Tag: orchestral

Wellington Youth Orchestra take on Verdi, Grieg and Tchaikovsky

Posted on by Peter Mechen

A GLORIOUSLY UNINHIBITED CONCERT EXPERIENCE

Wellington Youth Orchestra
Music by Verdi, Grieg and Tchaikovsky

VERDI – Overture “Nabucco”
GRIEG – 4 Norwegian Dances
TCHAIKOVSKY – Symphony No.5 in E Minor

Mark Carter (conductor)
Wellington Youth Orchestra

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

Sunday, 30th April, 2023

St. Andrew’s-on-the-Terrace was positively burgeoning with people on this holiday afternoon, all bent on celebrating what was the final day of April. The auditorium was jam-packed full, and bristling with excitement and expectation as well as sporting what seemed like a forest of violin bows brandished by seated uniformed platoons of fresh-faced youngsters, affiliated with similarly attired groups sporting wooden and metal whistles, and backed up by others carrying  gleaming brass bells with tubes attached or standing next to pairs and trios of sizeable rounded objects that straightaway invited banging and crashing together.

In fact the orchestra (which was what this assemblage was) seemed to take up at least half the auditorium’s floor-space, a prospect which seemed very likely to involve at some particular stage a right royal welter of assorted sound! One presumed that attendance at such a farrago would certainly not be for the faint-hearted!

Such was the bustling scene that any Sunday afternoon passer-by would have encountered. who might have  looked into the church to see what was going on!  Posters displayed on the street outside would  have given people in the “know” more clues as to what was brewing within, and especially as the name “Tchaikovsky” dominated what seemed a tantalisingly lurid seascape image which most excitingly took up the whole of the display. And once tempted through the doors of St.Andrew’s the casual visitor would have then been irresistibly drawn into the  ferment, with no possible chance of having second thoughts regarding the adventure, or of resisting the ready blandishments  and associated excitements being primed for tumultuous action!

Of course, for me it was at first simply another concert to add to the cache of my own musical experiences – and with all the things I’d seen and heard since arriving at that oft-visited church on Wellington’s The Terrace, part of the by-now-familiar fabric of preparation for music-making. And yet, from the time I’d ascended the church steps and eased my way through the entrance portals and into the auditorium, I’d again caught that whiff of excitement in my nostrils that can still, even on the ultra-umpteenth concert occasion, stimulate one’s interest – and the hubbub of the things I’ve already described upon arriving certainly did it for me again this time round.

Although the name of Tchaikovsky dominated the bill of fare, no less interest was generated by the supporting items from the equally illustrious pens of Verdi and Grieg – each as well being striking examples of orchestra virtuosity and of sounds characteristic of its respective composer. I hadn’t actually heard Verdi’s “Nabucco” Overture for some time, never having seen the opera on the stage, though the music brought back many recollections of my youthful tourings as a beginner actor in a children’s theatre troupe, our play using a recording of the very same overture! – excellently vivid, impactful sounds which, thanks to the composer’s irrepressible native theatrical instincts, have stayed vividly in my memory.

So it was, from the first solemn utterances of the brass chorale that opened the work, an evocation of magic from trombones and tuba, the sounds beautifully-rounded and splendidly-finished – and the characteristic, theatrical Verdian outburst from the entire orchestra that followed, stunning in its impact and setting the theatrical tone for the rest of the work. I was impressed with the response of  the players to their conductor Mark Carter’s insistence upon razor-sharp orchestral attack and beautifully graded dynamics, bringing out the composer’s native theatrical instincts, and preparing the way for our first taste of the famous melody “Va pensiero”, which was to bring the composer such lasting fame in its choral version from later in the opera. Time and again throughout the piece a particular orchestral detail in the playing from these youthful musicians made me prick my ears, such as the delightfully insouciant wind episode which lightened the wound-up tensions of the martial-sounding allegro, the nail-biting crescendo which then followed, and the “caution-thrown-to-the-winds” coda of the work, which left us all breathless with exhilaration at its conclusion.

Where Verdi’s music was innately theatrical and dramatic, Grieg’s was, by contrast, redolent with folkish charm and out-of-doors exhilaration, the Four Norwegian Dances positively exuding a bracing northern outlook – by turns each one bewitches and invigorates the senses with its specific evocation of time and place. Yet Grieg in his own music was never content to merely copy his country’s traditional melodies and rhythms, wanting to convey to a wider world these characteristics by echoing them in his own music. Though these Dances are all derived from Norwegian folk-tunes, he invested them with his very own harmonic brands (whose strains were to subsequently inspire Debussy, Ravel and Delius in their music) and similarly flavoured the native dance rhythms the composer so loved with the same piquancies and contrasts of mood and atmosphere. Written in 1881 first of all for piano four-hands by Grieg, the set of Dances has become more widely-known through their orchestral version, made in 1888 by the distinguished Czech violinist, Hans Sitt, and presumably used here.

Surprisingly, the players sounded to my ears at first slightly less comfortable with Grieg’s more bucolic measures than they had done with Verdi’s tight-as-a-drum rhythmic patterns, the opening of the first Dance seeming a shade “drunken” rather than spot-on with the rhythms, as if the dancers had helped themselves too freely to the Aquivit before the band struck up – but all seemed well by the time the music’s gorgeous trio section was reached, some beautiful oboe playing alternating with heart-on-sleeve string responses. And I had no reservations whatever with the Second Dance, utterly entranced as I was by the performance here of one of the world’s most charming melodies, again on the oboe (principal David Liu thoroughly deserving a mention!) and then just as beguilingly on the strings. I wasn’t prepared for the extent to which conductor Mark Carter put his foot down for the Trio section, but the fast and furious response by the players was brilliantly achieved! – making, of course, the reprise of the opening all the more “lump-in-throat” than before!

After which the Third Dance might well have made many people like myself get up and actually begin dancing, with the winds right on form and the strings and brasses even having a friendly rhythmic “tussle” at one point during their replies. In this Dance’s Trio, too,  I could hear instances of Grieg’s chromatic harmonisings of the kind that Delius obviously admired and would “echo” in his own music. The Fourth Dance seemed, at the outset, as it was going to pre-date its more sophisticated cousin-to-be, the Fourth Symphonic Dance in the later Op.64 set of Dances – more portentous than any so far at the outset, and threatening to maintain the ominous mood throughout (with even Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony’s introduction briefly echoed) – but then, with a few enlivening gestures, the dance spirit was reactivated and the music “ready!-steadied” into life once more, though the accompaniments here were interestingly enough the “darkest” of any throughout the set. On this occasion, too,  the Trio sounded especially melancholy, becoming a kind of miniature tone-poem of contrasting mood, with strings and brasses darkly accompanying first the oboe and then the flute, before further intensifying the melancholy mood (wonderfully black-browed brass and timpani here, almost Wagnerian in effect!) – then, suddenly, the dance broke in again, as before. This time, there was a gorgeous “We’ll see you again sometime” kind of coda, with flutes and horn making “farewell” exchanges, before the music suddenly erupted with energy and stormed to a brilliantly abrupt finish!

A short interval later and we were ready for the Tchaikovsky, his Fifth Symphony being the most classically-conceived of the composer’s three numbered later symphonies, though still imbued with plenty of characteristic late-romantic feeling – as this performance was to demonstrate with considerable elan. The orchestral masses having suitably regrouped, we were off, straightaway plunged into melancholy with superbly delivered clarinet phrases underpinned by dark-toned strings, intoning the work’s hauntingly sombre “motto theme”.

Conductor Mark Carter gave his players enough room to maintain a portentous march-tread for the Allegro con anima  opening theme while  keeping the music’s energies active in the rippling wind counterpoints to the theme, and to all of its various adaptations, such as the strings’ and then the winds’ beautiful rising variant, followed by the winds’ perky repeated fanfare call. The only difficulty for the strings came with the equally gorgeous but trickily syncopated second subject, whose rhythm pattern the players repeatedly anticipated, pushing it ahead of the accompaniments – however, the repeated fanfare figures on full orchestra fortunately restored order, with the horns and winds reliable in their turn.

Carter had obviously worked the players meticulously through the tricky rhythmic dovetailings of the development, so that the few strands that unravelled were easily pulled into place once more, the players achieving a fine cataclysmic ferment of interaction at the climax before the sounds gradually wound themselves back into the recapitulated allegro con anima, the winds doing the honours at first with distinction before the strings strode into the picture once again. The same problem of the strings’ syncopated melody recurred, but things were again righted by that same repeated fanfare figure of yore, which then led excitingly and defiantly to the movement’s coda – at the ferment’s zenith-point Carter gave his players extra elbow-room to hurl out the phrases expansively, before allowing the music to subside into a kind of brooding silence.

