the entire ‘cello section, whose fine, ringing upper notes did the players (and very likely their conductor) great credit!

The especially enigmatic thirteenth variation, with its three asterisks in place of a name or initials, famously contains a quotation from Mendelssohn’s Overture “Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage” – after a winsome theme is tossed about by strings and winds, there’s a drum roll, a clarinet quoting the overture’s theme, and the lower instruments presenting the throbbing of ship’s engines. It all came together here with excellent focus on the detail and plenty of heft given the music’s pulsating power and implacable movement.

And so to the composer’s self-portrait, E.D.U., being Alice Elgar’s abbreviated name for her husband – Joyce and his players hit their stride at a fast clip, galloping towards the first big orchestral climax with gusto, one which came with tremendous impact. Everything, including the reprise of Alice’s music in her variation, was kept moving – and if there was more ferment than finesse throughout the last few pages, the excitement and sense of the music’s arrival was overwhelming in its power and splendour. I felt that, at this point, those aspects of the performance were given priority here, and rightly so.

It all made, I thought, for a splendid concert-going experience, thanks to the repertoire, and the totally committed performances – certainly one that anybody who enjoyed skilled, vibrant and whole-hearted music-making would have similarly enjoyed.

The Orpheus Choir and Orchestra Wellington at Sea with Brent Stewart

Posted on by Peter Mechen

The Orpheus Choir of Wellington presents:
VAUGHAN WILLIAMS – A Sea Symphony

also – MENDELSSOHN – Overture “The Hebrides”
BRITTEN – Four Sea Interludes from “Peter Grimes”

Lisa Harper-Brown (soprano)
James Clayton (baritone)
Orpheus Choir of Wellington
Orchestra Wellington
Brent Stewart (conductor)

Michael Fowler Centre, Wellington

Saturday 7th May, 2016

Avast, me hearties!  Time to batten down the ‘atches and splice yer mainbraces, ready to lend an ear to these ‘ere tales o’ the Seven Seas, as retold by the Cap’n ‘n crew of the good ship Orchestra Wellington, with sister-vessel Orpheus ready to heave-to for the grand sail-past!…….well, that’s probably enough nautical language to give readers an idea regarding this concert (in fact I was starting to get worried as to where my next seafaring expression was coming from, so I’m happy to return to “landlubber mode” for the remainder of this review!

From the moment the orchestra launched into the opening of Mendelssohn’s “Hebrides” Overture, we were all truly at sea, our sensibilities registering the ebb and flow of the oceanic swells, the tang of the salt spray and the sense of wide open spaces created by both wind and brass, bird calls and ship signals pushing out the vistas towards distant islands and horizons.

The whole piece is a truly remarkable recreation of a maritime scenario, one which many New Zealanders will readily identify with as a result of living so close to the sea – in fact conductor Brent Stewart expressed in a program note his own affinities with the ocean as a result of various childhood experiences. As the overture proceeded one sensed his direction of the music becoming freer and increasingly “taken up” by the music’s evocations along the way, especially with those moments of deep repose in between the watery undulations, and with the contrasting excitement of his “whipping up” the canonic strings-and-winds exchanges midway through.

Things were very beautifully rounded off by the duetting clarinets (one instrument most beguilingly becoming two) towards the end, leading to a final frenzy of waves breaking over a rugged coastline, the conductor again pushing the tempo and encouraging from his players a vigorous and exciting ferment of activity, which abruptly died away, leaving the opening theme as a single distant, haunting bird-call – here, only the final note seemed to me a shade too abruptly curtailed for its distance to properly register.

More oceanic splendours were to be had with Benjamin Britten’s Four Sea Interludes from the opera “Peter Grimes”.  I enjoyed the fresh, bracing tang of “Dawn” with its opening bird-cries, and was gripped by the incredible depth and dark-browed spaciousness of the lower instruments with their portentous replying crescendi. The tolling bells of “Sunday Morning” burst forth without ceremony, a true “attacca” and at a terrific pace, the counterpointing winds throaty and characterful, squawking with what seemed like native dialects!  After an angular exchange between strings and winds, the bells returned with terrific impact, even though a couple of the decrescendo-strokes didn’t through some kind of attrition quite “ring true”.

The third Interlude “Moonlight” sounded to my ears more pointillistic than atmospheric, the brass, winds and percussion notes brought out, and given a spiky-sounding character, not merely in the manner of a pretty nocturnal picture – even so, the biting incisiveness of the final “Storm” took one’s breath away with its fury and frenetic pace. The players dealt with their conductor’s pacing brilliantly, throwing fingerfuls of detail about in what seemed like an uncalculated and spontaneous-sounding way, which worked spectacularly well. A shadowy and goblin-like sequence featured spiked winds and moaning strings which were taken up by the baleful brasses and hurled down the cliff-edge onto the rocks below – shattering!

