Tag: orchestral

Aspects of nature, life and love, from the NZSM Orchestra

Posted on by Peter Mechen

Te Koki New Zealand School of Music presents:
RURAL ROMANCE

LILBURN – Overture “Drysdale”
FAURÉ – Pelléas et Mélisande
BEETHOVEN – Piano Concerto No.3 in C Minor
DVORAK – Symphony No.8 in G Major

Jian Liu (piano)
Kenneth Young (conductor)
New Zealand School of Music Orchestra

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

Wednesday 4th June, 2014

It was the sort of programme I would have travelled miles and miles, over hill and dale, thru fog and storm, and braving accident and ambush to see and hear – with distance lending enchantment, as is often the case. But even without the distance, the enchantment remained – this was music by turns exciting and evocative, so very typical of each composer’s work, even the relatively early Overture by Lilburn, but still, as were the other pieces, treasure!

To my great delight, the bringing about of it all by these youthful players and their conductor had many magnificent moments, for most of the time triumphing over the difficulties posed by the venue. The chief problem was the “in-your-face” character of the St.Andrew’s acoustic, which gave the performance sounds an insistence which wasn’t altogether the doing of the players.

It underlined and set in bold the importance for Wellington of having the Town Hall restored to its former glory as soon as possible, with both performance venues in that building currently out of circulation and sorely missed. I recall over recent times a number of youth orchestra performances in the main auditorium of the Hall whose qualities were underlined by the acoustic’s warmth and focus, a marked contrast to the somewhat overbearing, almost raucous immediacy of the St.Andrew’s sound.

My thoughts regarding the performance of the engaging Drysdale Overture of Lilburn’s were thus coloured by that acoustical context. I found a lot of the playing in what was otherwise a splendid performance lacked dynamic variation – the “great waves of sound” referred to in my notes regarding the piece’s opening gestures scarcely abated during the more vigorous working-out of the different motifs in the composer’s “sunlit rondo”.

Fortunately, the sounds did give space for the various appearances of  the “nostalgic theme”, and the unanimity and focus of the strings in places such as their sudden reprise of the opening figure, just before the final sequence. But this was due as much, if not more, to conductor Kenneth Young’s control and the skills of his players, the oboist in particular delivering the lovely melody with all the feeling for its context that the composer might have wanted.

Thanks to Fauré’s (or rather, his pupil, Charles Koechlin’s) somewhat gentler scoring, three of the Pelléas et Mélisande exerpts from the composers’ s incidental music for Maeterlinck’s play made a lovely impression throughout – Young and his musicians didn’t hold back the emotion, the string-playing in the Prelude having plenty of juice, and the clarinet work outstanding, really making something of the sequence just before the strings’ final phrases.

Fauré’s music doesn’t have the astringency of Sibelius’s for the same subject, and nothing like Schoenberg’s evocations of unease and darkness in his 1903 symphonic poem, also inspired by the play. This feeling was underlined by the exclusion of the fourth piece from the suite La Mort de Mélisande, leaving the lovely Fileuse (Mélisande at her spinning-wheel), depicted by whirling strings and a charming, winsome oboe solo (a different player to that in the Lilburn Overture), and finally the Sicilienne, a graceful dance composed by Fauré for an earlier, unfinished work, and used here again to beguiling effect, with its piquant oscillations between major  and minor. Here the harpist was able to shine, with a nicely-judged accompaniment of winds and then strings.

The Beethoven concerto featured a much-awaited appearance by that fine pianist Jian Liu, whose recital and chamber work I’ve so enjoyed over previous seasons. He didn’t disappoint with this, Beethoven’s darkest and most austere of the composer’s concertante works. Young and the players gave him an opening tutti which “spelt out” the journey in no uncertain terms, tense of mood and sharply-focused in articulation. Again the acoustic tended to narrow the dynamic range of the playing, but this music could easily deal with whatever sonic vagaries were brought to bear on the performance.

From his very first, commanding entry, Liu caught us up with his overall focus, his feeling for dynamic contrast, and his quicksilver responses to the music’s volatilities – as well as commanding the piano part (as with the cadenza) he was able to play “chamber music” with the orchestra in such passages as the rather misterioso section leading up to the recapitulation, dovetailing his cross-rhythmic triplets beautifully with the orchestra’s wind players, and bringing our the “gothic-like” touches to the writing just before the movement’s end.

The slow movement had a kind of Hellenic beauty at the start, its eloquence in Liu’s hands beautifully matched by the wind-playing that brought about a lovely sea-change to the soundscapes, as well as the beautiful dialogues with which the lower strings engaged the pianist at a later point. Only some slightly hurried turns of phrase in some of the exchanges prevented total pleasure – but the coda reinstalled that sense of rapt beauty which continued right up to a slightly misread wind entry at the end (which probably went swimmingly by comparison, at rehearsal – them’s the breaks!).

The finale’s attaca broke the spell, the pianist launching the argument with a real swing, taking the music at a fair lick and rendering some of his figurations as a whirl of notes – very exciting! But again from Liu was this lovely “accompanying” instinct in places, supporting the winds as they took over the melody. I loved the “fierce dance” character of the music during the tutti just before the clarinet tune, brought out with a will by Young and the players. But the contrast with the clarinet’s entry was also magical – fine playing, here – and the string fugue continued the excitement, leading up to the music’s martial element being hurled across the canvas with gusto.

After this, the coda was just right – a proper release of boisterous high spirits, kept pent-up for so long and here given full expression, by both pianist and orchestra. A pianist friend with whom I sat was also lost in admiration for Liu’s playing – “gossamer”, “agile”, “forthright”, and “energizing” were the words that were bandied about between us during the interval!

The recommencement brought out what seemed like the full band for the Dvorak G Major Symphony, surely one of the most adorable works in the romantic symphonic repertoire – and certainly one of its composer’s sunniest creations. Only in the second movement do the clouds gather for moments of anxiety and doubt – and Dvorak had that ability, shared with Schubert, to smile through tears and keep his essential spirit indomitable. And so it is with this symphony.

The outer movements – particularly the opening one – are both rhythmically tricky beasts, and I thought here in particular, throughout the first movement, that the orchestra didn’t manage to exude quite enough energy to really “kick” the music along. It always seems to me, with student and amateur orchestras, that not enough attention is paid to the rhythmic character of difficult pieces – and if the rhythm is tentative, unsure, or sluggish, then no amount of in-tune or note-accurate playing will save or properly enliven the music.

I once heard Ken Young, when rehearsing a difficult piece of contemporary music with the NZSO, telling the players, “Don’t count the music – FEEL it!” With Dvorak’s music, there’s that constant need to feel the rhythmic “kick”, to activate the dance element that’s in so much of his work. It’s not a question of speed or even tempo – but of “pointing” those rhythms, of stressing both beats and/or off-beats where appropriate. Accurate and eager though the playing was, here, I thought the first movement needed a touch more nervous energy overall, and sharper attack on some of those rhythmic beats. With this composer’s music in particular, a strongly-characterised rhythm beats the hell out of merely playing the right notes.

Still, I did think the performances of the middle movements of the work of a particularly high order, here – Young and his musicians revelled in the multifarious changes of mood in the second movement. bringing out the charm and lyricism and, indeed, romance of the opening, but fronting up to the theatrical darkenings of texture and tone brought by forceful wind,brass and timpani at key points – the timpani, in particular, was spot-on in its many rhythmic underpinnings and textural colourings. And the third movement similarly disarmed, with its bright, eager, slightly tense waltz-tune, put across with gorgeous string-tone (even with a touch of portamento in places!). Both the Trio and the sprightly Coda kept the music’s charm to the fore, nicely underlining the contrast with the finale’s declamatory opening.

Though sounding in places a bit of a raucous riot in this venue, the finale had plenty of thrills augmented by one or two spills. Everybody managed to kick up heels at some point or other during the wild dance-sequences (the horns had a great time with their trills, as did the trombones with their hoe-down-like shouts of encouragement!), and the contrasting lyrical variations featured, once again, lovely clarinet work and flute decorations that got the spirit, if not quite the letter, of the music right. And what a barnstorming finish!

I didn’t have miles and miles to go, nor hill and dale to contend with, when returning home – but this concert’s music and its performance still had just enough magic about it to both enchant and content.