One of Tchaikovsky’s greatest symphonic slow movements followed, on its own terms a lyrical drama with a central episode leading to a magnificent motto-theme-led climax (that same motto theme makes an unscheduled return towards the movement’s end as well, which gives the drama extra “clout”) – but all the greater as a central part of an overall symphonic plan with each of its unifying strands fully activated. The scope of this review doesn’t permit a full description, but allows tribute to be paid to the conductor and players in this case who breathed life into every aspect of the structure – the darkly ample strings at the beginning, the magnificently-realised horn solo (played by principal Isabelle Faulkner) featuring the first of the themes that unify this movement, the oboe/horn duet that sounds the second and most-repeated theme, and the clarinet theme (played by Joseph Craggs, and backed up by Maya Elmes’ bassoon) that dominates the movement’s central episode until the motto theme’s reappearance blows it all out of the water. I felt in general that we got the best playing in the whole work from this movement, both with the soloists involved in the different themes and with the orchestra as a whole superbly committed towards expressing the different character of each of the sections.

Another concerted effort from the players was in the ballet-like Waltz movement which followed, one demanding particularly adroit instrumental counterpointing from both the different string sections and  a number of soloists, particularly the winds, all of whom performed like heroes, including the flute principal, Keeson Perkins-Treacher, and, as well, the trumpet principal, Lewis Grey, whose notes I clearly and cleanly heard at salient points.

Having already remarked that I thought the Symphony’s second movement contained the work’s best playing on the part of the WYO, I must confess that I can’t anywhere in my notes find reference to any mishap, failing or inadequacy in the orchestra’s full-blooded tackling of the work’s finale. Beginning with the words – “Finale – attacca!” I proceeded to nail my critical colours to my private mast (my notebook), and generally wax lyrical! – viz. “Splendid at the outset – brass forthright and confident, and winds the same! – the climax to the Intro is worked up well! The brass subsequently sonorous and oracular in their pronouncements!” That, of course, was the slow introduction….

Then came the allegro vivace (alla breve) – “Strings and chattering winds and brass do excellently well through the allegro’s opening charge! Winds are lovely and sonorous….strings also keep the melody buoyant! Brass resound the Motto splendidly! Winds give us plenty of swirling detail – the stamping theme is magnificent, underpinned by the timpani! Brass calls really nail the essential tumult, Winds and strings lean into the “Russian Dance: episode – the music gradually becalms, conductor holding the players nicely in check until the explosion restarts the conflagration….”

So far, so good! – the reprise of part of the finale elicited a comment, “Again the orchestra handles it all well – as before,  strings are fantastic! The brass and winds support the tumult! – the music rushes airborne towards the motto theme!”

Then came the Apotheosis – “Triumphal homecoming, great and heartwarming! Everybody playing their hearts out! What a coda! Mark is keeping it splendidly on the rails! Majestic right at the end!” And that was it! – a glorious and celebratory occasion! (I obviously knowed no more that afternoon!)

With those final in situ comments I rest my case! Well played, WYO!!

 

Magnificent Endurance

Posted on by Anne French

NZSO – Enduring Spirit: Bloch and Shostakovich

Aaron Jay KERNIS (1960–), Musica Celestis
Ernest BLOCH – Schelomo
Dmitri SHOSTAKOVICH – Symphony NO 10 in E Minor, Op. 93

Nicolas Altstaedt, cello
Sir Donald Runnicles, Conductor
New Zealand Symphony Orchestra

Michael Fowler Centre, Wellington

Friday 28 April 2023

This was always going to be a big concert, with Shostakovich 10 programmed alongside Bloch’s remarkable work Schelomo. It was also contrabassoonist David Angus’s last concert with the NZSO, after 42 years with the orchestra, so it was fortunate that he had plenty to do.

The Kernis work was unknown to me. The affable Runnicles, who spent several minutes briefing us in, was surprised that Kernis and his music were unknown to most of us.  Musica Celestis means ‘music of heaven’, and the programme notes made references to the music of the mystical Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179) and to Barber’s Adagio for Strings. Runnicles described it as ‘mystical, medieval, magical, and modern’. It’s an attractive work, which began life as the slow second movement of Kernis’s String Quartet (1990), and was later re-scored for string orchestra. We got the full-fruit string orchestra version (eight desks of first violins, including Co-Concertmaster Giulia Brinckmeier, who took Vesa-Matti Leppanen’s chair for the first half of the programme).

Having sung some of Hildegard’s works, I’d have to say that, despite its grace, it did not remind me of her or her soundworld. It opened with the faintest hint of modal tonality and long, slow chords with a rather glittering tone, but apart from a very slow start that builds to a passionate, flowing crescendo, with a full-throated, warm orchestral sound, I failed to spot Hildegard or indeed anything remotely medieval. The next section was based on a single low note from the basses (‘almost RVW’, say my notes), via tremolo strings, and then silence, from which ultimately emerges a beautiful melody on the viola. The melody is passed to the first violin to complete, and the work draws to a graceful close.

The second work on the programme was Bloch’s remarkable Schelomo, for solo cello and orchestra. Before the concert started, Runnicles passed the microphone to the cello soloist, Nicolas Altstaedt, who told us something about the circumstances of composition of the work, the last movement of Bloch’s Jewish Cycle. He originally conceived the work as a setting of texts from Ecclesiastes for voice, but after meeting the cellist Alexandre Barjansky, Bloch decided to use the cello to represent the voice of King Solomon. Barjansky’s cello, Alstaedt told us with some excitement, was now in the possession of a local musician, Rolf Gjelsten, from the New Zealand String Quartet – something he had learned only the day before. (I understand that Gjelster and Altstaedt met backstage during the interval, so that the soloist could make the acquaintance of the very instrument that had inspired the composer.)

The work is scored for a large orchestra: three flutes, two oboes, cor anglais, two B flat clarinets, bass clarinet, two bassoons, contrabassoon, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, tambourine, snare drum, bass drum, cymbals, tam tam, celesta, two harps, and full strings. In this case, there were 8 desks of first violins, 7 desks of seconds, 6 desks of violas (including Guest Section Principal Caroline Henbest), 5 desks of cellos (led by Pei-Jee Ng, Guest Section Principal and an old friend of the cello soloist, and Pei-Sian Ng, Guest Associate Principal), and no fewer than 8 basses. Bloch would have been delighted with these forces.

I have heard the Bloch work before, and it is always deeply moving, but I have never heard it played as Nicolas Altstaedt played it. It was as though he had a direct connection to the composer. There was no sense of ‘performing’; rather, it was as though these painful, moving passages of music were being drawn directly from Bloch, through the cello, directly to our ears.  Bloch said that in composing it he ‘listened to an inner voice, deep, secret, insistent, ardent…’, and that is exactly how we received it.  It was a privilege to listen to such a powerful work so well played.

And after all the applause, there was an encore. I am no lover of encores. I would rather hold the work in my heart for a little longer than have it over-written by some short crowd-pleaser. In this case, I wasn’t too perturbed. Nicolas Altstaedt decided to give us a movement from a sonata by Jean-Baptiste Barrière (1707-1747), a renowned French Baroque cellist, which he played as a duet with Pei-Jee Ng, the Guest First Chair of the cello section. It was delightful.

The last work on the programme was Shostakovich’s Tenth Symphony. After the emotional depth of the Bloch, I hardly felt fit enough to listen to it. It is a monumental work at 52 minutes. There is a huge first movement; a terrifying second movement (the demonic portrait of Stalin, who had died only months before it was premièred); the beautiful and hopeful third movement, featuring the D-E flat-C-B motif that indicates Shostakovich’s name (D  SCH, in German notation), a waltz, and a beautiful horn motif; and the dancing and ultimately triumphant final movement.

The orchestra rose magnificently to the challenge of the music. At times Runnicles stopped conducting, simply allowing the solos to unfold. There were wonderful solos from Robert Orr (oboe), Michael Austin (cor anglais), Sam Jacobs (horn), Bridget Douglas (flute), Johanna Gruskin (piccolo), Rachel Vernon (bass clarinet) – and, of course, the estimable David Angus on contrabassoon.  This was the perfect repertoire to round off his NZSO career.  The percussionists were terrific, notably the sinister side drum, which adds such menace to the mirthless Stalin music, and there was some truly memorable tam tam playing. At other times, especially in the 3/4 passages, the conductor nearly jumped off the podium as he danced along with the music.

I had the feeling that the orchestra was enjoying working with Sir Donald Runnicles. He is an understated conductor (compared with, say, Gemma New, who has directions to give for every bar, and gives them in a very expressive manner). But he achieved some wonderful effects.  This was a magnificent and very moving concert.