The Orpheus Choir, along with soprano Lisa Harper-Brown and baritone James Clayton, took the stage with the orchestra after the interval for the evening’s REAL business in hand – Ralph Vaughan Williams’ A Sea Symphony. Written between 1903 and 1909, the piece was its composer’s first full-scale symphonic work, and at once placed him not only within the British choral tradition, but in the ranks of the symphonists following Parry, Sullivan, Stanford, German and, most importantly, Elgar. The work also reflected a current vogue among British composers (Holst and Delius as well) for settings of the poetry of American Walt Whitman.

During the time Vaughan Williams took to complete this symphony he spent three months studying with French composer Maurice Ravel. While the finished symphony shows certain stylistic and harmonic influences stemming from Ravel (and French music in general) the composer of the Pavane pour une Infanta defunte and Rapsodie Espagnole paid tribute to his pupil by exclaiming at one stage that Vaughan Williams was “the only one of my students that does not write my music”.

As might have been expected with a first symphony from a young composer the work has an arresting opening, attention-grabbing brass chords and a full-throated choral declamation, hurling forth the words “Behold! – the sea itself!”  Here, the choir’s voices galvanized our sensibilities right from the beginning, though for whatever reason the brasses’ attack on the initial notes was curiously soft-grained, lacking for me a certain scalp-prickling quality, both here and at the fanfare’s reprise after the first sequence concluding with “the long pennants of smoke”. Elsewhere, the playing was very much “on-the-spot” from all departments, and all sections of the choir sounded glorious from where I was sitting.

I was eagerly awaiting the contributions from the soloists, both of whose work I had previously encountered. Starting almost conversationally, with his “Today, a brief, rude recitative…”, baritone James Clayton steadily built up the energies and intensities towards “and the winds piping and blowing”, before giving us a sonorous “And out of these”, and then relishing his full-blooded exchanges with the choir at “untamed as thee!”. Soprano Lisa Harper-Brown threw herself splendidly into the swim of things with a commanding “Flaunt out, O Sea!…”, her voice strong and steady there and later with her “Token of all brave captains…..”, and riding excitingly over the massed textures just before the movement’s rapt “All seas, all ships” concluding phrases.

At the beginning of the slow movement, conductor and players caught the dark depths and charged stillnesses of the orchestral writing. I wanted at first a slightly stronger line from the baritone, whose words didn’t quite carry to me through the accompanying textures, though once the horns began their processional at “A vast similitude interlocks all” the singer’s energies found a new gear and conveyed more tonal presence and clarity. After the choir had regaled us with its sonorous “This vast similitude”, it was left to the soloist and orchestra to return us to the hushed sonorities of the opening, conductor and orchestra once again evoking the dark sounds of the “old mother….singing her husky song”.

The scherzo, subtitled “The Waves”, for chorus and orchestra, was delivered with terrific élan throughout, amid traditional sea-shanties and wind-borne spray singing and dancing above the “myriad, myriad waves hastening, lifting up their necks….”. The Orpheus’ voices relished their interaction with the swirling textures of the orchestral writing, with the different instrumental groups on top form and in perfect accord. Vaughan Williams’ use of chromatic and whole-tone scales to depict the action of the waves and the spray-laden ambiences contrasted stirringly with the nobilmente striding theme depicting “the great vessel sailing”, the choir left at the end to exultantly pin back our ears with their final, unaccompanied “following!” – a great moment!

Traditionally composers have a lot of trouble with the final movements of their symphonies – but Vaughan Williams seemed here in his fourth and last movement “The Explorers” to produce his best music of the work. Conductor Brent Stewart allowed his forces plenty of space and time at the outset, floating the chorus’s brooding “O vast rondure, swimming in space” steadily, almost ritualistically, against a beautiful orchestral tapestry characterizing the “processions of suns, moons and countless stars above”. Moving to describe the “myriad progeny” of Adam and Eve as “baffled, formless, feverish, with never happy hearts”, the composer set disembodied offstage voices in a manner not unlike in Wagner’s “Parsifal” intoning the words “Wherefore unsatisfied soul?” and “Whither, O mocking life?”, here magically realized by some of the Orpheus’s female voices.

Again, each of the soloists performed wonders, from their fresh and eager interchanges at “O, we can wait no longer”, and throughout the rapt beauties of “O Soul, thou pleasest me!”, rising to an ecstatic climax at “O, thou transcendent” – the solo violin needed in places more ethereal as well as occasionally surer tones, but otherwise reliably supported the voices in tandem with the winds. Then at the chorus’s “Greater than stars or sun”, the soloists enjoined us amid a volley of nautical terms, to “shake out every sail”, without delay – “Away, O Soul – hoist instantly the anchor”, to the accompaniment of hornpipes and jigs punctuated by enthusiastic percussion crashes and cries from the chorus to “Sail forth, steer for the deep waters only” – truly stirring stuff!