 

 

Orchestra Wellington confirms its stature in large scale late Romantic as well as Haydn, and honours Franz Paul Decker

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Marc Taddei dedicates Bruckner’s 7th symphony with Orchestra Wellington to Franz-Paul Decker

Orchestra Wellington conducted by Marc Taddei with Deborah Humble (mezzo soprano)

Haydn: Symphony No 84 in E flat ‘In nomine Domini’
Wagner: The Wesendonck Lieder
Bruckner: Symphony No 7 in E major

Cathedral of Saint Paul, Wellington

Saturday 24 May, 7 pm

Orchestra Wellington’s concerts in the second half of last year, banished from the Town Hall, took place in the Opera House. I missed both of those. The move to the Anglican cathedral might have been partly in the nature of an experiment, now that Wellington seems to be faced with the depressing news that strengthening of the Town Hall seems to have become more expensive and the city council seems ready to sacrifice yet another feature of Wellington as a sophisticated, culturally rich city, which is about all we have left, apart from Government, after the flight of manufacturing and most corporate head offices.

Gone are both one of the best concert halls in the country, the gem of a recital hall, as well as the fine city organ, and the splendidly spacious west foyers of the previous “strengthening” in the early 1980s. (By the way, who’s to be held responsible for an inadequate job back then?).

Before the start of the concert conductor Marc Taddei spoke about a loss of another kind: the death in Montreal on Monday 21 May of Franz-Paul Decker at the age of 90.

Decker had a 40-year association as Guest Conductor, Principal Conductor and Chief Conductor of the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra. Decker was perhaps the most gifted conductor to have had a long relationship with the orchestra.  He was said to have had a “love affair” with the NZSO since he first conducted it in 1966, when he was “very positively surprised [by its] highly professional musicians”. He said: “It is the longest relationship I have had with any orchestra in the world”.

Perhaps Decker’s last engagement was in Barcelona in November 2010 which concluded with Strauss’s ill-omened tone poem Death and Transfiguration.

Taddei said nothing could have been more appropriate to honour the memory of a conductor so devoted to and penetrating with his Bruckner performances than his seventh symphony.

The Haydn
The Cathedral was full, and the concert opened with one of Haydn’s ‘Paris’ symphonies, Nos 82-87, written through 1785-86 on a commission from a Paris orchestra, the Concert de la (Masonic) loge Olympique.  It was a very large orchestra, of amateurs and professionals.

The seats in the cathedral had been turned around so that the orchestra was at the west end and the audience’s back were to the sanctuary, perhaps in the hope that a less reverberant acoustic would exist. That may have been effective for the two symphonies, but it offered little to the orchestra or the singer in Wagner’s Wesendonck songs.

In fact the opening Largo of the first movement of Number 84 promised both a warm and full-blooded performance and an acoustic that treated the playing kindly enough. Its slow pace left plenty of room for the echo to fade without clutter. And even in the main Allegro part of the movement, a certain amount of overlapping of sounds did not bother me. In any case I am very partial to a large space that slightly rounds the edges of symphonic performance, up to a point.

What was more significant was the sheer size of the orchestra – around 75 – which displayed impressive polish and even opulence to the point of risking the censure of the more pedantic of the ‘historically informed’ performance devotees.

But the Paris commission gave Haydn the chance to compose for a considerably larger orchestra than he had at Esterhazy and it’s clear that he jumped at the chance to use larger forces. The slow movement, in a gentle triple (6/8) rhythm, seemed to be the heart of the music, as it so often is, and I found myself wallowing in the sounds of the fine brass, the lovely legato lines, the beguiling tunes, indeed, the elegance and charm of the orchestration as a whole.

The Minuet may have been typical for its time, but who else could have written with such elan and wit. Unlike many Minuets, the Trio middle section offered only minor change of rhythm and character; might the performance, with advantage, have given it more contrast?  Nor might the Vivace finale be revolutionary, but merely of far greater interest and delight than most of the music of the time, apart from his own and Mozart’s.

A propos, it’s interesting that the young Mozart, on his visit to Paris with his mother eight years earlier, also had success with his fine Paris Symphony; apart from that, his visit was disappointing, and his mother died in Paris.

Deborah Humble with Wagner
Deborah Humble had come from Australia to sing Wagner’s Wesendonck Lieder. Here was where the contribution of the cathedral’s acoustic became a matter of some interest.  The very introductory notes seemed to be coming from varying and indistinct places, as if they were disconnected, without a coherent performance plan. No reflection on conductor or players at all, but simply the mischievousness of the space.

But that opening sounded different from my memory of other performances; the programme did not identify the source of the orchestration (Wagner himself only orchestrated the last song, ‘Traüme’), and the usual arrangement is by Wagner’s colleague Felix Mottl. There are also versions by Vieri Tosatti, and Hans Werner Henze. I had discounted the latter because it is described as ‘for chamber orchestra’, though with ‘unusual wind registration’.  I discovered later that what we heard and which may or may not have been helpful in the acoustic, was indeed by Henze: perhaps sparer orchestration seemed more likely to cope better with the space.

(To my chagrin, I found a performance of the Henze version sung by Mariana Lipovšek sitting on my sagging shelves).

The characteristics of the Henze orchestration were summarised for me by the orchestra’s General Manager, Adán Tijerina: ‘for low voice, and the special feature of the particular instrumentation is the use of deep instruments: alto flute, cor anglais, bass clarinet, contrabassoon’.

The voice enters quickly after the rather spare opening hints of mood, and it was obvious at once that Deborah Humble’s Wagner credentials were for real: a fine Wagner voice, large enough to cope with the orchestra surrounding her and that acoustic, though the latter did rather obscure the intelligibility of the words. (As an aside, last year I saw the last three parts of the Hamburg Ring cycle that she had sung in, but after her involvement had finished). Her most important recent engagement was in the Melbourne Ring last November/December, as Erda and Waltraute.

Those with Wagner embedded in their souls and memories were catching quotes from parts of the Ring, and especially Tristan which was emerging during the 1850s when Wagner was in exile in Zurich. Without that connection the songs are of course just as beautiful and fully expressive of the sense and emotion of the words and can even be heard as presaging the approaching expressionism of the end of the century. These were the characteristics of Humble’s performance, beautifully phrased, warm and rounded in the lower register, lustrous and spiritual as her lines went high into the soprano range, investing the songs with a dramatic quality that could be heard as the product of a totally theatrical performer.

Bruckner’s Seventh
I like to think many of us had come particularly for the rare chance to hear a big Bruckner symphony; the seventh is probably the best known and most popular, but its hour and ten minutes length no doubt deters many orchestral managements, though hardly the musicians and conductors (and besotted audience members).

What a thrill it was to be overwhelmed by the glorious opening melody, from an orchestra that might long have languished a bit in the shadow of its big sister in Wellington. Still with somewhat smaller forces than the NZSO might muster, there was simply no area that sounded in the least undernourished. The impact of the opulent strings, the lustrous woodwinds and finally the marvellous, gleaming brass given the final touch of grandeur by the presence of four Wagner tubas (strictly, they should be called ‘Wagner horns’), which Wagner had had made for the Ring cycle, to fill the sonic gap he felt existed between trombones and horns.

In fact, at least from my seat, about six rows from the front, the big space added the important element of a quasi-religious atmosphere that enhanced and enriched the sound, suggesting both a much bigger orchestra, not to mention a performance of huge authority (Taddei conducted without the score before him, always a mark of someone who has become utterly committed to the music).

It’s one of the works, like Wagner’s operas, which one rarely feels is too long; rather, there was a sense of bereavement at its eventual end, so strongly had conductor and orchestra sustained momentum, suspense, an awe that was spell-binding, wanting just another return to this or that episode. The effect was magnified by a unhurried pace of each movement lending the music even greater profundity.

This was a superb, imaginative programme, of music that was not-all-that-familiar but all of which exercises a strong pull for quite large numbers of the more musically knowledgeable and curious; not to mention the one uncontested masterpiece.

Though this orchestra, particularly at the hands of Marc Taddei, has given us a lot of very great performances in recent years, this concert, all of it, sounded to me like the most compelling, ultimate coming-of-age for Orchestra Wellington.