As a footnote, there is a charming interview with David Angus on RNZ Concert. Bryan Crump (the Afternoons presenter) visits him in the workshop in which he machines parts for his motorcycles as well as fettling various bassoons and contrabassoons. The interview ends with Angus riding off into the sunset. It can be found here: https://www.rnz.co.nz/concert/programmes/three-to-seven/audio/2018887086/the-lowdown-on-dave-angus

 

Fundamentally thrilling – Orchestra Wellington

Posted on by Anne French

Orchestra Wellington – Fundamental Forces

Carl Philipp Emanuel BACH – Symphony in E Minor
Igor STRAVINSKY – Violin Concerto in D
Josef HAYDN – Symphony No 39 in G Minor, ‘Tempesta di Mare’
Sergei PROKOFIEV – Scythian Suite

Natalia Lomeiko, Violin
Orchestra Wellington
Marc Taddei, Music Director
Michael Fowler Centre, Wellington

Saturday 15th April, 2023

The concert was billed as ‘Fundamental Forces’, but the disparate collection of works confused me. What could a symphony by CPE Bach possibly have to do with an early work based on a ballet by Prokofiev?

Having missed the pre-concert talk, I was none the wiser by the time the small orchestra (2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 horns, plus strings, with Jonathan Berkahn on harpsichord) took the stage. The stage had already been set for a much larger work, with percussion stations at the back of the orchestra for 8 percussionists, and three sets of cymbals at the front of the choir stalls.  The little orchestra was surrounded by many empty chairs. That kindled a feeling of anticipation.

My companion (who had attended the talk) helpfully whispered in my ear that the programme was ‘all about the beginning of emotionalism in music’.

The CPE Bach symphony was a delightful work, stylishly played. On the basis of his work with Wellington Youth Orchestra (2002-2007), I had always considered Marc Taddei a late Romantic specialist, preferring Mahler to pretty much everyone else. His work with Orchestra Wellington has made me review that opinion.

Although the orchestra used modern instruments at concert pitch, Taddei had his head in the period, the last days of the Baroque, when new ideas were exerting their influence. Taddei’s programme notes quoted Mozart: ‘Bach is the father; we are the children’, and explained that Mozart was not referring to the great JS Bach, but his second son, Carl Philipp Emanuel (1714-1788). The symphony was written in 1759, nearly a decade after the death of Bach père, and already you could hear ideas and approaches that the three-year old Mozart would later make his own. The symphony is in three movements, lasting 12 minutes, which simply made me wish it had been longer. According to Taddei’s notes, Bach fils used to say, ‘Play and compose from the soul!’ His aesthetic approach came to be known as the ‘Sensitive Style’. This symphony has plenty of musical ideas and is full of terrific effects, such as abrupt changes of dynamic within a big dynamic range, and the most alluring hesitations, when everyone stops playing, then suddenly resumes with the next set of brilliant notions.

The second work in the first half was Stravinsky’s Violin Concerto in D of 1931, with a big orchestra and the Russian violinist Natalia Lomeiko as soloist.  Born in Novosibirsk, Lomeiko made her debut with the Novosibirsk Philharmonic Orchestra at the age of seven, and was appointed Professor of Violin at the Royal College of Music in London in 2010 (surely whilst still a child, as she looks about 25). She won the Michael Hill International Violin Competition in 2003 and the Premio Paganini in 2000. The Paganini is one of the most important violin competitions in the world. My high expectations climbed higher when my violinist companion whispered that Stravinsky was not a violinist, and didn’t realise that the opening chords of the concerto were unplayable. ‘Watch her left hand!’ he said.

I watched her left hand, but even knowing that Stravinsky had created a remarkably tricky chord, stretching two and a half octaves, from D4 to E5 and (yikes) up to A6 did not detract from its effect. Stravinsky had been commissioned to write the concerto for the Polish violinist Samuel Dushkin. Dushkin, so the story goes, recoiled in horror at the sight of the chord when Stravinsky wrote it on a napkin over lunch but found, once he tried it at home, that it wasn’t quite as hard as he thought. Just as well: Stravinsky called the chord the ‘passport to the concerto’, and used it to start each of the four movements.

The concerto is scored for full wind (piccolo, 2 flutes, 3 clarinets, 2 oboes, cor anglais) and brass sections (3 bassoons plus contrabassoon; 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, and tuba), as well as timpani and bass drum. Not surprisingly, it was noisy at times, and the gorgeous sound of the solo violin was a bit overwhelmed. (Indeed, I overheard a confident remark on the stairs on my way out that it was ‘under-powered and unimpressive’.)  I disagree – the orchestral texture was at times as lush as you’d expect from that line-up, but was mostly kept thin so that the violin’s presence was heard. That thinness, together with the rhythms, gave it a wonderful vitality. There was some stunning bassoon playing from principal Jessica Goldbaum and colleagues, and lovely clarinet solos from Nick Walshe and team on B flat, A, and E flat clarinets. The work is full of surprises: rhythmic; harmonic; textural. I especially enjoyed the audience’s reaction of surprise at the end of the second movement: a collective, involuntary ‘Oh!’ Once again, at 22 minutes, it was all too short. I could have listened to it all over again. But no. Instead the soloist played a movement from a Bach partita as an encore, as emotionally rich a reading as anyone could wish. What a player!

After the interval, a second pair of works. This time, an early Prokofiev work was paired with (or introduced by) Haydn’s Symphony 39, ‘Tempesta di Mare’. The Esterhazy orchestra, for whom it was written in 1765 (a couple of years after the CPE Bach symphony), was big enough to run to two oboes and four horns, which made the tempestuous first and fourth movements lots of fun. This was one of Haydn’s Sturm und Drang (‘storm and stress’) symphonies, a precursor of Romanticism. Again, interesting and unexpected harmonies, clean rhythms, and a wide dynamic range. The opening movement was busy and energetic, but with odd silences – as though the wind was building, but with sudden lulls. The Andante second movement, E flat minor and in 3/8, was delightful. No horns or oboes, but full of expressive pauses. The Menuet and Trio were in contrasting minor and major keys, with gorgeous accents from the horns and lower strings. and charming duets in the Trio between horns and oboes. Back to a 4/4 allegro molto for the Finale – fun and fast and all too short at 16 minutes.

Finally, the moment the percussionists had been waiting for: the Prokofiev Scythian Suite. The work was commissioned in 1914 as a ballet ‘on prehistoric Russian themes’ by the impresario Diaghilev from the 23-year-old Prokofiev, fresh out of the St Petersburg Conservatory. Prokofiev was then known for his dissonant works for piano, impossible to play by anyone but him.  But Diaghilev didn’t like what Prokofiev wrote, so he turned it into a suite instead, retaining the blood lust, demonism, and ritual sacrifice.

The scoring for this work included 8 horns, as well as the aforementioned 8 percussionists, contrabassoon, bass trombone, tuba, lots of trombones and trumpets, and two harps. It must cost a fortune in extra players which accounts, perhaps, for its not being performed very often. That is a huge pity. I’d rather hear the Scythian Suite again than another Rite of Spring or even another Firebird.

The work opens at an electrifying fff (it has to be said that Taddei literally ran to the podium, as though he needed to catch the orchestra before they took off, which added to the drama), and doesn’t let up until all the cymbals and every other bit of percussion kit have been played, very loudly. That’s not to say it lacks beauty. The third movement, ‘Night’, featured shimmering muted strings, tuned percussion, and ravishing harp chords. But if (as I do) you like loud, rhythmically exciting music with lots of unexpected effects, then this work is for you. It’s only 20 minutes long, which meant that it stopped all too soon.

So there you have it. A fantastic concert made up of unusual works tied together by an interesting idea. The audience applauded with gusto. The subscribers do love Taddei and his extraordinary programming. I walked out into the night with a big grin on my face , as did – I noticed – most of the performers.

Mirror of the World – Gustav Mahler’s Third Symphony in Wellington

Posted on by Peter Mechen

Gustav MAHLER – Symphony No. 3 in D Minor
Robert WIREMU – Waiata “Tahuri koe ki te maunga teitei”

Sasha Cooke (mezzo-soprano)
Wellington Young Voices & Choristers of Wellington Cathedral of St Paul Children’s Choir
Voices New Zealand Chamber Choir
Karen Grylls and Robert Wiremu (chorus directors)
New Zealand Symphony Orchestra
Gemma New (conductor)
Michael Fowler Centre, Wellington

Friday, 31st March 2023

“Symphony is like the world – it should contain everything!” – words spoken by Gustav Mahler during a famous encounter in Helsinki in 1907 with his near-contemporary, the Finnish symphonist Jean Sibelius. The idea of what constituted a “symphony” had brought forth vastly different responses from both men, Sibelius having declared his attraction to the “severity” and “profound logic” of symphonic writing (though he had, in fact, only just freed himself from a Tchaikovskian kind of romantic utterance evident throughout his first two symphonies). Mahler, by comparison, had hit the ground running as a symphonist with his idea of the form representing an expansionist, all-encompassing kind of aesthetic expression.

This “world view” of Mahler’s had been evident in each one of the eight symphonies he had thus far completed – and it was the massive Third Symphony of 1896 which to this day seems to be the most unequivocal expression of this philosophy (averaging about 1hr. 45m. in performance, it’s the longest in duration of all Mahler’s symphonies). While working on this piece twelve years before his conversation with Sibelius, Mahler had remarked to a friend that “to call it a symphony is really incorrect, as it does not follow the usual form – to me,  the term “symphony” means creating a world with all the technical means available”.