After chorus and orchestra exhausted themselves declaring that they “will risk the ship, ourselves and all”, amid frenetic energies and terrific upheavals of energy, soprano and baritone brought the work to an ecstatic conclusion, equating these, the Soul’s oceanic journeyings with life and its challenges and fulfilments, and sharing with the chorus and orchestra a richly-wrought sense of continuing exploration, with all voices murmuring “O farther, farther sail”, as the music gradually disappeared. Thanks to an inspired performance from Brent Stewart and his forces, we were given, by the end, a real sense of the vastness of the composer’s vision and his determination to realise his view of things in his big-boned, full-blooded music.

NZSO ‘wastes its sweetness upon the desert air’ with some splendid, approachable, 21st century music

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Aotearoa Plus
New Zealand Symphony Orchestra conducted by Bramwell Tovey with Stephen de Pledge (piano)

Bramwell Tovey: Time Tracks
Magnus Lindberg: Piano concerto No 2
Christopher Blake: Voices (premiere)

Michael Fowler Centre

Friday 6 May, 6:30 pm

Above all, this concert again raised for me the old controversy about the handling of new music. Whether it is best to ghettoize music that is unlikely to find a large audience, or to place these pieces carefully in concerts that include an irresistibly popular masterpiece.

If the intention is to persuade the timid to expose their minds to something unfamiliar, the size of Friday’s audience showed again that approach No 1 does not work, for very few of the ‘conservatives’ would have been there, and so the hope of getting the reluctant to open their ears, failed.

It’s not as if much music being composed today uses the kinds of artificial notions of what the basic patterns of melodic structure should be, so widespread at mid-century. Though polytonality is often used and conventional melody often seems avoided in case it suggests that a ‘serious’ piece of music is really lightweight, much music, including what our own composers produce can actually be enjoyed by simply opening the ears, without prejudice.

Tovey’s opera suite from The Inventor
This first visit to New Zealand by English-born, Canadian conductor, pianist and composer, Bramwell Tovey, revealed an accomplished, versatile musician who has conducted a number of distinguished orchestras, including the New York Philharmonic, Montreal and Melbourne Symphony, and the Philadelphia orchestras. He has been conductor of the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra since 2000. His compositions range across many genres, including the 2011 work for Calgary Opera, The Inventor, which was well received there. This concert began with the premiere of an orchestral suite, Time Tracks, the second suite that Tovey has drawn from his opera. The opera tells the true story of a charismatic con-man with a variety of versatile criminal talents than culminated in an unintended climax on the Bremerhaven docks: an insurance swindle goes wrong with an explosion that kills about eighty people.

Tovey introduced his piece entertainingly, useful for those who had not bought a programme. I’m not sure that the music was much more enlivened by accounts of the opera’s subject, as it stood on its own feet as an obviously dramatic sequence, opening with bold and colourful statements. It revealed a facility in handling narrative and situational elements through the use of a wide variety of tuned percussion, as well as tam-tams and hand bells and the usual range of drums, occasional solos and episodes from orchestral sections that were attractive or arresting in their own right. A couple of times, Tovey stepped off the podium to play a honky-tonk piano to his left, a sort of bluesy lament and later evoking a dreamy quality, no doubt reflecting the opera’s depiction of the flawed character’s insight into his own weaknesses. Among the many evocative phases in the score are touches of big-band jazz and motifs and harmonies that hint at the influence of John Adams. A particularly vivid moment is the depiction of a train gathering speed.

Piano Concerto No 2 by Lindberg
Lindberg’s second piano concerto was written with the character of its soloist (Yefim Bronfman, who has played with the NZSO), with the New York Philharmonic, very much in mind. In the words of the programme note, it was a response to Bronfman’s “muscular performances of Bartok and Prokofiev”. The sound and energy of those two composers were certainly audible in the music, but at the beginning, also Ravel (though not, as the programme note suggested, Debussy); Lindberg himself has mentioned Ravel’s Concerto for the left hand as inspiring the music. Inevitably, one can also be persuaded of the influence of other 20th century composers, even Rachmaninov in the last movement, perhaps Szymanowski too.

A throbbing motif imposes itself early on, but soon the piano attempts to impose itself. For much of the time, it failed, not because De Pledge lacked the ability to bring the right amount of energy and incisiveness to the performance, but because a great deal of the time, Lindberg cannot resist imposing a massive accompaniment that smothers the piano. I came to feel that this was perhaps more the result of a failure to impose restraint on and require greater discretion and subtlety from the orchestra; it was after all, a larger than normal orchestra with extra brass instruments and pains were needed to find whatever chamber-music-like qualities existed in the scoring.