 

Passion, poetry and valediction from the NZSO

Posted on by Peter Mechen

The New Zealand Symphony Orchestra presents:
RUSSIAN FIRE

RACHMANINOV – Caprice Bohémien
SCHUMANN – PIano Concerto in A Minor Op.
SHOSTAKOVICH – Symphony No.15 in A

Alexander Melnikov (piano)
Alexander Lazarev (conductor)
New Zealand Symphony Orchestra
Michael Fowler Centre, Wellington

Saturday 17th May 2014

It was one of those concerts in which everything seemed to me to come together and go “whizz-bang!” It provided in spadefuls just what can make classical music events such unique experiences. It’s that totality of concentration upon nothing else but the music and music-making generated by musicians whose skill, focus and energy create a kind of frisson of recreative involvement. And into this ferment listeners are drawn, to make of the experience what they will. Whatever the music, however light-hearted or profound, it’s that realization of its essence, of its character, which transcends all other considerations.

Well-worn thoughts, one might think, hardly worth repeating? But it was good to be forcefully reminded (as, indeed, this same orchestra had done a week previously through its stunning performance of Lyell Cresswell’s work “Hear and Far” with singer Jonathan Lemalu, conducted by James MacMillan) how a group of musicians can by dint of skilled and committed playing, and without any extraneous trappings, so completely and utterly engage its listeners. I couldn’t imagine better advocacy for live music-making and its availability and continuance than was provided by this present concert.

The evening’s presentation was called, somewhat spuriously, “Russian Fire” – a description which had nothing whatever to do with the delectable Schumann A Minor Concerto, here performed by pianist Alexander Melnikov, a work which epitomizes German romanticism at its most poetic and winsome; while the last of Shostakovich’s symphonies, the enigmatic Fifteenth, is a philosophical, part tragic, part ironic work whose manner is somewhat removed from most of its composer’s earlier, conflict-ridden symphonic essays. Only the brilliant and volatile Caprice Bohémien, written by the youthful Sergei Rachmaninov in 1894, fulfilled the expectation created by the concert’s banner publicity headline.

One could argue that the phrase referred to the combination of pianist and conductor – both Russian and both noted for their brilliance and volatility as performers. That was largely true of conductor Alexander Lazarev, whose demonstrative and theatrical podium manner brought a sense of fiery commitment  to almost everything he interpreted. As for the “other” Alexander (a friend also at the concert afterwards put it succinctly when she said “Thumbs up for the two Alexanders!), pianist Alexander Melnikov, whom I’d seen and heard play “live” before, brought by turns strength and restraint, poetry and precision to his playing of the first two movements in particular of the concerto –  any “fire” as such would have scorched and withered the delicate tissues of such finely-wrought music.

In fact those first two movements of the concerto gave me such unalloyed delight, I was left feeling a tad disappointed by the finale, whose music here didn’t for me sufficiently “dance”. Melnikov gave us some lovely moments, but he seemed more taken with the movement’s ebb than with its flow – I felt neither his playing nor Lazarev’s direction generated quite enough overall momentum for the phrase-ends to be set tingling and the blood to be stirred. I thought of Schumann’s remark about the Chopin Waltzes needing to be danced by countesses, and felt something of the same need ought to apply to this work’s finale – as much as I appreciated what both pianist and conductor were doing I thought in overall terms, the movement didn’t quite get off the ground.

But ah! – such was the spell cast by Melnikov’s noble and poetic keyboard utterances throughout the earlier parts of the work I found it easy to forgive him – and along with everybody else in the auditorium I was charmed by his playing of one of Prokofiev’s Visions Fugitives as an encore, one with the most deliciously throwaway ending, which was tossed at us most delightfully and nonchalantly.

It rounded off a first half which had begun in the most spectacular and colourful fashion with a stunning performance by Lazarev and the orchestra of Rachmaninov’s rarely-played orchestral work Caprice Bohémien. This was composed just after the fledgling composer had graduated from the Moscow Concervatory, and it exhibits a confidence and surety in handling his material that’s quite remarkable for somebody writing such an early work.

What’s also interesting about this work besides its depth of feeling is the piece’s exoticism – granted that it’s music depicting Gypsy life, but Rachmaninov was to further intensify this exotic, somewhat oriental-sounding vein of expression in his First Symphony, which was first performed in 1897 and famously ravaged by the critic Cesar Cui, himself a composer, one of “The Five”, though perhaps its least distinguished member.

Had the Symphony’s first performance been better-managed and the work’s reception a more favourable one, Rachmaninov’s style as a composer might well have explored these exotic paths more fully. But as is well known, the young composer was sunk into a deep depression as a result of the Symphony’s failure – and his immediately subsequent works, such as the Second Piano Concerto and the Second Symphony were far less harmonically daring and innovative than the music of both the First Symphony and the earlier Caprice Bohémien.

In Alexander Lazarev the Caprice had the ideal interpreter – Lazarev brought to the fore the music’s excitement and volatility, but also brought out the vein of deep melancholic lyricism which marks Rachmaninov’s work – so those pulsating timpani contourings, throbbing lower strings and brooding winds of the opening created for us a wondrous atmosphere brimming with possibility and ready to explode with bite and energy at a moment’s notice – after briefly doing so, the music returned to smolder-mode, out of which grew the most gorgeous ‘cello tune, reflecting this aforementioned penchant for exotically-coloured expression, as did the solo clarinet melody which followed, and the subsequent interchanges with the flute and horn.

After this had all burst forth and subsided, the dancing began, slowly at first, but gathering in tension and excitement,and culminating in a near-frenzy of abandonment at the end, with players and audience members on the edges of their seats both literally and metaphorically. The conductor (as he’d done in concerts on previous visits) made his notorious “rostrum turn-about” to the audience on the final orchestral chord! – pure showmanship, but in a sense it was what this kind of music-making was about, involving the listeners as palpably as it did the musicians. We loved him for it!

An interval was greatly appreciated in view of the imminent Shostakovich Symphony, just as the business of moving the piano onto the platform  for the Schumann concerto gave us time to readjust our sensibilities after the wild and orgiastic Rachmaninov piece. But unexpectedly, there was more, because the concert happened to be the occasion of veteran NZSO violist Peter van Drimmelen’s final appearance as an orchestra player. So, before the second half got under way, deputy Concertmaster Donald Armstrong stepped up to the microphone to pay a well-modulated tribute to van Drimmelen, highlighting his contribution over the years both to the orchestra and to music in Wellington in general as a player, conductor and organizer.

Then it was ostensibly grimmer business at hand, with the re-entry of conductor Lazarev, ready to set in motion Shostakovich’s final and valedictory Fifteenth Symphony. In point of fact, the Symphony sounded anything but grim to begin with – more like a kind of surrealist entertainment, with a couple of quotations from Rossini’s “William Tell” Overture thrown into the first movement’s somewhat quixotic orchestral mix. Unusually for Shostakovich, this symphony contains several “borrowings” from other composers – apart from the Rossini, most obviously in the final movement from Wagner, but as well from Shostakovich’s fellow-countryman Mikhail Glinka.

Shostakovich wouldn’t be “drawn” regarding any possible “programme” suggested by the symphony, apart from commenting that his intention vis-a-vis the first movement was to depict a kind of open-air toyshop viewed through the eyes of a child – a somewhat misleading description of music that in places palpably depicted more like “something nasty in the nursery”. He was as coy when asked to explain the various quotations from other composers’ works, telling a friend, somewhat obliquely, “I don’t myself quite know why the quotations are there, but I could not NOT include them”.

Lazarev and the NZSO players took us into this surreal world in a trice, with snappy, alert playing that nailed the music’s angularities and brought out its piquant melodic lines, the flute and bassoon foremost among the winds at the outset. The “toyshop” aspect was given full rein from all sides at first – a wonderfully antiphonal sound-picture of disparate elements, into which comings and goings jogged, quite unabashed, the “William Tell Overture” quote, rather like a kind of sub-plot or passing theatre of separate activity on one level, yet at the same time “grown” out of the textures in a wholly unselfconscious manner.

The layered, cross-rhythmed string passages, echoed later in manner by the winds, eerily wound up the music’s tensions, and uncovered darker, more anxious purposes which a skittery solo violin and a couple more jaunty appearances of “William Tell” couldn’t entirely keep down – I thought the NZSO’s playing encompassed all the different variants of character in the music with real élan. And live music-making gave the listener visual bonuses as well, such as the use of the whip, held high and played with delicious precision by one of the hard-working percussionists.