The composer had originally attached a programme giving each of the six movements separate titles underlining the work’s ultra-pantheist vision, the details of which he eventually suppressed before the work’s first performance, but which still appear in various subsequent programme notes (as was the case here)  – Mahler tended to draw back from his frequent initial euphoria regarding any such programme attached to a work, commenting in a note to a critic on this occasion, that “no music is worth anything if you first have to tell the listener what lies behind it…….what he is supposed to experience in it – you just have to bring along ears and a heart and – not least – willingly surrender to the rhapsodist!”. While I heartily agree in general terms, I still can’t in this instance resist the fascination of reproducing (again!) the composer’s underlying thoughts regarding the music…….

Mvt. 1  Pan Awakes, Summer Marches In
Mvt. 2  What the Flowers in the Meadow Tell Me
Mvt. 3  What the Animals in the Forest Tell Me
Mvt. 4  What Man Tells Me
Mvt. 5  What the Angels Tell Me
Mvt. 6. What Love Tells Me

Mahler in fact at first planned a seventh movement (“What the Child Tells Me”), but instead reworked the material as the finale of his Fourth Symphony, further underlining the connections and cross-references that especially abound in his first Four Symphonies, particularly with his use of either words or melodic settings of the same taken from the German folk-poem collection Das Knaben Wunderhorn which had appeared in the early 1800s. The work’s fifth movement “What the Angels Tell Me” uses one of these Das Knaben Wunderhorn poems ,”Es sungen drei Engel” (Three Angels sang), while the previous movement “What Man Tells Me” uses a text from  Friedrich Nietzsche‘s Also sprach Zarathustra, ”O Mensch! Gib Acht!” (O Man! – take heed!).

Interestingly, we were treated on this occasion to a similar kind of “seventh movement” as a prelude to the symphony, a waiata, written by Voices NZ Artistic Advisor Robert Wiremu especially for this particular concert, and performed by the different choirs, conducted by Karen Grylls. The waiata’s melodic lines drew from different impulses and resonances in Mahler’s work, a fast rhythmic  counterpoint set against a floating choral, the words delineating whakapapa –  maunga, awa, moana – and equating with the latter composer’s salutations via the symphony’s opening theme to the famous flowing melody of Brahms’ finale to his First Symphony.

It now seems a far cry from the days when Mahler’s music was generally not regarded favourably, and needed the advocacy of people like John Hopkins here in this country, who in 1959 had to put up with opposition (“this boring music”) from the Broadcasting Service Directorship to what was the first National Orchestra performance of a Mahler Symphony (No.4 in G). Hopkins staunchly persisted and Mahler’s music came through, with others such as Uri Segal, Franz-Paul Decker, and more recently Pietari Inkinen and Edo de Waart securely establishing the NZSO’s credentials across all of the composer’s completed symphonies as a “Mahler orchestra”.

Having witnessed some of these earlier ventures (my list by no means an exhaustive one!) and being able to readily recall the impact made by a number of these performances, I was delighted that Gemma New chose such a quintessential work in the orchestra’s recent history with which to mark her concert tenure’s beginning as the NZSO Principal Conductor. Franz-Paul Decker’s was, I think, the first Mahler Sixth I heard live, underlining for me the ironic twist of New’s stunning achievement here with the same orchestra and music when set against the memory of Decker’s by now historic comment that he found women conductors “aesthetically unpleasing”!

All part of the on-going ebb and waft of impression, opinion and reaction among people, a process to which New herself has appeared more than equable in the interviews with her I’ve read. Her concern seems, first and foremost, the music – and here she’s certainly at one with the composer, who, in one of my all-time favourite anecdotes concerning his aforementioned all-embracing world vision, once went as far as admonishing the young Bruno Walter, who was visiting him at Steinbach, Upper Austria at the time of the symphony’s composition, for looking around at the alpine scenery! – with the words, “Don’t bother looking up there – it’s already all been composed by me!”

For Mahler at the time of writing, it had “almost ceased to be music…..hardly anything but the sounds of nature”. New and the orchestra wholeheartedly plunged themselves into this awe-inspiring world right from the work’s beginning, with the silences as baleful as the upheavals of sound. I was particularly taken here with the ferocity of the ‘cellos’ attack in their upward-rushing figures, seeming to burst out of the louring gloom created by the brass’s and percussions’ elemental tread (with David Bremner’s sonorous trombone playing simply a voice for the ages!).Throughout the epic of the opening movement’s unfolding came these incredible releases of energy, by turns soulful, playful, jaunty and menacing – a world that “contains everything”, as Mahler told Sibelius that day – before driving inevitably towards a joyfully unbuttoned, almost savage frenzy of exhilaration at the movement’s end – no wonder the MFC audience were, despite convention, transported to spontaneous applause in response!

After the orgiastic energies of the Symphony’s First Part we enjoyed the relatively limpid lyricism of the second movement’s opening, oboe and strings here creating a “woods-and-fields” world of dream-like  interaction, whimsically enlivened by rhythmic and dynamic contrasts which brought the nature-world to pulsating life, all most evocatively shaped by New and her players. The third movement was begun just as innocently, though in a more playfully evocative way at the outset with  impulses and gestures associated with the animal kingdom characterised most bewitchingly by the musicians, winds and muted trumpets leading to various rumbustious activities.  How diverting and magical, then, was the “posthorn” sound ringing out from the distance (trumpeter Michael Kirgan doing his thing evocatively and near-faultlessly off-stage) – perhaps a fateful impinging by man on the natural world? A second posthorn call was followed by a sudden “cry of anguish” (humankind identified by nature as a threat?) before a kind of desperate rumbustication brought the movement’s curtain down.

Almost as enigmatic as the materialisation of the Earth-Mother Erda in Wagner’s “Das Rheingold” was mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke’s appearance ( strikingly clad in silver) during those last few precipitate bars of the previous movement,  ready to intone Friedrich Nietzsche’s “Midnight Song” from Also Sprach Zarathustra – one felt completely “drawn into” the mystical beauty of it all, as singer and players unerringly placed their tones into the firmament of those strangely vast spaces. What an array of sounds! Such distilled beauty in places such as with “Die Welt ist tief” (The world is deep”) from both voice and instruments, in particular the horns (led by Sam Jacobs) and the winds (led by Robert Orr) – and then, for me, a “lump-in-throat” archway of vocal loveliness from Sasha Cooke, at the words “Doch all’ Lust will Ewigkeit…” (But all joy sings eternity…) – a glorious moment!

If such beauties weren’t disarming enough, the subsequent movement “What the Angels Tell Me” featuring both soloist and the different choirs put the music’s enchantment beyond all doubt, as the sounds from those voices drew our listeners’ sensibilities skywards and into the celestial regions – the teamwork between the different groups of voices, the soloist and the orchestra was exemplary, and those “bimm!-bomm!s” with which the work finished kept resounding in this listener’s mind’s ear long after the concert was concluded.

How perfectly natural and unassuming it was for the singers, soloist included, to quietly sit down even while Gemma New was signalling to the orchestra to begin the great adagio movement which concluded the work (Decker had, I remembered, kept the choir members standing right to the symphony’s end,  to their,  and the audience’s discomfiture!).  The transition made, we settled back to take in the splendours of this much-lauded piece, regarded in some circles as the greatest slow movement written since the time of Beethoven! Subscribing to such a view is beyond the scope of this article, my notes focusing instead on the rapt purity of the playing of the opening string paragraphs, and the cohesion between the sections, each “voice” seeming to be in complete rapport with the others. As the movement unfolded and its purposes by turns placed accord, confrontation and/or conflict to the forefront, the playing in all sections moved surely between serenity and incandescence – horns and strings, for example, in the movement’s first confrontational passage six or so minutes into the movement, the flute, oboe and horn lines stimulating the richest of responses from the strings a few minutes later, to be followed by  the movement’s great midway watershed of tonal outpourings as the strings dare the brasses to match their full-blooded exhortions – there were no holds barred, either here, or as the symphony built up to its final climax – this was Mahler,  after all, where there are no half-measures, and in which New and her players fully understood and expressed that understanding nobly and sonorously.

A truly notable leadership debut for Gemma New, then, and the beginnings of a partnership which on this showing promises much for the orchestra and for its supporters – best wishes to all regarding its on-going success!

The River of Youth – Arohanui Strings and Orchestra Wellington

Posted on by Anne French

Orchestra Wellington  – The River 

Glen Downie (b. 1991) – Well Within the Madding Crowd
(with Arohanui Strings)

Joseph Joachim – Violin Concerto No 2 (‘Hungarian’)
Soloist: Amalia Hall

Julian Kirgan-Baez (b. 1992) – Reflection

 Robert Schumann – Symphony No 3 (‘Rhenish’)

Orchestra Wellington
Marc Taddei (conductor)

Michael Fowler Centre, Wellington

Saturday, 15th October, 2022

There are two rivers in this programme: the Rhine, for which Schumann’s symphony was named, having been written after the Schumanns moved to Düsseldorf, and the Waimapihi Stream, which runs down Aro Valley (albeit mostly underground). Three of the works were written by young men: Joseph Joachim was the youngest, at 27, and Glen Downie the oldest, at 31.  Even Schumann was only 40.