The piano had its moments nevertheless, such as the start of the second movement, and between what one felt were obligatory hair-raising, bravura passages, there was sufficient evidence of the presence of a real instinct for the great piano concerto tradition as it has evolved in the past century. There was a passage of attractively warm playing from cellos; horns contributed with finesse, and there was no question that the score lay well within the orchestra’s interpretive abilities.

Christopher Blake’s second symphony
Finally, the second half, was Christopher Blake’s second symphony, entitled Voices, based in sometimes quite literal ways on Eliot’s The Waste Land. A daunting task, one might think, to find musical intimations or coherence in that still-disturbing poem, laden with abstruse classical and modern literary and musical references. Blake doesn’t employ the titles Eliot gave to the five cantos of the poem, but focuses on the people who populate each part.

Here, in contrast to the music in the first half however, was a piece that employs as large an orchestra with wonderful discretion, only rarely allowing full tuttis to emphasise aspects. Blake’s notes draw attention to the way his symphony has cross references between the movements and, though reassuring us that the music does stand alone, without reference to the poem itself, that “it is amplified and harnesses other worlds of meaning when viewed through the lens of Eliot’s poem”. So I look forward to the performance being released by the NZSO and Radio New Zealand Concert, accompanied by a gloss with annotations to help the listener elucidate more of the music’s secrets and its connections to the poem.

Its character was announced right at the start with a prolonged, unison horn evocation, followed by a startling attack from wood blocks; then mysterious string murmurings. It’s in the first part that Eliot quotes four lines of Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde, “Frisch weht der Wind…”, with electrifying musical impact, and the music is there. The second part, ‘Albert and Lil’, (A Game of Chess in Eliot), is coloured with gently sleazy blues sounds, involving various instruments, including an alto saxophone, played seductively.

Perhaps the fifth section was the most intriguing and enigmatic, starting with a shocking attack from tuned percussion, and soon one of the few passages for the full orchestra with propulsive, racing strings, with its references to things not in the actual poem, but in Eliot’s notes, like the journey to Emmaus and Shackleton, a fine oboe solo, and a great variety of brilliant, cleanly-used, individual instruments, raising in one’s mind more questions than answers, especially in one’s effort to recall the poem.

Each section bears its own tone and significance, as does the poem itself, and I remained, quite simply, thoroughly engaged by the sound world that was created as well as by an admiration for the composer’s evident intention to employ the orchestra to display so well the strengths of its soloists and of each section. A very nice way for a chief executive to compliment his employees for their skill and dedication, not simply in his own composition but for the huge contribution that the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra makes in the protection, against the sort of decaying and decadent cultural forces described by Eliot in 1922, of some civilized standards in this country.

 

 

NZSO and Madeleine Pierard with Ross Harris’s anguished Second Symphony to mark ANZAC Day

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

New Zealand Symphony Orchestra conducted by Hamish McKeich with Madeleine Pierard (soprano)
‘Spirit of ANZAC’

Frederick Septimus Kelly: In Memoriam Rupert Brooke
George Butterworth: A Shropshire Lad, Rhapsody for Orchestra
Ross Harris: Symphony No 2

Michael Fowler Centre

Thursday 21 April, 6:30 pm

I have been heard to utter unpatriotic feelings about the seeming endless attention paid in New Zealand to war and in particular the First World War and Gallipoli, which took place around 100 years ago. I have no problem with the stimulus the centenary has given to serious re-examination of the political background to the war, its pursuit and the catastrophic results of the Treaty of Versailles that sought to fix the world afterwards. But I wish more attention was given to those other aspects, involving other parts of Europe and the Middle East, for it is the outcome of the war in those spheres, and the self-seeking, diplomatic manoeuvering, the persistent imperial ambitions of all the main players that have created today’s ever-more insoluble crises, particularly in the Middle East. We are still led to believe, at least in much of the English-speaking world, that the war was all about Gallipoli and parts of the Western Front.

However, this evening’s music was concerned mainly with the war’s impact on individual people – soldiers and their families.  Not just with an amorphous ‘loss of life’ and ‘national tragedy’.

In Memoriam Rupert Brooke
It began with a string composition by one Frederick Septimus Kelly, an Australian, who was with his friend Rupert Brooke when he died and was buried on the Greek Island of Skyros. It was rather a moving piece, echoing some of the music of the early 20th century, Vaughan Williams, perhaps Elgar: pastoral, warm and reflective. An elegiac viola melody in the middle lent it a certain strength. It achieved its purpose very well, as McKeich led the orchestra through a sympathetic, unaffected though expressive performance.

Butterworth
George Butterworth, who was killed, with Kelly, at the Somme in 1916, has become a more famous name and his better-known A Shropshire Lad, for full orchestra, demonstrated a gift that might have had him rated with Bantock, Ireland, Moeran or York Bowen, perhaps even in the class of Holst, Howells or Vaughan Williams if he’d lived.