The only place in the symphony I had difficulty going entirely with Lazarev’s reading was at the beginning of the second movement, where I thought the dark, sinister brass chorales were given a shade too quickly and smoothly. But what sombre beauties were then conjured up by Andrew Joyce’s wonderful ‘cello solo, the other orchestral strings coming forth in due course with rapt, properly awed responses. Not being Russian players the brasses couldn’t help their chorales sounding more like Bruckner than Shostakovich, so refined were their outpourings. But the winds’ eerie radio-frequency chords were answered by a superbly-done trombone solo with tuba accompaniment which brought our sensibilities into the music’s very heart, prior to a seismic irruption from the whole orchestra that seemed to suddenly open a wound, and lay bare the composer’s inner existential anguish. Afterwards, we found ourselves in the middle of a sound-world bereft of warmth, compassion and any hope for the future – most unsettling was the silence when the music stopped.

As were the ghoulish chords which began the scherzo-movement – grinning gargoyle-like sounds from the winds, suggesting a kind of “danse macabre” – also, wonderful “kitchen” sounds from the percussion, so very readily did they evoke the convolutions of dancing bones! Eerie, too were the flesh-creeping, Psycho-reminiscent responses of the strings to the solo violin, music from a master of the sardonic gesture, surpassing himself in this, his valedictory symphonic statement.

But what to make of the last movement? – along with its direct Wagner quotation (the “Fate” motif, associated with the deaths of both Siegmund and Siegfried, in “The Ring”) there were references to both “Siegfried’s Funeral March” and the “Tristan” Prelude, before disarmingly linking the last with a quote from a Glinka song….. the references to death are inescapable – Shostakovich was a man dying of heart disease when the Symphony was being written – and both the “Tristan” and the Glinka quotes involve aspects of love. Of course “Tristan” epitomizes all-consuming love, whereas the Glinka song is a setting of verses by the poet Baratynsky concerning a renunciation of love, containing the words “To a disillusioned man all seductions are alien…”. So Shostakovich’s choice of other people’s music as quotations was here replete with significance.

My notes say of the performance at this point, “the orchestral detailing is astonishing!” – and it was during this movement that I became aware of the intensity of the audience’s pin-dropping concentration upon the music and the music-making. The playing of the orchestra seemed to realize every ounce of the music’s message at every place along the dynamic spectrum, from the bleak stillnesses to the blackest, most jagged and numbing climaxes. After these, along with the quotations and the eerie “radio-frequency-chord” were done, nothing was left in the music but the bare bones of life tapping out the remaining, failing pulse-beats until only the silences could be heard.

Conductor Lazarev cannily kept his arms upraised and his hands beating time in ever-dimishing movements after the sounds had ceased, holding the audience breath-bated and spell-bound – and when after a minute’s silence had passed he brought his arms down to his sides the applause was thunderous in its response. He then generously (if rather too fulsomely in one particular case) brought every one of the orchestral soloists, as well as whole sections at a time, to their feet to acknowledge the ovation.

With all due respect to Shostakovich, I thought it really was a concert to die for – a most memorable occasion. For which, much thanks to all concerned!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

James MacMillan conducts NZSO in his own and Cresswell’s music of the past twenty years

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

New Zealand Symphony Orchestra conducted by James MacMillan with Jonathan Lemalu (baritone)

Lyell Cresswell: The Clock Stops, settings of eleven poems by Fiona Farrell
James MacMillan: Woman of the Apocalypse
The Confession of Isobel Gowdie

Michael Fowler Centre

Friday 9 May, 6:30 pm

The second of the pair of concerts from the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra devoted to music of the past thirty years was a musical success, even though, again, it drew a smaller audience than the orchestra normally attracts. However, given the absence of any standard, familiar music in the programme, it was very encouraging, probably more than might be expected in most cities of comparable size in other parts of the world; and it won, particularly the final work, a noisy ovation with many bravos and a number coming to their feet.

Oddly, the programme note about Cresswell’s The Clock Stops didn’t refer directly to the subject of the poems – the physical and human impacts of the Christchurch earthquakes. It was chief executive Chris Blake’s foreword that mentioned Christchurch, though the language of the poems could easily be read as reflecting the disaster. The tone of the poems, each dealing in the most economical way with different aspects, found their ideal interpreter in the voice of Jonathan Lemalu, for it was the poetry that imposed itself on the composer’s imagination.

In fact, the music seemed to be constrained by the words, throughout the cycle. Not constrained perhaps, but giving rise to what sometimes seemed to me almost too detailed musical responses, and those responses were an orchestral canvas that was subtle, infinitely resourceful, surprising, loud, magically still.  Alongside the engrossing orchestral effects, the actual vocal line, often seeming rather in the nature of Sprechgesang, secondary to the less literal nature of non-vocal music which did the real work of expressing the wide-ranging experiences and emotions.  Each poem created its own unique sound world: ‘Fog’, with shimmering strings, under the image of ‘a woman waking’, while woodwinds echoed the words ‘The bird sings’, an image that returned later, as ‘the bird sings on a broken wall’.

In the poem ‘Map’, every word chiming on the short vowel ‘a’, supplied first an aggressive tone, and then the fragile sounds of two solo violins. The orchestra became transparent, movement absent, in ‘Lullabye’ with pizzicato strings and muted trumpet and Lemalu’s voice, in spite of his throat infection, shifted momentarily to a falsetto. In contrast, the image of ‘Downtown’ called Lemalu up staccato brass and then timpani as Lemalu’s voice coarsened in its low register. Two poems recalled the history of ancient cities that met either a violent end (Jericho) or disappeared under millennia of decay and conquest (Çatalhöyük in southern Anatolia).

Each offered substance to the notion of time stopping, bringing the cycle to its strange end. The last words, ‘Tick, tock’, left one with a sense of futility in the face of human and terrestrial catastrophe.

The score called for an orchestra of great refinement and virtuosity, and MacMillan certainly found such an orchestra at hand.

Contrary to the announced programme, the interval was taken at that point and the two MacMillan works were played in the second half. That might have seemed tidy but it did not really serve the composer well. Though written twenty years apart (Gowdie in 1990 and Apocalypse in 2012), the fingerprints were similar. Cresswell’s scrupulous and discreetly used orchestral palette contrasted strikingly with the insistent and sometimes over-blown orchestration in MacMillan’s works.

MacMillan wrote that Woman of the Apocalypse was partly inspired by paintings ranging from Dürer and Rubens to Blake and Gustave Doré, each of whom treated the subject. Its five parts followed each other without break, each offering the reason for tempo and emotional contrast, like symphonic movements. Interest was held, up to a point, through the opportunities these pictorial-based ideas offered: battle, with ferocious timpani and side drums, brass and percussion fanfares, frantic scampering strings to depict the eagle’s wings, and finally her ascension to Paradise that ends with a sweeping Adagio-like passage. Yet the composer’s main concern seemed to be with the exploiting of orchestral colour and power, and while there were distinctive and striking passages and orchestral effects, in the end the work didn’t engage me emotionally, to leave a memorable musical impression.

The earlier work inspired by the torture and murder of Isobel Gowdie as a witch, with hideous barbarity in the 17th century engaged me rather more. It opens with haunting chords from clarinets, bassoons and horns before strings entered, evolving slowly in a way that was more recognizably symphonic. The brutality of her end, of course, provided the stuff of a more complex, agitated and drum-dominated narrative, though my notes remarked that the overwhelming intensity of the percussion, including three sets of drums/timpani at one point, was too much.  However, the intervening passages for violas and cellos, and then for celeste and tubular bells led to a calm, almost lyrical phase during which, rather movingly, the music simply fell away.

So I could understand how this work has gained renown, with many live performances and recordings.

However, at the concert’s end I found myself wondering whether larger numbers might come to a concert of new music if the programme had included one rather more familiar work of the past half century.

 

NZSO scores a success in recent music delving some of the world’s tragedies

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

New Zealand Symphony Orchestra conducted by Hamish McKeich with Sara MacLiver (soprano)

Body: Little Elegies
Sculthorpe: Memento Mori
Gorecki: Symphony No 3 (‘Sorrowful Songs’)

Michael Fowler Centre

Saturday 3 May, 7:30 pm

The Symphony of Sorrowful Songs
The spectre of a half-filled auditorium for a major NZSO concert featuring Gorecki’s famous symphony which had filled this same hall, and halls all over the world, through the 1990s, came as a shock.