There is consequently a sense of possibility, of a sunlit progress towards a happy future, about all of them. The tangible evidence of such possibility was provided by the Arohanui Strings, a Sistema-inspired orchestra led by Alison Eldredge, based in Taita, now with groups in Stokes Valley, Mt Cook, and Miramar. The Glen Downie work was commissioned for them by Orchestra Wellington, supported by SOUNZ, and Arohanui players joined OW on stage to perform it, plus a few other short favourites. It was striking that the Arohanui players took all the outside player chairs, and played with confidence and enjoyment.

Glen Downie had cunningly written a work with easy string parts – most of the interest was provided by the wind, brass, and percussion. It began with a spooky theme on the lower strings, with the broad, appealing main theme influenced by Henry Mancini. Downie’s programme note wished the Arohanui players ‘the same sort of fun … that I had whilst playing his music’. If it was Mancini crossed with film and television music, so much the better.

Marc Taddei’s showmanship was, naturally, evident. After they finished playing their last piece, a Scottish reel, he said encouragingly, ‘That went pretty well, didn’t it? Can we play it faster?’ and swung into a much faster tempo which almost everyone kept up with. Then, as the stage was cleared for the next work, he told the audience exactly how to donate (see arohanuistrings.org).

Joseph Joachim is known best these days as one of the famous violin soloists of the nineteenth century. Brahms wrote for him, as did Schumann. Born in Budapest, he was for several years the principal violinist of the Gewandhaus Orchestra under Mendelssohn, teaching at the Leipzig Conservatory. He moved to Weimar in 1848, where Liszt was establishing his cultural influence, then on to the court at Hanover where he was principal violin, and eventually to Berlin, where he founded a department of music performance at the Royal Conservatory.

As a composer, he was a protégé of Schumann and Mendelssohn. This work is a big virtuosic concerto, lasting 35-40 minutes – and is consequently described by violinists as ‘like running a marathon’. It is not often performed. My Hungarian colleague Steven Sedley commented quietly beforehand that he was a bit surprised that Amalia Hall had agreed to put in the time and effort to learn it. He described it as ‘a showy piece’, designed to show off the virtuosity of the performer. I could immediately see what he meant. It is a challenging work, with a huge first movement and lots of very fast playing required by the soloist. The players from the Arohanui Strings who had crept in to watch were delighted. There was general applause at the end of the movement.

The second movement is a tender and beautiful rhapsody in the style of a Romany ballad, featuring lots of small duets between the soloist and flute (Karen Batten), clarinet (Nick Walshe), and horn (William Loveless), with a long duet with the cello (Inbal Megiddo). The third movement is full of fiery Hungarian themes, as though it was about to launch into a Hungarian dance at any moment. My knowledgeable colleague noted afterwards that the concept of Hungarian nationality was a development of the Hungarian national movement of 1848 and afterwards; and also that gipsy music, emphasising bravura, scintillating music, a strong beat, and rich melodies, was the music played in well-off homes. It is refined music, not raw peasant music.

Amalia Hall played brilliantly by any standard. She captured the rhythmic subtleties and the heart-warming melodic passages. Further, she looked as fresh when she finished as when she started, so she has extraordinary stamina as well as technical virtuosity.

And then the interval. I felt as though I had sat through a whole concert already, but there were still two works to go.  That is the nature of an Orchestra Wellington concert.

The next work, Reflection, was by Julian Kirgan Baez, known mainly as an orchestral and jazz trombonist (playing with the Royal New Zealand Air Force Band and the Richter City Rebels as well as Orchestra Wellington and the NZSO). He has also been OW’s ‘Emerging Composer in Residence’ for the past year, working with John Psathas. This work, Marc Taddei told us, ‘embraces the harmonic language of Mahler, Strauss, and early Schoenberg’.

It begins with percussion instruments making sounds like water running over stones, with wind and brass, and then an entry from the strings in the big Mahler/Strauss late romantic style, with a brass underlay. The brass section was big: four horns, three trombones, and a tuba as well as two trumpets – all put to excellent use. The brass and wind writing was, I thought, very assured (although when the principal clarinet switched to bass clarinet I found the sound was swamped by everything else that was going on). Then the spirit of Schoenberg seemed to take over (the programme notes spoke of ‘angular harmonic and melodic gestures’) before a big announcement by the trombones and trumpets, and a final climax. This was an interesting work I would have liked to hear twice. There was excellent playing by percussionist Naoto Segawa and timpanists Brent Stewart and Ben Whitton, as well as trumpets Matt Stein and Toby Pringle and the trombones and tuba.

Finally, the Schumann symphony. The Third is very well known, but for Marc Taddei it was a teachable moment. He explained to the audience how the themes of the four outer movements use the interval of the perfect fourth, but the intermezzo at the heart of the work does not. For people not very familiar with the perfect fourth, the strings’ demonstration of how Schumann conjures beautiful tunes out of such an angular interval (to modern ears) would have sounded like a kind of magic. Taddei also told us that Mahler studied Schumann’s symphonies assiduously – as well as reorchestrating them to suit his own taste.  Nor was Mahler the only one – a film composer called James Horner stole the theme from the first movement, turned it from Schuman’s flowing 3/4 into 4/4, and added a shakuhachi (a Japanese flute). There was a burst of music over the PA system to illustrate the point.

This time the music examples were shorter but provided some structure to the listening experience for anyone unfamiliar with the work. The orchestra played well, with great solos from flute (Karen Batten), oboe (Merran Cooke), and great playing by all five horns. I especially loved the Bach-like chorale played by the brass in the solemn fourth movement, Cologne Cathedral, succeeded by the sunny and dancing final movement.

This was a complete musical experience, from the Arohanui kids to the glamour of Amalia Hall’s playing. And Taddei being the salesman he is, there was a pitch for the orchestra’s 2023 season, which includes Bartok’s Miraculous Mandarin, Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde, Walton’s Belshazzar’s Feast, Psathas’s Planet Damnation (for timpani and orchestra), and Alban Berg’s Wozzek.  It is a great overstuffed rich plum pudding of a programme, and I can’t wait.

 

A concert of “music from then and now” with the NZSO

Posted on by Steven Sedley

Legacy – The New Zealand Symphony Orchestra

Stephen de Pledge (Piano)
Alexander Shelley (Conductor)

Gillian Whitehead retrieving the fragility of peace
Mozart Piano Concerto No, 20 in D Minor, K466
Brahms Symphony No, 1 in C Minor Op. 68

Michael Fowler Centre, Wellington

Saturday 1 October 2022

This was a concert that spanned almost two and a half centuries, from Gillian Whitehead’s work commissioned by the NZSO and receiving its first performance during this series of concerts, through Mozart’s most popular piano concerto written in 1785, and culminating with Brahms’ First S ymphony of 1876. I found it a collection of works that asked questions about the nature of music, and what this music meant to people of their time and also to audiences at present.

Gillian Whitehead retrieving the fragility of peace

Gillian Whitehead is one of the doyens of New Zealand composers. Over her long and distinguished career she has drawn on the European Modernist tradition, but she has also mined her Maori heritage. Three years ago the NZSO commissioned her to write a piece, Turanga Nui, commemorating Cook’s landing on these shores in 1769. Now, a new work,  Retrieving the fragility of peace, commissioned by the NZSO for this tour, uses a similar soundscape, using the resources of a large orchestra to capture the sounds of the forest, its bird songs, and perhaps the thumping rhythms that suggest haka, war dance.

Forget conventions such as extended melodies and themes – this piece is about the basic ingredients of music, sound, tones, beat and silences. It challenges the listener, steeped in a European classical musical tradition to sit up and listen. There are instrumental interludes of sheer beauty – an extended cor anglais solo, for example, and  a cello solo – flute, winds, brass and a wide range of percussion and string sounds add colour, but significantly, it is silences that define the piece. It ends in silence, a pause over a few bars, a few seconds. The war dance resolves into peace. It has a distinctive beauty of its own.

Mozart Piano Concerto No, 20 in D Minor, K466

Over a period of two years Mozart wrote 11 concertos, most for his series of subscription concerts in Vienna, making use of the new developments of the piano. Of these, only two are in a minor key, D Minor K466, No. 20 and C Minor K491, No. 24, written in the following year. The D Minor concerto was, and probably still is, the most popular of Mozart’s concertos, foreshadowing the later romantic concertos of Beethoven and other composers. It starts with a haunting phrase repeated, calling to mind the final scene of Don Giovanni, an opera that was written two years later.