It begins in the character of Butterworth’s lovely The Banks of Green Willow, with strings and solo entries from clarinet, bassoon and cor anglais and follows an emotional path that reflects much of the pervasive emotion of Housman’s poems. In the middle section it expands notably with heavier brass and its pastoral charm is lost. This rather vivid section might have felt a little at odds with the character of many of the poems, though, admittedly, many in the big collection extend far beyond nostalgia and the English countryside, and are primarily reflections on mortality, on the loss of young lives in war (though of course they were published 20 years before the First World War): nevertheless, the rather extravert brass felt a shade too literal and specific.

Harris: Second Symphony
The major work was Ross Harris’s 2nd symphony. Like all his symphonies, this was commissioned and premiered by the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra, in 2006. It has rather surprised me that neither Wellington-based orchestra has commissioned a symphony from this major Wellington composer, as one after another has been written for Auckland; this one has even had a second playing in Auckland. (His sixth is scheduled for APO performance later this year). And I don’t think any have even been performed here; if so, this was a momentous occasion – the first Harris symphony to be played in Wellington.

This was one of the earlier collaborations between poet Vincent O’Sullivan and Ross Harris. Though cast in four movements, and obviously with an important orchestral element, it could as well be described as a song-cycle, as a symphony. There are eight stanzas, distributed through the four movements.

It tells a story, based on a newspaper report, of a young soldier in France, falling in love with a local girl, deserting, having a brief love, and coming to a sad, predictable end. I suppose it’s superfluous to say it reminds me of M K Joseph’s poignant novel, A Soldier’s Tale.

On stage was a large orchestra including large percussion, with tubular bells, though just double winds, under conductor Hamish McKeich who confirmed quickly his commanding grasp of the score and delivered a taut, dramatic and very moving performance.

Also on stage is Madeleine Pierard who sings the poetry through all the movements, taking first the soldier’s, then the French girl’s roles. It’s vividly descriptive music, starting in hushed strings, cor anglais, interrupted shockingly with mighty bass drum, violent brass, with military sounds, ironic marches; while the poem speaks soon of dreamy advances through poppy fields, with flashes of soldiers’ graves and snow and the sudden awakenings to reality. Pierard’s earthy, penetrating soprano kept the story anchored to real people and their emotional crisis, and even to their brief ecstasy.

The second movement deals with the love story, and the music opens in spell-binding unreality, in dread presentiment of its brief span, employing a limited tonal range, a momentary, almost subliminal echo of one of the Sings Harry songs. There were moments when the music seemed to strive too hard to reflect the words, though it was still the music that made the deepest impact, sometimes heart-stoppingly awful; so it was in the third movement where the violence of the soldier’s capture and killing are dealt with swiftly, violently, and the orchestral tumult is all that’s needed to understand.

In the fourth movement, poem 7, tubular bells, clarinet, strings, express the tragedy and the girl’s grief, perhaps better than the clarity of words can ever do. Though the last stanza, “Who, who is this young man…” with a cello solo accompanying the girl’s stricken loss, and her slow walking from the stage, to the fading music, was inevitably the most affecting part of the composition. The last lines are sung from back stage, as if from the grave.

Predictably, there were many empty seats, though the audience responded enthusiastically to soprano, conductor and orchestra, as well as to poet and composer who filed onto the stage.

 

Full house for Edo de Waart and the NZSO in magnificent Eroica and an epic Double Concerto by Brahms

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

New Zealand Symphony Orchestra
Edo de Waart’s Masterworks: Brahms & Beethoven

Lilburn: Festival Overture
Brahms: Concerto for violin and cello in A minor, Op.102 (Double Concerto)
Beethoven: Symphony no.3 in E flat, Op.55 (‘Eroica’)

New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, Edo de Waart (conductor), Nicola Benedetti (violin) and Leonard Elschenbroich (cello)

Michael Fowler Centre

Saturday, 16 April 2016, 7.30pm

In a review of the NZSO just over a year ago, I said “You can’t beat Beethoven on a good day – and this was a very good day”. That was one hundred percent true of this concert, with new Music Director Edo de Waart. I thought it was brilliant planning to get an audience in to hear a programme that was at least in part familiar. They would then be so delighted with what they heard that they would want to hear de Waart’s other programmes through the year (he returns in August and October). It was gratifying to see the Michael Fowler Centre completely sold out.

Lilburn’s overture is one of his most appealing orchestral compositions. After a splendid attack, a cello theme introduces an exchange of ideas, with delightful interplay between sections of the large orchestra, though in themselves the various themes are quite spare. Already in this early work (1939, while he was still a student in London), Lilburn’s characteristic dotted rhythm motif appears. The piece is bombastic and contemplative by turns, the big brass line-up contributing to the former characteristic. It was a good opener for a concert of grand music.