Though its first performances outside Poland in the 1980s were roundly abused by most critics, in a typical review, “simply adding to the decadent trash that encircled the true pinnacles of avant-gardism”, it was much better received by audiences. It was the performance recorded by David Zinman and the London Sinfonietta with Dawn Upshaw as soloist that propelled it into the charts, even the pop charts.  The phenomenon was widely seen as a sign that decades of domination of classical music by ‘experimental’, ‘avant-garde’, ‘complex’ music that alienated audiences, were at an end; music that was ‘original-above-all’, music that avoided melody and any sign of musical antecedents, unless of the most radical kind.

Indeed, this symphony played a big part in the reaction against music that drove audiences away whenever a contemporary piece was programmed, and the years since have slowly seen the emergence of composers who knew that all art needs to be grounded in what has gone before, both for its own sake and for it to make sense to its listeners.

There are, nevertheless, still sceptics, of whom I am not one.

The orchestra’s performance under Hamish McKeich was stunningly beautiful, with spellbinding suspense maintained though the long, slow passages that begin and end the first movement in a huge arch, as section after section of the strings enter and later depart with its repeated elegiac phrases in elaborate canon.

One of its significant features is the use of a conservative orchestra, with no percussion and limited numbers of wind instruments; though four flutes/piccolos, pairs of bassoons and contra-bassoons, but no oboes or trumpets. There is a prominent piano part, hinting at bells, and of course the remarkable role for soprano, the splendid Sara MacLiver, singing Polish religious songs, folk songs and a setting of a graffiti prayer left by a victim on the wall of a NAZI prison.

MacLiver’s voice was for the most part well balanced in the orchestral texture, though parts of her range seemed to project less well; nevertheless, she captured the emotion, its moments of contrasting despair and hope, most movingly.

It is uniformly in a lamenting mood, though it is also remarkable for the moments of well-being, that arise through beautifully judged modulations at various points. The second movement, though it was where Gorecki set the graffiti prayer by the 18-year-old girl, provided the richest source of hope, expressed so poignantly by voice and orchestra, with quite limited musical means.

Memento Mori by Peter Sculthorpe
The first half of the concert comprised elegiac pieces by leading Australian and New Zealand composers. Both drew on ‘programmes’ that have strong political and environmental implications, not merely trite, nationalistic reflections on the heroism of war.

Of course, we are singularly starved of opportunities to hear Australian music, and I expect the same is true in the other direction. However, I have tried to compensate on trips to Australia with visits to the Australian Music Centre in The Rocks, Sydney, to get recordings. So I was familiar with the performance of Sculthorpe’s Memento Mori by the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra under David Porcelijn, a disc mainly filled, not the least incongruously, with his Sun Music.

There were hints of Gorecki in the opening passages of Memento Mori, not an impossibility as it was written in 1993, a year after the famous Dawn Upshaw recording.  But Sculthorpe’s main inspiration was the plainchant, the Dies Irae, which appears, matter-of-factly, after the sombre, Gorecki-like introduction: treading even-paced in both the opening and closing phases of the quarter-hour work. Between those passages was a less bleak evolution of the same music, horns prominent, petering out.

Sculthorpe has made explicit the ‘programme’ underlying this music. He uses the history of the collapse of Easter Island’s society and economy as a metaphor for the approaching degradation of the entire planet, faced with the reckless, comparable exploitation of finite resources.

Yet the piece lightens and the pervading elegiac tone slowly evolves with a sense of calm, offering a possible emergence from catastrophe, given intervention by rational and understanding forces. Though hardly a legitimate gloss for this performance, the notes to the Australian CD refer to echoes of another Sculthorpe piece, Sun Song, which is included on the same CD as Memento Mori.

With the Adelaide performance as a comparison, what I heard on Saturday was better, more simply beautiful and integrated in terms of balance, and in the generation of an elegiac mood as well as a lyrical quality and, in particular, more polished sounds from strings and brass.

Little Elegies
Jack Body’s Little Elegies is nearly 30 years old. Yet its vocabulary is rather more emotionally powerful and elaborate than Sculthorpe’s.

Little Elegies was commissioned by the then General Manager of the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, Peter Nisbet, for use by TVNZ to celebrate 25 years of television in New Zealand. In his programme note, Body described how he had succeeded in having the music used in an experimental video, directed by Peter Coates, that “inter-cut slow motion gestures of the conductor with what were sometimes quite harrowing topical television news clips”.

The quote in the programme was taken from words included in the Centre for New Zealand Music (SOUNZ)’s listing of the work, which included a few details omitted from the programme, such as the title of book that had inspired Body’s composition: Dith Pran’s The Killing Fields. And interestingly, SOUNZ records that, in addition to its original performance, it has been played again by the NZSO in 1994 and by the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra in 2012.

The commission and the TV programme itself of 1985 underlines the degeneration and intellectual decay of television in New Zealand in the subsequent 30 years.

Body succeeded in writing a gritty and politically hard-hitting piece that drew attention to television’s trivialisation of human tragedy, specifically the terrible events in Cambodia at the time. His note in the programme recorded his bemusement that his project was accepted, though he could not recall what, if any, response it had stimulated. Yet today, even such a suggestion for a commission would probably be met with scorn and incredulity.

Body noted that the title, ‘Little’ Elegies, referred to the insignificance of his musical statement alongside the enormity of the events he referred to.

It opened with hints of sirens, and an atmosphere of chaos was evoked by the rattle of tom-toms and thud of bass drum, as glissandi strings uttered screams of pain or anger. Gongs along with soft trombones, xylophone and marimba created an Asian scene; piano and celeste contributed surprisingly to that landscape.  The orchestration was often dense but it sounded carefully judged and I sensed that, if tackled, the composer would have given persuasive reasons for scoring each of the instruments in the sonic texture.

It was interesting to be reminded again, what an imaginative and resourceful orchestrator Body is, as I listened while writing this to some of the pieces on the newly released Naxos recording of Body’s music, reviewed by Robert Johnson in RNZ Concert’s CD review programme, midday Sunday: particularly the arias from his formidable opera for the 1998 Festival, Alley, evincing similar orchestral mastery.

So the music of the concert was interestingly linked; themes of human stupidity, either with regard to the environment or driven by political fanaticism (Sculthorpe and Body) or both of those in an undefined meditation that contemplates, ostensibly without topical significance, landscapes of loss and bleakness that afflicts the world at some times and in some places.

Composer of the Week
And Jack Body, turning 70 this year, is Composer-of-the-Week on RNZ Concert this week, the start of New Zealand Music Month.

(And you will have heard the news item on Radio New Zealand on Sunday in which popular-music critic Simon Sweetman questioned the value of this focus on New Zealand music. He is probably right regarding popular music of most kinds; but classical music does not have such an easy ride, and the Month might still be of value.

(One major step would be to improve the quality of music broadcast by National Radio, including discreet items of New Zealand ‘classical’ music; the choice of music is a serious impediment for me when I tune in to its generally excellent spoken programmes: classical music seems to be wholly banned; but neither does it seem particularly good pop music. Are all its listeners musically illiterate?).

 

Splendour and Strife from the Wellington Chamber Orchestra

Posted on by Peter Mechen

Wellington Chamber Orchestra presents:

BORODIN – Overture “Prince Igor” / BRUCH – Violin Concerto No.1 in G Minor
TCHAIKOVSKY – Symphony No.5 in E MInor Op.64

Simeon Broom (violin)
Rachel Hyde (conductor)

St Andrew’s on-the-Terrace, Wellington

Sunday 13th April

There’s something about Russian music which makes for a kind of instant combustion of attraction for the listener – it’s a combination of energy, colour, feeling and fantasy that intoxicates the senses, so that other, more abstract considerations seem irrelevant in the midst of all the excitement. And yet, when you force yourself to stop thinking “wow!” and concentrate on “how?” you find the music possesses its own logic of design and advances its own priorities with the kind of sure-footed certainty and vision that marks out great and distinctive art.

But there’s the case of this particular Russian composer whom I’m thinking about, where he was too preoccupied with his other interests and activities to actually get whole sections of his works properly completed –  what’s remarkable is that his music, as completed by his colleagues after his death, still possessed these aforementioned qualities in abundance, for goodness’s sakes! You’d be right in thinking that it’s Alexander Borodin (1833-1887) whom I’m referring to, though if you hadn’t glanced at the review’s heading you might have spared a thought for Modeste Musorgsky, another Russian composer for whom life even more seriously got in the way of music, with a number of compositions having to be “edited” after he died, a self-ravaged dipsomaniac.