The soloist who was expected to play at this concert was the Venezuelan pianist, Gabriela Montero, but in the event she was unavailable, isolating after contracting Covid. At short notice the Auckland pianist, Stephen de Pledge was called upon to replace her. In no way did this seem to disadvantage Wellington. Stephen de Pledge played at a relaxed, expansive tempo which let the music breath. The dramatic first movement was followed by a lyrical extended song of the second movement that his sensitive playing did justice to. The unhurried last movement was a fitting climax to the concert, its dark shadow already there in Mozart’s imagination. A notable feature of this performance was de Pledge’s use of additional ornamentation, which seemed very appropriate to the piece. He also improvised his own cadenzas, with echoes of Mozart’s operas and even of Beethoven, who wrote a cadenza that is widely used. The orchestra supported the soloist with precise yet sensitive responses. For an encore de Pledge played Schumann’s Traumerei,  a very personal, romantic reading of which Schumann would have approved.

Brahms Symphony No, 1 in C Minor Op. 68

Brahms had written a number of large scale orchestral works before writing his first symphony. The shadow of Beethoven loomed large and he had to write something that followed Beethoven’s tradition, yet was different and uniquely his. This symphony is, like the Mozart Concerto, in a minor key. Brahms had a grand vision, a work with a confluence, a mosaic, of short themes that developed into overarching subjects to fill out symphonic sonata form. His musical language was that of the North German choral tradition. The coalescence of these themes created a rich many-layered sound, and in a less clearly-focused performance these individual themes could have got lost, overwhelmed by the main theme, – however, the mark of this performance was that every little nuance came through clearly, the competing themes carefully balanced. The first movement is a dialogue between an overtly military theme and a tranquil subject. The second movement is an extended chorale embellished by a beautiful flute solo, then a plaintive melody played by the strings. This movement is one of the most exquisite pieces of music in the symphonic repertoire. The third movement has the feel of a dark German song on which the rest of the movement elaborates. It is all a long way from the cheerful, lighthearted third movements, Minuet and Trios, of earlier symphonies. The final movement is the conclusion, the summation of the previous movements. The horns, winds, call to mind the Wagnerian sound. Then the Allegro con brio introduces the triumphal final theme, a theme that brings to mind Beethoven’s Ninth. And there, in the horns, there is a synergy with the trumpet calls of Gillian Whitehead’s piece that the concert started with.

It was a beautiful, clear, measured performance. If there were some slight inaccuracies that some picked up, these were completely lost amid the overpowering beautiful playing. The audience responded with a spontaneous ovation that you seldom hear at the end of the symphony. There was a general sense of elation, with people walking out at the end of the concert on a high, with the music ringing in their ears.

Masterworks from the WYO

Posted on by Rebecca Stanton

Wellington Youth Orchestra
Mark Carter, conductor
Emica Taylor (flute)

JOHANNES BRAHMS – Academic Festival Overture
CARL NIELSEN – Concerto for Flute and Orchestra
ALEXANDER BORODIN – Symphony No. 2 in B Minor

St Andrew’s on-The-Terrace, Wellington

Saturday, 1st October, 2022

A grey and damp Saturday afternoon in Wellington was the perfect environment from which to seek refuge in this concert of brilliant and invigorating works played by the WYO at the top of its game. While the centerpiece of the programme was necessarily the Nielsen Flute Concerto, showcasing the virtuosity of WYO 2022 Concerto Competition winner Emica Taylor, the works by Brahms and Borodin that flanked it were also a great pleasure to listen to. The concert opened with Brahms’s Academic Festival Overture, a work your humble reviewer was forced to study for School Cert Music in a bygone century and therefore has not (or not deliberately) listened to since.  This was an enjoyable reintroduction.  As is well known, Brahms composed the piece by way of a thank you gift to the University of Breslau upon being awarded an honorary PhD, so that its title (Akademische Festouvertüre in German) refers directly to the joyful occasion of receiving the degree.  However, it can also be understood as describing the contents of the score.  While the “festive” nature of the overture is immediately apparent in the collection of student drinking songs it famously samples, its “academic” qualities emerge in Brahms’s use of counterpoint, and in the orchestration, which cannily exploits the individual colours of the instrumental forces employed.  This means it is a piece of many moving parts, which can feel “bitty” as it moves from theme to theme and colour to colour. The WYO, however, played like a single organism under Mark Carter’s baton.  I really enjoyed their feeling of unity as well as the beautifully articulated “highlights” given to various players and sections. In particular, I was impressed by the disciplined pizzicato in the cellos, and the thrilling fortes that succeeded the tiptoeing opening section. The orchestra also appeared to be enjoying itself, at least if the grins on the first-desk violinists as they rounded the corner into the triumphant finale on “Gaudeamus Igitur” were any indication.  My seat did not afford a clear sightline to the woodwinds (alas! Purely because of my own poor planning), but did offer an excellent view of the two percussionists (both guest players, according to the programme), who also played with verve and evident elation.  (The manic triangle riff at the end of the piece was a particular highlight.)

This appetizer having got the party well underway, it was now time for the main course: the Nielsen flute concerto.  In a brief introduction, Music Director Mark Carter characterized this piece as “fiendishly difficult….a real test for the orchestra.” It was a test they seemed well prepared to pass, even before the soloist, Emica Taylor, made her appearance onstage with enviable poise and in a beautiful gown. Nielsen doesn’t mess around: after a furiously chromatic four-bar introduction – really more of a scene-setting – the solo flute enters in a cascade of limpid triplets, matching the athleticism of the orchestra but introducing a contrast to their vehemently zigzagging semiquavers.  Taylor proved more than equal to the acrobatics required in her relentlessly hyperactive solo line, while the strings and woodwinds traded off duties in the accompaniment – one section providing a rhythmic underlay (I was particularly impressed with the disciplined pizzicato of the string players here) while the other offered lush countermelodies. A series of brief duets between the flute and the various woodwinds were beautifully played: in particular an extended dialogue between flute and clarinet, interrupted by enthusiastic strings and a surprise bass trombone, only to resume and infect the whole orchestra with a lyricism that continued to the end of the first movement.

The second movement was again introduced by vigorous strings only to give way almost immediately to a charming duet between flute and bassoon, gradually pulling in an accompaniment from the lower strings, then the remaining woodwinds. An ethereal adagio section followed, with a bit more canoodling between flute and bassoon, interrupted by agitated strings, ushering in a more playful interlude that in turn gave way to a lively march. A mood of building anticipation culminated in a duet of flute and timpani leading into a triumphant tutti finale. The entire performance felt committed, fluent, and professional.

It is safe to say that the audience was delighted with the concerto, and abuzz over Taylor’s virtuoso playing. This, therefore, was a good moment for an interlude, and the presentation of the Tom Gott cup – awarded annually to the winner of the WYO’s concerto contest, in this case, obviously, Emica Taylor.

The final piece on the programme was Borodin’s Symphony No. 2 in B minor, subtitled “The Bogatyrs” (something like “warrior-heroes” in Russian legend). The symphony has a complicated genesis story; Borodin (working simultaneously at his day job as an organic chemist) worked on it on and off for six years, with interruptions for the opera Prince Igor and the ill-fated opera-ballet Mlada (both also drawing heavily on the legends of mediaeval Rus’). He then proceeded to lose the full score and, having found copies of movements 2 and 3, had to (re-)orchestrate the other two movements while sick in bed.

One might be tempted to imagine that this contributed to the extremely pesante character of the first movement, in which a suitably “heroic,” ponderous theme is introduced by unison strings – the whole movement is dominated by unison or homophonic playing – and then compulsively repeated and returned to.  Interruptions by the trumpets (with a brisker martial-sounding motif) and woodwinds (with more lyrical material) inexorably lead back to the heroic theme, often “enforced” so to speak by the low brass. The second movement, marked “Scherzo – molto vivo” was a (as expected) a merrier romp, featuring more terrific pizzicato, especially in the low strings, and lovely woodwind playing among other delights.  Its syncopated second theme went with a swing – a chance to appreciate Mark Carter’s economical, elegant conducting and his seamless rapport with his players.

The third movement, claimed (by Borodin’s biographer Stasov) to represent the legendary Slavic bard Bayan singing and accompanying himself on the gusli, is easy to imagine as a kind of aural montage. It opens with a lyrical duet of clarinet and harp (presumably representing the voice of the bard and his instrument, respectively), followed by a gorgeous horn solo that seems to take us back to the “time immemorial” of heroic deeds – soon introduced in foreboding tones by orchestral forces reminiscent of the first movement: unison strings and low brass. The mood of agitation in the bottom half of the score is offset by cantabile playing in the woodwinds and horns – the winds and brass really shone in this movement! – which gradually takes over the whole orchestra, until we “fade out” back to the solo horn, harp and clarinet, a sort of musical “the end” which perversely leads straight into the Allegro fourth movement without a break. This movement had everything one might want in a finale – building excitement, catchy tunes, dynamic contrast, lots of tutti playing, and most of all plenty of action for the percussionists! I particularly enjoyed watching them gingerly pass the triangle back and forth in between managing their respective duties on cymbals, drums, and tambourine. Good fun. The syncopation and mixed metres showcased this orchestra’s strong grasp of rhythm and caused more than one toe to tap. 