Violinist Nicola Benedetti is on her second visit to New Zealand; it is a first for her partner, Leonard Elschenbroich. The violinist wore a bright red-orange fitting dress; the cellist did not wear a tail-coat, but a simple jacket. Neither was de Waart in tails – is it time the NZSO itself phased out this anachronistic dress?

The Brahms required a slightly smaller orchestra: there were no trombones, and some sections were down-sized; the cellos were brought forward nearer to the centre of the stage, with violas behind them.

The work opened in typical Brahms style with a brief tutti, then immediately the cellist gave passionate utterance in a solo passage. What marvellous tone he produced! Then the woodwind gave us a lovely pastoral section before the violin entry.

Playing from music scores, the soloists were in absolute unanimity. It was very lyrical playing from Benedetti, but from my seat, her sound was not particularly strong. As a colleague pointed out, we do get used to hearing recorded music, where the technician or producer can twiddle the knobs to bring the solos out more. Later, the violin sound penetrated more, when the orchestra was not so full or loud.

Elschenbroich produced subtly gorgeous nuances. Of course, the cello is in touch with the floor of the platform, and so can gain more resonance than the violin is able to. His playing reminded me of a singer who reported that his teacher said “Do something with every note.” I could not help thinking that it would be great to hear this work in the acoustic of the Wellington Town Hall – bring it on! All the elements made up to an epic first movement. The horns were very important, and their parts were beautifully played.

The slow movement featured a warm string melody with many mellow asides for winds, and an exquisite ending for soloists and orchestra alike. The third movement began bouncily for the soloists, cello first. Elschenbroich was the more flamboyant of the two performers (some would say this is a characteristic of the players of that instrument), but not to an excessive degree. There was precision and attention to detail from both – and indeed from the orchestra also. The work demonstrated the power and the pathos of Brahms. Technique was always subservient to the music as art for these two outstanding soloists.

The large audience was very attentive, and besides lengthy, enthusiastic applause from the audience to the soloists there was applause also from orchestra members. A nice feature was that the two soloists played in the orchestra for the Beethoven symphony that followed the interval.

The Eroica symphony is familiar, but like all great works of art, one can always find new insights, new elements, in every good performance. And this was a very good performance indeed. The orchestra was reduced again from that used for the Brahms work, and the playing, particularly in the first movement, was more detached and precise than is often heard in Beethoven. The delicate passages were delicious. Despite the symphony being so well-known, the playing had a spontaneous feel, brisk and energetic.

The sombre theme of the funeral march of the second movement was a contrast after the cheerful first movement. Its piquancy was brought out in the minor key version of the initial theme. Oboe and bassoon underlined the mood. How astonishing this symphony, the longest so far written, must have sounded to audiences accustomed to Haydn, Mozart and their contemporaries! The theme passed magisterially from section to section of the orchestra. Basses had a wonderful statement all their own.

The scherzo third movement was exciting; how amazing it is that one who was already considerably affected by deafness (in 1803, the year of the Eroica’s composition) could write such music, with all its subtleties and variety. The tricky horn calls in this movement came off perfectly.

The finale is notable for the extensive use of syncopation. These passages and the clarion call responses are such unexpected features of a classical symphony. If we were not so familiar with it, we might find these quite comical. They are certainly warm-hearted and entertaining, as are the dance-like passages that follow. But Beethoven never lets us wallow for long. Soon, more aggressive themes interrupt, and the dance passages change their modality to the minor. The development of the themes is quite astonishing. More off-beat music from oboe followed, the orchestra taking up the theme in a heavy, almost parody fashion. After lots of magic of all kinds, the triumphant conclusion arrived, again syncopated.

Edo de Waart and the orchestra gave us a magnificent rendition of this ground-breaking symphony. Not only did the audience afford the conductor prolonged and enthusiastic applause, orchestra members did the same.

 

 

 

 

After fifty-seven years of public neglect – Farquhar’s First Symphony from the NZSM and Ken Young

Posted on by Peter Mechen

Te Kōkī New Zealand School of Music presents:
RARITIES AND ROMANCE

Martin Riseley (violin)
New Zealand School of Music Orchestra
Kenneth Young (conductor)

MOZART – Overture “The Magic Flute”
BEETHOVEN – Romance for Violin and Orchestra in G Major
FAURE – Masques et Bergamasques
YOUNG – In Memoriam David Farquhar
FARQUHAR – Symphony No.1

Basilica of the Sacred Heart
Hill St., Wellington

Thursday 14th April 2016

At last! – the drought has been broken! – the well has been newly dug! – and the field has been freshly ploughed! So, just what, you’re bemusedly thinking, am I on about this time round? I’ll tell you! – David Farquhar’s First Symphony, performed only once previously in concert in 1959, has finally received its SECOND public performance! – that makes, by my reckoning, fifty-seven years of shameful, and never-to-be-restored neglect! Well, there’s always a “better-late-than-never” component to this sort of thing, provided that whatever it is that’s been neglected actually delivers the goods when given the chance.