One could say that the music of Borodin shares a lot of characteristics in common with that of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, fellow-composer-colleague, so that the effect of having the latter work on the former’s music for much of the time resembles the “rescue operation” activities of a kind of posthumous “alter ego”. But because Borodin’s music emerges from these rejuvenations sounding practically as much like Borodin as do the original, completed works, it suggests a uniquely-focused creative spirit was at work, one whose music with its distinctive harmonic and lyrical qualities has the mark of a genius.

So it is with the Overture to Borodin’s unfinished opera “Prince Igor” – both Rimsky-Korsakov and another composer-colleague, Alexander Glazunov completed the composer’s unfinished sketches of parts of the opera, with the latter taking on the job of reconstructing the Overture. Glazunov himself recorded that he composed the music “roughly according to Borodin’s plan”, using themes from other parts of the opera and from associated fragments. He modestly admitted that “a few bars at the very end were composed by me”, though, as with the rest of the reconstructions, the spirit of Borodin seems to shine out of every episode.

You could hear that distinctive voice immediately make its presence felt in the opening bars of the Overture which began the Wellington Chamber Orchestra’s first concert of the 2014 season. Conductor Rachel Hyde asked for and got a dark, rich sound from her players at the outset, the strings digging deep and the winds, though not perfectly in accord with their tuning, still bringing out that curious blend of splendor and plangency so characteristic of Russian music. I noticed that, for this concert, the brass and some of the percussion were brought out of the recessed altar area at the top of the steps, and into the more open performing-space, with a much more integrated, rounded-sound effect, to my untutored ears, than in previous orchestral concerts.

Though both winds and strings stumbled at the beginning of that trickily syncopated second subject melody, the playing brought out plenty of the music’s rhythmic excitement throughout – what a fine time the winds had with their “galloping” rhythms in places!  I liked, also, the antiphonal calls of the brass and the sheer “presence” of the tuba at crisis-points, sensationalist that I am!  As well, the horn solo was beautifully managed and the strings replied in kind with appropriate fervour. Despite the occasional spills one had a sense of conductor and players’ properly engaging with the music’s sheer physicality, a quality that’s needed for Russian music in particular to work its magic and properly stir the blood.

The orchestra has enjoyed collaborations with some pretty amazing concerto soloists over the years, and this concert continued in that tradition, with violinist Simeon Broom giving us the evergreen G Minor Concerto by Max Bruch, something of a “calling card” for virtuoso players. Broom has recently returned to New Zealand after ten years of study and performing in Europe to take up a place in the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra. On this showing he can certainly lay claim to considerable accomplishment as a soloist, bringing to the music here a wonderfully burnished tone and plenty of interpretative imagination – a momentary lapse of concentration during one of the double-stopped descents in the first movement a minor blip in the otherwise fluent performance flow.

I thought the orchestral support for Broom wholehearted and finely-wrought, Rachel Hyde getting on-the-spot attack from all sections and some lovely moments of collaboration with the solo violin line. Detailings such as the winds’ series of descending phrases counterpointing the solo line leading up to the “big” tutti gave particular pleasure.

The soloist’s eloquent playing of the cadenza was superbly capped off by the orchestra’s precise attack leading to the music’s gear-change into the slow movement. Broom’s lovely spinning-out of the lyrical lines here, though not absolutely note-perfect, created a lovely frisson of feeling and  and atmosphere, one which built inexorably towards the movement’s great and glorious outpouring of heart-on-sleeve emotion, a process in which conductor and orchestra played their part lyrical and nobly.

The finale was launched strongly and expectantly by the orchestra, a touch of less-than-perfect ensemble mattering not to the argument, and advanced beautifully by the soloist with some stunning upward runs. Rachel Hyde and the players held the big moments firmly and in focus, while at the same time keeping the ebb and flow of exchange with the solo instrument vibrant. The brief and exciting coda was thrown off by all concerned with great aplomb. Altogether this was a performance which gave considerable delight to we listeners.

What seemed like sterner business was afforded by the Tchaikovsky E Minor Symphony after the interval, a work whose considerable technical and interpretative demands were bravely, if not altogether easefully, tackled by the musicians. I thought the two middle movements the most successful, each featuring some skillful solo playing and some nicely dove-tailed ensemble, as well as tremendous surgings of tone and energy when required. The outer movements each had their moments, but each I felt lacked that last ounce of energy and edge in certain other places which would have suitably invigorated the music’s overall impact.

But details such as the slow movement’s tricky horn solo, and the clarinet figurations in support were beautifully done, as was a lovely “afterglow” effect at the movement’s very end, thanks to some hushed string-playing and (again) some lovely clarinet work. And in the third-movement Waltz I loved the horns’ eerie stopped tones and the wonderfully balletic string “scurryings” and other “Nutcracker-like” gestures from the winds, so characterful and colourful.

The Symphony began well, with those dark, suggestive clarinet tones so characteristic of the composer, and some deep and sonorous lower-strings support – however, despite Rachel Hyde’s suitably “energized” tempo for the allegro, the wind players seemed to let their figurations coagulate, slowing the music’s pulse down in places, to the point of dragging. Away from the step-wise rhythm, things were more animated, the strings’ marvellously expressive tune sung fervently and the brass chiming in and tightening things up when they could. But the overall pulse of the movement for me simply lacked enough underlying forward momentum to make the music work – a question not necessarily of tempo, but as much to do with accent and phrasing, and of things being kept alive and purposeful.

The “attacca” into the last movement was, however, just the job! – and, indeed, the whole of the introduction had both girth and momentum, the conductor holding things together splendidly, though the succeeding Allegro energico’s stuttering figurations and syncopated entries led a few players momentarily astray. Brass and timpani made the most of their big “motto theme” statements, pushinging the rest of the orchestra through the vortex-moments of the development section. Matters concerning ensemble did come to a head with the reprise of those stutterings and syncopations (an extended sequence, this time!), where, in the midst of the ensuing dislocations, Rachel Hyde had to very properly stop the players and start again, most resolutely at the flash-point of the troubles! But the players grasped the nettle and made the sequence work the second time through, so honour was restored.

While the symphony didn’t consistently “fire” it had its worthwhile moments – and the playing from all concerned in the other two items did both the music and the musicians proud.

 

 

Audience gives enthusiastic reception to splendid NZSO concert

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

‘Visions of Happiness’

New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Pietari Inkinen, with Mikhail Ovrutsky (violin)

Wagner: Siegfried Idyll, Op. 103
Korngold: Violin Concerto in D, Op.35
Tchaikovsky: Symphony no.4 in F minor, Op.36

Michael Fowler Centre

Saturday, 5 April 2014, 7.30pm

What better composer to open the programme than Wagner, with conductor Pietari Inkinen fresh from conducting Wagner in Europe and Australia!  However, this was very different Wagner.  The Idyll was written as a birthday present for his wife, Cosima, in 1870.  (She wrote about it in her dairy, according to the printed programme!)  Not that a full symphony orchestra performed it for her to wake up to on the day; the composer wrote it for a group of 15 musicians, and gave it a full orchestration much later.

The lines were carefully delineated in this performance of the lush, romantic music.  The delicious woodwind writing was particularly notable.  All began in a calm, unhurried manner, horns and bassoons making a marvellous foundation for the strings, as did the pizzicato double basses.

Idyllic, indeed.  The exquisite first climax led to long, quiet passages before the major climax, with its lovely horn and woodwind solo melodies.  After a little more excitement the horns first and then the strings shimmered.  Stillness returned after the opening tune was reprised.   Just before the end, the horn and flute returned; all is then peace and tranquility.

This was a wonderful rendition, even if a little slow for my taste.  All the subtleties of the writing emerged, including the typically Wagnerian chromaticism, and some gorgeous suspensions.

Erich Korngold is a composer probably more associated with film music than with symphonic music, but as well as the latter, he wrote operas.  The orchestra was slightly smaller in the string sections for the concerto, but many more brass players were added, along with percussion.  This work, along with its predecessor and successor in the programme was dedicated to a woman, we were told in the excellent pre-concert talk from Roger Smith, of Radio New Zealand Concert.  The programme notes gave the titles of films in which some of the themes were used, but stated that it is not clear if they were written first for the movies or for the concerto.