Perhaps the best thing I can say about this concert is that I frequently forgot to take notes, as the music drew me in.  The WYO on a good day is really a terrific orchestra, and this was definitely a good day. Stellar playing all around and engaged, communicative conducting made for a really invigorating afternoon of music, and I look forward to the next one.

Popular and enterprising fare from the Wellington Chamber Orchestra

Posted on by Peter Mechen

Wellington Chamber Orchestra
Caitlin Morris (‘cello)
Andrew Aitkins (conductor)

KHACHATURIAN (1903-1978) – Adagio of Spartacus and Phrygia from the Ballet “Spartacus”
DVORAK )1841-1904) – Vodnik (The Water Goblin) Op.107
TCHAIKOVSKY (1840-1893)  – Capriccio Italien Op.45
ELGAR (1857-1934) – ‘Cello Concerto in E Minor  Op.85

St.Andrew’s 0n-The-Terrace, Wellington

Saturday, 24th September, 2022

This attractive assemblage of pieces which made up the Wellington Chamber Orchestra’s latest concert presented a colourful, spirited and enterprising programme, combining what one might describe as a clutch of “popular” classics with one piece definitely off the beaten track.

The popular pieces have somewhat different claims to fame, the Khachaturian piece featuring as the theme music for a popular television series within living memory, “The Onedin Line”, the music’s soaring, swooping theme tune evoking sailing ships and their transcontinental voyages – in the composer’s original ballet, set in Roman times, this same music depicted the love between Spartacus and his wife Phrygia, a pair of Thracian slaves captured by Roman forces.

Tchaikovsky’s Capriccio Italien, sketched out during its composer’s stay in Rome during 1880, uses a combination of music he heard in the streets and various folk songs. After completing his sketches he confidently remarked in a letter to a friend that “a good fortune may be predicted” for the piece, an assertion which has, over the years triumphantly proved correct, which opinion wasn’t always his feeling about many a far greater work he’d written and over which he often had serious doubts.

Finally on the concert’s “well-known front” came the Elgar ‘Cello Concerto, a piece whose popularity has been hard-won over earlier years, right from its first performances both in Britain in 1919 and the USA in 1922. The premiere of the work was practically sabotaged by the conductor’s neglect of the piece in rehearsal, to the point where a contemporary critic wrote in a review of the performance  “Never has so great an orchestra (the London Symphony Orchestra!) made so lamentable an exhibition of itself!”. To make matters worse, after the American premiere two years later a critic wrote “It is a long work (!) and it ambles on and on, utterly without distinction, utterly without inspiration”…..

It really wasn’t until ‘cellist Jacqueline du Pre took up the work firstly at the BBC Proms with Sir Malcolm Sargent in 1963, and then via a classic recording with Sir John Barbirolli in 1965 (which became, in the lingo of the times, a “best-seller”), that the work began to convey its true quality and status in more widespread terms, which of course continues today with a new generation of ‘cellists.

The “odd one out” in this concert was definitely the Dvorak tone-poem Vodnik (The Water Goblin), one of several tone-poems completed by the composer AFTER he had written his Ninth and most famous symphony, the “New World”. Unlike with the symphonies, which he’d composed along the lines of the classical masters, Dvorak turned to the example of Franz Liszt who had first developed this new form of composition, and was from the beginning harshly criticised by conservative musicians and critics who, despite Beethoven’s “Pastoral” Symphony, disapproved of “programme” music.  Dvorak obviously wanted to explore and celebrate a native Czech spirit more freely with these works, which still today lag far behind his symphonies and overtures in popularity, though they are now receiving more notice, as in this present concert with “Vodnik” (The Water Goblin), the earliest of the composer’s ventures into this new territory.

Flanking the Dvorak in the first half were, firstly, the Khachaturian Adagio, and then Tchaikovsky’s rumbustious Italian picture-postcards, each a perfect foil for what followed. The Khachaturian was gloriously played here, the opening dominated by a splendidly-phrased oboe solo from Rod Ford, thereafter handing the theme over to the strings for further lyrical expansion, conductor Andrew Atkins getting his players to vary their phrasings and intensities most beguilingly. Sterner brass and intensely-wrought wind solos took the music through irruptions of excitement and expectation before the entire orchestra gave the music unashamed Hollywood treatment, building to a most impressive climax that was thrilling in its cumulative impact. And how gracefully did the winds, the horns and the harp bring about the piece’s dying fall, with Paula Carryer’s solo violin having the last eloquent word – most satisfyingly done.

At the half’s other end was the ceremonial splendour and contrasting rumbustiousness of a piece once popular but seldom played in concert these days – Tchaikovsky’s Capriccio Italien, a work I first encountered on 78rpm acetate discs (a precious memory) and which I still love to bits! Those brass calls at the start had here a proper spine-tingling effect, to which the different timbres of horns and heavy brasses added thrilling weight, though a couple of the accompanying “ra-ta-ta-plan” figures accompanying the strings’ sombre, but expressively shaped melody were too eagerly raced by the players. I thought the oboe-led winds took the music back most excitingly to the reiteration of the opening brass calls, if rather more tentative this time round. Some more “ra-ta-ta-plans” then led to a melody that’s one of the world’s charmers, played winningly by the winds, then the strings, and building up to a most satisfying irruption of festive sounds.  Away from this sprang the next section, lively, if none too tidily at first but with the performance recovering its poise sufficiently to make a scintillating impression with the concluding tarantella, everything breathlessly exciting!

In between these pieces was the Dvorak tone-poem, its relatively unfamiliar strains most strikingly and impressively brought into being at the outset, with the orchestral winds’ mischievous, spiky rhythms gradually becoming more macabre and frenzied as the eponymous Water Goblin danced along the lakeside in anticipation of capturing a human girl for a bride. Throughout, Atkins and his players vividly and tellingly contrasted Dvorak’s colourful depictions of the story’s grotesqueries with the simple natural beauty of the countryside and of the young girl, whose piteous abduction by the Goblin here occasioned particularly affecting playing from strings (violas) and winds as she lamented her fate. I thought conductor and players did terrific work making sense of Dvorak’s sometimes in places obsessive detailings, particularly throughout the sequences representing the girl’s captivity, the birth of her child, her pleading with her Goblin-husband to be allowed to visit her mother again (he will not let her take the child) and their reunitement. The final scene in which the spirit-husband impatiently comes to fetch his wife home again is fraught with all the tension, cruelty and ultimate horror characteristic of these Czech stories, which the composer knew as verse ballades written by the nationalistic poet Karel Jaromir Ereben. Atkins and his players again gave their all, demonstrating astonishing  commitment to making the composer’s somewhat unwieldy structure work its full dramatic and colourful effect!

After the interval came, for me, the concert’s second piece de resistance, a performance by Caitlin Morris of the much-loved Elgar ‘Cello Concerto. Being of the generation which had listened open-mouthed to Jacqueline du Pre’s “revival” of the work in the 1960s, and thus still having her interpretation well-nigh “imprinted” on my consciousness, I was delighted to witness a younger player’s performance that seemed to take what she needed from du Pre’s intensely poetic vision of the work but bring to it very much her own brand of intensity and poetry, and a technique capable of realising those goals with real verve and brilliance. Right from the opening recitative,  Morris commanded our attention, making the music very much her own and “drawing in” her fellow-players and listeners alike to a world opened up by the music’s unashamedly heart-on-sleeve outpourings.

Atkins and his players seemed at one with her throughout, matching her expressiveness at all points, with only a couple of orchestral interjections in the finale that seemed to me too wilfully brusque, and which caught the players off balance – elsewhere, all flowed as one, the effect being of hearing the music speak as poetry might be delivered by a great actor. What particularly caught my ear in the opening movement was the music’s Elgarian “stride”, that purposeful gait which evokes the composer walking over his beloved Malvern Hills, and which seems to characterise so much of his “Elgar the countryman” personality, with its dogged determination to succeed against all odds. By the time of the ‘Cello Concerto he HAD of course “succeeded” as a composer and a national figure, and the music of the rest of the work takes us beyond such successes and into expressive realms which suggest the sadness of things beyond recall in a rapidly-changing world.

A nimble-fingered account of the playful scherzo featured great teamwork between soloist, conductor and the orchestral winds, Morris’s diaphanously-voiced ascents during the exchanges a delight, as was the “wind-blown” aspect of the accompaniments – though the double-stopped passages weren’t always perfect, there was generated a proper sense of carefree abandonment in the music’s voicings and phrasings that for me captured its spirit.