That chance was given the work in truly resplendent fashion by maestro Ken Young and his redoubtable band of heroes in the NZ School of Music Orchestra at Wellington’s Sacred Heart Basilica in Hill St, last Thursday evening. Farquhar’s Symphony shared the programme with several other items, in the first half an overture (Mozart’s Magic Flute), a miniature concertante work (Beethoven’s Second Romance for Violin and Orchestra) and a suite of incidental pieces by Gabriel Faure (Masques et Bergamasques). Then, after the interval the symphony was appropriately prefaced by a work for brass ensemble titled In Memoriam David Farquhar, one written by Ken Young in 2007 shortly after the composer’s death.

The effect of all of this was to judiciously “prepare the way” for the symphony – first came the overture whose mix of gravitas, festivity and fun shook and stirred all of the venue’s ambiences to perfection, followed by the violin-and-orchestra piece which delightfully brought out solo and ripieno textures to maximum effect. Though I confess to finding Faure’s Masques et Bergamasques of lesser interest than I did its first-half companions, I was still grateful for the opportunity of hearing something not often performed in the concert-hall. The most startling precursor to the symphony was, however, the In Memoriam David Farquhar piece, one which made a splendidly sombre and valedictory impression. So, when the time came to begin the symphony, our ears were nicely primed for what was to follow.

A few comments regarding the performances – I enjoyed the rhythmic “snap” of the chording at the very opening of the Mozart Overture, and the beautiful hues of both the wind and brass amid the string figurations, leading to the allegro – the conductor’s luftpause caught some of the players on the hop at the start, but things soon settled down, with crisp ensemble and plenty of ear-catching dynamic variation from the players. The voices tumbled over one another nicely throughout the “second-half” exchanges, and the trombones and timpani made the most of their moments towards the end – lovely playing.

Violinist Martin Riseley seemed to my ears a shade tense at the very beginning of the Beethoven Romance, his phrasing a little too tightly-wound for comfort – his second entry seemed to unwind the double-stopping rather more warmly and relaxedly, and the orchestra replied beautifully, the horns sounding particularly mellifluous. I enjoyed the capriciousness of the alternating “gypsy” episode, the violin-playing sweetly leading things back to the reprise of the opening, the music none the worse for its little romantic “adventure”.

Faure’s divertissement Masques et Bergamasques (“Maskers and Revellers”) originally included a piece that became one of his most well-known works, the Pavane, but it was published separately – the suite from the original 1919 stage work consists of just four movements, three of which come from a long-abandoned (1869) symphony, and one, the Pastorale, newly composed. We heard a bright, perky Overture, a limpid, atmospheric Minuet, with a grandly ceremonial Trio, a vigorous, high-stepping Gavotte also sporting a Trio, one with a beautiful melody, and finally a Pastorale, the only newly-composed piece, a flowing tune on strings nicely augmented by winds, followed by piquant phrases suggesting touches of melancholy. I thought it all pleasant enough without being greatly memorable.

Not so Ken Young’s In Memoriam David Farquhar, a piece for brass ensemble which immediately struck a deep and richly resonant vein of serious intent, while avoiding sentimentality. Trumpets took the themes to begin with then allowed the trombones some glory, the music featuring some well-rounded solos from both instruments. Composer Ken Young sought our pardon at presenting a piece of his own music at the concert, though he was forgiven readily under the circumstances. He also introduced the Symphony, making no secret of his admiration for and belief in the work as one of the most significant pieces of orchestral music to come out of this country.

Right from the opening bars of the work one sensed the purpose and focus of the sounds coming from the players, who were obviously inspired by the occasion – the opening phrase’s wonderfully angular and whimsical falling fifth/rising seventh combination here immediately opened up the music’s vistas to a range of possibilities, such as a delicious brass fanfare which the strings took over and tossed around. Then the orchestra suddenly lurched into a syncopated, upwardly progressive theme which galvanizes the music’s trajectories, the brass taking their cue, and excitedly giving the theme a Holst-like welcome.

Ken Young imbued each of these ideas with plenty of thrust and accent, the angularities building up the music to its last great climax, and to a kind of breakthrough into a strange and resonant ambient realm – a magical moment, as if one had suddenly looked up from some all-engrossing preoccupation and discovered that it was already evening. The players, after piling on their energies in layers, beautifully enabled a kind of glowing, almost crepuscular atmosphere, a territory to where the music was obviously headed, the opening angular theme now sounding like a bugle call heralding a fulfilled purpose.