The first movement (moderato nobile) began with a romantic melody from the violin, enhanced by the beautiful tone the soloist maintained throughout the concerto.  Despite the movement’s description, I found it more colourful and romantic than noble.  There were certainly times when symptoms of film music were present. An unusual feature of the entire work was the extensive use of the celeste, played by Kirsten Simpson.  I can’t think of another composition that features the little keyboard bells so much.  Famous for its use by Tchaikovsky in his Nutcracker ballet, it makes few other major appearances.

Ovrutsky has a passionate style and great technical prowess on his instrument, but musical integrity always came first.  His mastery was exhibited frequently, especially in the first movement cadenza.

The second movement (romance – andante) gave further opportunities for the celeste, and also for the harp, accompanying another romantic melody from the soloist.  This was played with plenty of nuance, fine phrasing and subtle colouring.  Korngold gave the violinist plenty of scope – rather more than he gave to the orchestra, though the latter nevertheless had many rich colours.

The Finale was marked ‘allegro assai vivace’, and fast it certainly was.  Here was a change of character, demanding furious violin-playing, and an episode where the orchestra strings played with the wood of their bows.  A magnificent theme began with the harp and lower strings only accompanying the soloist, then the violins were added; a most effective device.  Yet more prominent celeste added to what became a cheerful and bouncy movement, with a suitably climactic ending.

What is the response to my colleague’s aphorism – more corn than gold, or more gold than corn?  Equal measures, I’d say.  However, the negative element in the remark is no reflection on the evening’s superb soloist.

As an encore, Ovrutsky played with the orchestra Massenet’s justly popular ‘Méditation’ from his opera Thaïs, most sensitively and with subtle variety.

Tchaikovsky’s splendid Fourth Symphony was indeed substantially a vision of happiness, though some of it did not realise the vision. The supreme orchestrator gave the audience much joy, even if he did not always achieve it himself.  The immense
invention in this symphony is astonishing.

The absent string players were back, and the grand opening fanfare (the fate motif) sounded out.  Unfortunately the were a few false notes from the five horns (as there had been in previous items) this first time, so that it lost some of its impact. Following the fanfare (andante sostenuto) the moderato con anima was indeed just that – very energetic. Wonderful woodwind solos, especially from the clarinet, were a major feature.  You could dance a ballet to this movement.  There is no doubt that this is the composer of Swan Lake.  Conjecture: somewhere in the Russian woods, there emerge sprites looking for some fun. But they are met by witches, who chase them away, and call up thunder and lightning to scare the little ones… Fate issues its warning again, but soon everything is peaceful, because everyone has left the scene.

It was magical to hear the woodwind interjections from different sides of the platform.  It emphasised how much better it is to hear a live performance than a recording, even given the best of Dolby stereo.  The movement’s ending was thrilling and dramatic.

The andantino second movement opens with a beautiful folk melody played on the oboe, repeated by the cellos.  It is followed by a benign and soulful string melody, that nevertheless has lighter touches.  The orchestration is full of colour, not least from the bassoon, here.

The scherzo begins entirely with pizzicato, giving a thoroughly playful mood to the music. Tchaikovsky described the movement as having the effect ‘…when one has had a little wine and feels the first glow of intoxication’.  Oboes, then flutes and piccolo end the flight of fancy with one of their own.  Horns and clarinets contribute – those sprites from the first movement must be
back.  Pizzicato returns, and all works up to a jolly ending, then bang!

Straight into the allegro con fuoco Finale, that also has a Russian folk song as a main theme.  Brass and percussion have a field day, and multiple conversations run alongside the grand theme.  There is a huge build-up of excitement – then the fate theme emerges again.

Pietari Inkinen had everything (well, almost everything!) under control.  He used no huge gestures; just a slight nod to bring in each section for its entry. This was powerful music splendidly played.  There was an ecstatic response from the usually phlegmatic Wellington audience; the conductor called on individual woodwind players to stand and acknowledge the applause.

There were numbers of guest players, including Moky Gibson-Lane, here from overseas, playing sub-principal cello.  However, there were far too many empty seats for a concert of spirited, well-played music by mighty composers.

 

NZSO with Farr’s first piano concerto plus Respighi celebrating Rome

Posted on by admin

LA DOLCE VITA

New Zealand Symphony Orchestra:  Pietari Inkinen (conductor) with Tony Lee (piano)

Respighi:
Feste Romane (Roman Festivals)
Fontane di Roma (Fountains of Rome)
Pini di Roma (Pines of Rome)
Farr:  Concerto for Piano and Orchestra

Michael Fowler Centre, Wellington

Friday 28 March, 6:30 pm

The huge Respighi tone poems in this concert were works that exhibited the fullest orchestral resources of the NZSO, expanding it beyond 100 with guest players, not to mention the further addition of the Wellington Brass Band for the finale of the Pines of Rome.  The opening Roman Festivals suite immediately opened the doors to Respighi’s wonderfully inventive orchestration, which here covers the whole gamut of colourful and dynamic possibilities. In the four movements of Circus Games, The Jubilee, October Festival and The Epiphany, Inkinen directed the orchestra with a sure hand and clear sense of control that explored the full range of the most sensitive muted strings and hushed soulful wind solos, the exhausted ecstasy of pilgrims as they finally sighted the Holy City, the wild rage of beasts in the arena punctuated by the haunting hymn of the condemned martyrs, through to the wonderful contrasting dance styles in The Epiphany. There were numerous special moments of superb playing, particularly from wind soloists, but the fading echoes of the hunting horn hovering evocatively in the night air of the October Festival particularly highlighted the most extraordinary control and musicianship of horn principal David Evans.

Gareth Farr’s Concerto for Piano and Orchestra  used much more modest orchestral resources, and was a new commission for which he provided some enlightening programme notes. “I’ve wanted to write a Piano Concerto since I was 17 – so it’s been gestating in my head for nearly 30 years……Piano Concertos have long been stereotyped as romantic, sweeping and epic. I’ve taken a hint of that on board, but for the most part I’ve focused on darker symphonic explorations. There is an ominous urgency to much of the first and third movements, while the second has an almost machine like atmosphere…..” Yet there were also many poetic moments throughout the work, starting with the shimmering pianissimo strings of the opening, and continuing through delicately shaped single lines of piano melody in the first movement, as Inkinen superbly controlled the build-up of rhythmic
complexity and orchestral texture to culminate in the “wild and diabolically virtuosic ride in 5/4”.

The second movement opened playfully with “an interlocking duet between the highest note of the piano and the highest note of the xylophone…..I certainly had a smile on my face when I wrote it” (Farr). As the repeated-note motifs passed from instrument to instrument, they were punctuated with more soulful episodes from the piano. The finale was a moto perpetuo, even more technically demanding than the first movement, with the piano part leaping all over the keyboard, and soloist and orchestra tussling in a maelstrom of highly complex syncopated and irregular rhythms. There was only a brief interlude of calm before the “long gradual build to a victorious ending”.

Throughout the work, the tonalities were approachable and seemed to grow naturally from the idioms of the writing. Percussive elements played a huge part in the creative whole, yet they were largely confined to the percussion section itself and did not threaten to dominate the effective interplay between piano and orchestral forces. This was never a solo-plus-accompaniment approach, but rather a tightly constructed dialogue between two equal voices, pianist and orchestra. The technical demands of the writing and its rhythmic complexities were nothing short of phenomenal for all players, yet there was never an instant where one felt the slightest weakening of resolution and control. The technical prowess of young Australian pianist Tony Lee, only recently graduated B.Mus. from Sydney Conservatorium, were frankly mind blowing. Gareth Farr obviously had complete confidence that every note of his vision would be impeccably realised by both soloist and NZSO, and his trust was richly rewarded. The excitement of the performance was infectious, and Farr looked overjoyed as he took stage accolades at the end and accepted bouquets from both audience and orchestra.

The second half of the concert comprised Fountains of Rome  and Pines of Rome. Again I was struck by the clarity and control of Inkinen’s direction, and the way the NZSO responded to the musical and technical demands of Respighi’s wonderfully creative and colourful orchestration. It was a thrilling moment in the finale when the lights came up on Wellington Brass in the choir stalls, and the huge resources of orchestra and band combined as “the army of the Consul bursts forth in the grandeur of the newly risen sun toward the Sacred Way, mounting in triumph the Capitoline Hill” (Respighi).