To the second movement, now, and a world of magical and disconcerting transformations – ghostly shivers, mutterings and dry-as-dust timpani at the outset suddenly were swept up by toccata-like chattering fanfares which disconcertingly broke into dance mode a la commedia dell’arte, the dancers laughingly and mockingly circumventing the phantom figures of the opening, who eventually banded together and hoarsely cried “Enough!”

Here, Young and his musicians found exactly the right blend of mystery and sharp-edged attack which this music required to “speak” and work its enchantment. They brought off episode after episode with great aplomb, especially the sequence involving the Wagner-like brasses and chattering winds which conjured up Battle-of-Britain-like scenes, Spitfires and Hurricanes bursting though the clouds like avenging Valkyries. Again the commedia dell’arte dancers appeared, with their ironic laughter echoing down the music’s passageways, putting the portentous brasses to flight with a final flourish – a sequence of delicious ironies and enigmas, the orchestral writing masterly in every way.

Equally heroic was the orchestra’s full-blooded response to the finale’s tremendous “land uplifted high” gestures and textures, right from the moment the trumpet sounded the “call” to action. No more epic and heroic orchestral writing can be found in a home-grown orchestral work than in this movement, and after a trenchant ascent with the struggle made manifest every step of the way we were taken to the heights, and left there in wonderment at the place we’d reached and the wide-reaching range and scope of the journey.

I felt at the piece’s conclusion (a deeply-felt silence grew most movingly out of the final bars) that no more thrilling and satisfying realization of this long-neglected and deservedly relished work could have been achieved than here. Very great honour to Ken Young and to the musicians of the NZSM Orchestra, who enabled this music to come to life once more with the kind of commitment and sense of adventure and occasion that would have gladdened the composer’s heart.

Committed and successful concert of Russian classics from Wellington Chamber Orchestra

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Wellington Chamber Orchestra conducted by Rachel Hyde with Helene Pohl (violin)

Khachaturian: Adagio from the ballet, Spartacus
Prokofiev: Violin Concerto No 2 in G minor, Opus 63
Borodin: Symphony No 2 in B minor

St Andrew’s on The Terrace

Sunday 10 April, 2:30 pm

I was prevented from getting to the first half of this concert, which, with the tough though splendid Prokofiev concerto with Helene Pohl, would obviously have been the highlight.

But Borodin is no stroll through the birch forest either.

The Prokofiev concerto had an interesting provenance, as the composer later recounted: “The number of places in which I wrote the concerto shows the kind of nomadic concert-tour life I led then. The main theme of the 1st movement was written in Paris, the first theme of the 2nd movement at Voronezh, the orchestration was finished in Baku and the premiere was given in Madrid.”

The second concerto is more attractive and lyrical than the first but there is much that is complex and difficult and it is brave and ambitious for an amateur orchestra to tackle; and no easy matter even for a soloist such as Helene Pohl, one of New Zealand’s most polished and cultivated violinists. It’s a fine, strong work, calling for a fastidious and brilliant violinist and I very much regret having missed it, especially in what I gather was such an emotionally committed performance.

Spies told me that, although there were inevitable glitches in the concerto – in the orchestral playing, it was considered a great success, very well received by the audience and certainly an achievement and rewarding experience for orchestra and conductor.

The concert had opened with the famous (‘Onedin Line’) Adagio from Khachaturian’s Spartacus which was well within the capacities of the orchestra; as someone said, it just played itself.

I was impressed at once by the richness of the string ensemble that opens Borodin’s best-known symphony; quickly followed by carefully articulated horns – four, as scored, and then more general wind entries. I gather that the four horn players are using new instruments, and their work, for an amateur orchestra, was surprisingly accomplished.

Rachel Hyde achieved a really characteristic Russian sound that lay somewhere between Tchaikovsky and Rimsky-Korsakov; perhaps it occasionally lost its grip after the development phase got under way, but there was a clear feeling for the music’s shape. The second movement is a Scherzo of intriguing irregularity with a strikingly different Allegretto in the middle, and that was exploited satisfyingly.

The orchestra stopped to retune between second and third movements, breaking the flow a bit; but the reward was an Andante movement of considerable charm, opening with nice playing by clarinet and harp and soon a fine horn solo; and other wind players also had rewarding solo opportunities. The strings led the long, warm melody that rather dominates the movement which, at the end, merges curiously into the last movement without a break. The Allegro finale had striking energy, characterized by repeated short motifs of a pentatonic character that chased each other from one section to another.

Although Borodin thinned out the brass parts when he revised the symphony two years after its 1877 premiere, a performance like this in a limited acoustic, does not produce sounds from brass and percussion that are exactly refined or subtle. Nevertheless, listening between the notes, so to speak, the playing emerged as well-rehearsed, committed and energetic.

Though I had not heard what I guess was really the most interesting, even exciting, music in the concert, what I heard was admirable, and what I heard about, even more so.