Wellington is extraordinarily privileged to be able to enjoy performances of such outstanding quality from its resident orchestra and the exceptionally skilled individuals who make their careers in it. This programme was a huge night’s play, yet their vitality and commitment was unflinching right through to the final downbeat.

Bravo!

 

Rich opportunities for NZSM Orchestra’s youthful freshness, commitment, poetry and dynamism

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Dreams and Meditations: NZSM Orchestra, conductor Kenneth Young
Jane Curry, guitar; Martin Riseley, violin; David Groves, speaker

Mendelssohn: Incidental music for A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Rodrigo: Fantasia para un Gentilhombre
Jack Body: Meditations on Michelangelo
Schubert: Symphony No 8, ‘Unfinished’

Sacred Heart Cathedral, Wellington

Tuesday 25 March, 7:30 pm

This interesting and varied programme opened with Mendelssohn’s incidental music for A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Kenneth Young set a whacking pace for the Overture but the players rose confidently to the challenge with exemplary clarity in the demanding high speed pianissimo passagework, excellent intonation, and effective balance within the orchestral forces. The phrasing and dynamics of the more poetic sections were thoughtful and musical throughout, as were those of the Nocturne, which was especially enhanced by the beautiful horn solos of guest player David Moonan. Kenneth Young had the familiar closing Wedding March blast forth in an unrelieved band-style fortissimo, relying entirely on the quieter central section for dynamic relief, which was surprising given his musical approach to shaping the dynamics of the previous movements.

Rodrigo’s Fantasia para un Gentilhombre was written for the virtuoso Spanish guitarist Andres Segovia in 1954, and is based on material by the C17th Spanish composer Gaspar Sanz. It was an ideal choice for this programme as it offered a major solo role to Jane Curry, who heads the classical guitar programme at NZSM, and a work whose wonderful orchestration particularly highlights the skills of most wind and brass players.

The Villano opened with a thoughtfulness and musicianship that remained constant as Kenneth Young guided the group through the entire work. The interweaving fugal lines of the following Ricercar were beautifully enunciated by the soloist and developed in clear and balanced interplay with the orchestra.
The low pitched theme of the Espanoleta was also well projected and poetically shaped by Jane Curry, as were its variations by both guitar and wind soloists. The following Fanfare has delicious writing for winds and trumpet in particular, who all performed with exemplary clarity, intonation and phrasing. The Danza was fresh, vigorous and spirited, and led into the Canario finale, taken at a rather sedate pace given that it has been characterized as “a fiery wooing dance” with “rapid heel-and-toe stamps”.

I was impressed throughout this work by the orchestra’s clear bright passagework and solo lines, spot-on intonation and musicianship. But I was baffled by Jane Curry’s recurring lapses and mistakes, given her exemplary proficiency on every other occasion I have heard her play. This was particularly sad for the brilliant cadenza of the finale. I could only conclude that she was either very nervous, which seemed unlikely in view of her wide performing experience, or unwell. Nevertheless I was most grateful to hear this work live, as it tends to take a back seat to Rodrigo’s better known Concierto de Aranjuez.

Jack Body’s Meditations are a setting of seven extraordinary sonnets by Michelangelo which honour male beauty and love. In these deeply moving lines the great artist pours out the anguish of his struggle between the utter conviction of his experience and the damning dictats of church dogma. Before each movement the Italian verses were read out by David Groves with a wonderful clarity and passion that poised the listener for each of Body’s Meditations.

The string ensemble writing was often spare and dissonant, by turns agitated, anguished, haunting, or contemplative, according to the mood of the text. Yet there was never a rank aftertaste, rather only the expression of grief, despair, and a longing for resolution. The solo violin part, beautifully expressed by Martin Riseley, took a pivotal role in encapsulating these moods in a single voice, as it soared above the ensemble like a condemned Lark Ascending. The setting of the sixth sonnet, which “laments the ravages of age” (Body), was particularly intense, with powerful tutti unison lines fading into spare solo string melodies which set the scene for the final stanza. This pleads for blindness, numbness, and the gift of undisturbed sleep, and the power of David Groves’ closing words “parla basso” laid a deep hush over the space. Body’s work and its musical realization that evening would have left very few unmoved.

The choice of the Unfinished Symphony to close the programme turned thoughts again to the other end of the life span. Written by the youthful Schubert and presented here by the flower of New Zealand’s aspiring young musicians, it was a fresh and enjoyable reading, displaying a good range of dynamics and tone, plenty of passion and commitment in the big tuttis, and delicate playing in the gentler parts. The contrasts were effectively expressed by consistently good wind solo work and beautifully shaped melodies from the strings.

Kenneth Young seemed to bring out the best in this orchestra, and the choice of works for this programme gave every opportunity to highlight their skills and musicianship. I look forward to hearing more from them as the year unfolds.

 

Triumphant finish to the NZSO’s ‘Five by Five’ lunchtime venture

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

New Zealand Festival: New Zealand Symphony Orchestra conducted by Hamish McKeich

Shostakovich: Symphony No 5 in D minor, Op 47

Michael Fowler Centre

Thursday 13 March 12:30 pm

To programme some of the weightiest pieces of orchestral music at lunchtime might have seemed strange behaviour. Were the festival’s and the orchestra’s managements not alert to the usual view that noon-time music should be light and easy?

This last of the Five by Five symphonies played at lunchtime concerts by the NZSO attracted a smaller audience than the other two I heard; I think that might be because Shostakovich seems not yet to be, in New Zealand, a major figure in the classical music pantheon.

Yet the three concerts I attended and reports of the other two prove the great success of the venture.

There is still a tendency to hear this fifth symphony of Shostakovich as the work of a reformed Communist disciple, who really meant what he wrote to appease the authorities in his note accompanying the score, and to treat the evidence of his horror of the regime, revealed by Solomon Volkov and many others, as a bit dubious.

The music I heard, under the impassioned direction of Hamish McKeich, spoke, in the first three movements, of an unease, of watchfulness, of fear of the 4am knock on the door; those bassoons early in the first movement uttered an ominous, flat-footed, unadorned chill. The sound was brown as in fascist shirts. There was minimal vibrato, and that tight little three-note motif: what other than disquiet, the fear of political criticism, could that portend? Sure, there are moments of sunshine and peacefulness, with the piano episode, the horns and the trumpets, but then terror returns with the side drum and xylophone with their triplet quavers.

With the thudding of basses and cellos there is no change in the political mood in the Allegretto. And though outward gaiety might be suggested at moments, the livelier tempo still sounds to me, in the dark and powerful interpretation we heard under McKeich, as if even signs of happiness and lighthearted behaviour are under surveillance.

In the great, suspenseful, Largo third movement the air of watchfulness remains with the tremolo violins and the dramatic impact of the tight, shrill oboe; and later, screaming strings, and the slow, ringing single notes of the harp, so beautifully articulated yet so full of unease. Nevertheless, the final major chord seems to be the composer’s determination to find humanity in all this.

I was gripped by this great performance which allowed, I thought, no mistaking of Shostakovich’s situation in the midst of the purges that had begun by 1937; while struggling to express a forced gaiety that would deceive the musical commissars, the last movement was still a matter of peering into a bleak future.

Often, attempts to infuse music, or the arts generally, with an extraneous context fails to create a coherent work of art, as non-musical emotions take charge, overwhelming the aesthetic character and its ability to move the listener. Yet there are plenty of successful examples, from the very earliest times: religious music can be considered a major case in point. Religion presents few conflicts of course as the emotions engaged by religion and by the arts have some common ground. But battle scenes and deaths and all kinds of tragic human experiences have commonly been used as sources of musical inspiration; unless handled with genius, they can be a burden that wrecks the musical element.

This symphony is a case of a genius at work, as the emotions have been transmuted so successfully into a musical fabric, and the performance itself was driven with full awareness of and attention to the symphony’s powerful musical character.

Once again, this was a heroic and committed performance that demonstrated the strength and responsiveness of the orchestra to such dynamic and clear-sighted leadership.

Finally it needs to be noted that the five symphonies were conducted by former members, wind instrument players, of the NZSO who have achieved international reputations, and whose magnificent showings here prove their credentials in the mainstream repertoire.