Perhaps the highlight of the performance was the slow movement, my notes containing repeated references to the playing of soloist and orchestra “as one”, with tones and phrasings literally playing into each others’ hands, time almost seeming to stand still – the finale’s opening is, of course, intended to “break the spell”, though I thought the interjection here overly brusque – significantly, the  concerted passages of the rest of the movement didn’t attempt to match the opening’s vehemence, yet were still forceful enough.

In fact the quixotic mood was well caught, especially the “things that go bump in the night” sequence with its sforzandi-like irruptions; and, together with the soloist, the massed ‘cellos rose splendidly to the occasion with their “all together” recitative. And the final section, where the music has always seemed to me to unashamedly weep, was here given full emotional rein, with its lump-in-the-throat return to the slow movement’s theme. How dramatic, always, is the ‘cello’s return to the opening recitative, as was the case, here – though, right at the work’s conclusion, while I can appreciate how the composer wanted a brusque, “well, let’s get on!” kind of ending, it seemed to me on this occasion over-projected, and ill-timed, out of kilter with the performance’s overall character.

Composure was somewhat restored with Morris and Atkins (the latter on the piano) giving us a “return-to-our-lives” performance of Saint-Saens’ ubiquitous “The Swan” which rounded off the concert in a suitably thoughtful way. Very great credit to these WCO musicians on a number of counts, not least in the enterprise of the programming, and the enthusiasm and commitment with which they undertook the task of making it all work so well.

 

 

Towards a new Romantic language

Posted on by Anne French

Orchestra Wellington: Leviathan

Wagner Lohengrin Prelude to Act 1
Psathas Leviathan Concerto for percussion
Schumann Symphony No 2

Alexej Gerassimez (percussion)
Marc Taddei (conductor)
Orchestra Wellington

Michael Fowler Centre, Wellington

Saturday. 17th September, 2022

The whole concert took the title ‘Leviathan’, which was, frankly, misleading. Much more than half the concert came from the soundworld of nineteenth-century German romanticism. But still, ‘Leviathan’ was a better marketing pitch. And the concert was traditional in format: an overture, a concerto, and a symphony. But this being Marc Taddei’s programming, the effect was anything but traditional.

This concert, like all Orchestra Wellington concerts, began with an introduction to the works by conductor Marc Taddei. The OW audience obviously enjoys these little chats.  The opening words concerned the 2023 season. It was, Taddei informed us with a dramatic flourish, to be called ‘Inner Visions’ (like the Van Morrison song?) and summed up by this quote from the painter Kandinsky: ‘That is beautiful which is produced by the inner vision, which springs from the soul.’ He went on to flatter the audience: ‘You complete this process of music-making. You are the interpreter of what you hear. We try to manifest the composers’ ideas, but you make it come alive.’

Onward to this evening’s concert. Music, Taddei helpfully explained, has two strands. One, which had its roots in the Enlightenment, saw music as Apollonian, idealized. But the other, since medieval times, gave rise to romanticism. And tonight’s concert was in the romantic tradition. ‘It consists of three unassailable masterpieces … with a work by our very own genius, John Psathas.’

The ‘overture’ consisted of the Prelude to Act 1 of Lohengrin, a most un-overture-like piece of music. When Wagner told his friends, including Schumann, that he planned to write an opera based on the Arthurian legend of one of the Grail knights, Schumann announced he had been thinking of writing an opera on the same theme. (For Arthurians, Lohengrin is the son of Parzifal in the medieval poem Parzifal by Wolfram von Eschenbach.) Naturally Wagner got there first. The introduction begins with the faintest shimmering of the high strings and gently builds, entry by entry, to a big portentous crescendo that culminates in an orgasmic crash on the clash cymbals, and a decrescendo back down to shimmering lyricism. The playing was beautiful, whether it was the strings’ endless delicacy or the tender solos from the winds (a gorgeous cor anglais solo, for instance, from Louise Cox). The work was written in 1848, but already it is possible to hear elements of Wagner’s mature leitmotif style.

John Psathas’s monumental percussion concerto was commissioned by the Tonhalle Dusseldorf and the soloist, a young German percussion virtuoso called Alexej Gerassimez. The artist’s appearance was supported by the German Embassy.  The work is in four movements, and requires two large batteries de percussion, one at the back of the orchestra and the other at the front of the stage, as well as 4 horns, 4 trumpets, 3 trombones, and a tuba.

Alexej Gerassimez is a tall, lithe young man, very light on his feet – because at times he was required to run from one side of the stage to the other – and at one point two extra percussionists came downstage to play instruments on the left while he dealt with several simultaneously on the right-hand side.

The writing is characterized by Psathas’s fast, exciting rhythms and his cumulative, layered climaxes. Sometimes the orchestral writing was rather static, with all the momentum provided by the percussion instruments. The second movement referred to Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony, with Psathas bringing the ‘background melody’, played ‘with love and compassion and warmth’ by the cellos and basses, into the foreground.

The enormous third movement was titled ‘Soon We’ll All Walk on Water’ and featured an amplified plastic bottle, played by scratching, shaking, and beating. The movement culminates with Gerassimez playing a bowl of water with his hands, and finally using a colander to pour water back into the bowl. Then followed another bottle solo with the strings playing mournful grey chords in the manner of Goretsky’s Symphony of Sorrowful Songs against the quite jolly bottle rhythm.

Likewise a Wagnerian passage on wind and brass formed a wash of colour behind a solo on what sounded like small stones being struck. Another crescendo is followed by a quiet, thoughtful clarinet solo (Nick Walshe).

The last movement, ‘A Falcon, a Storm, or a Great Song?’ (quoting Rilke) contained some of the loveliest marimba playing I have ever heard, along with steel drums, what sounded like a slit drum, woodblocks, a whip, tubular bells, bass drum, and timpani, all building to a final crescendo complete with snarling trumpets and a final single triangle note.

Leviathan is a most interesting work. It must have been challenging to bring off. Leaving the soloist to one side, there was still a vast amount of percussion being played by Jeremy Fitzsimons, Brent Stewart, Naoto Segawa, and Yoshiko Tsuruta, with Sam Rich on timpani, and a gazillion notes for the big brass section. The tempo changes must have been challenging. And that’s before the soloist is added, bringing a world of complexity and fast changes.

The audience loved it. There was rapturous applause, with Gerassimez shaking the hand of Concertmaster Amalia Hall and conductor, the composer arriving on stage to hug everyone, and several curtain calls.

After the interval, the symphony. Marc Taddei embarked on an introduction to the work that lasted about 20 minutes. Schumann’s Second Symphony was in fact the third one he wrote. It is ‘personal and deeply felt,’ said Taddei: ‘It is the most personal symphony written in the nineteenth century or indeed in any century.’ I’m not quite sure what this means, or whether it is even true, though I became quite distracted trying to think of candidates for more personal works. (Shostakovich, certainly. Tchaikovsky, definitely. Mahler!!)

Taddei rehearsed the sad facts of Schumann’s mental ill health before telling us about Mendelssohn’s rediscovery of Bach and the great Bach revival that Schumann and Mendelssohn embarked upon around this time. The second symphony, it turned out, was flavoured with Bach whilst containing many references to Schumann’s friends and his beloved wife Clara.

And then the musical examples – every movement was analysed, with the key themes played and musical references unravelled and displayed. It was interesting, and I am certain the audience thought it marvellous, but most of it is so intrinsically part of Schumann’s musical language that in the event it is mostly subliminal.

Finally, the symphony itself. Taddei was right. This is a masterpiece and it deserves to be performed often. If you are thinking of programming a Schubert symphony over the next year, please programme this instead. It was mostly very well played, though without the meticulous attention to detail and clarity that Gemma New would have provided. Taddei conducted without a score, and at one point in the second movement he stopped conducting altogether and turned to grin at the audience. Another favourite trick; the audience grinned back.

Although the Scherzo is fun, and the Allegro vivace creates a big pile-up of overlapping themes with ‘B-A-C-H’ ringing out at the end, the Adagio espressivo that follows is a glorious thing. It takes its theme from Bach’s Musical Offering ‘and turns it into a romantic song without words’. There were beautiful solos by Merran Cook (oboe) and Jamie Dodd (bassoon) and a horn duet (Shadley van Wyk and David Codd). The fourth movement is a bouncing delight, fast end energetic.

It was notable that there was applause after every movement – a spontaneous response to beautiful music. I would love to hear the work again. Indeed, if the concert had started and ended with it, omitting the Wagner, I would have been happy. But Taddei’s point was about the invention of the musical language of romanticism. Schumann wrote the symphony only two years before Lohengrin. And Psathas quoted liberally from that language whilst putting it to wholly novel purposes.

All in all, a very satisfying and absorbing concert. I am intrigued to see what Inner Visions Orchestra Wellington may bring us in 2023.

A Springful of “Midsummer Night’s Dream” music, from Orchestra Wellington

Posted on by Steven Sedley

A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM

Robert Schumann Dichterliebe arranged by Henrik Hellstenius
Deborah Wai Kapohe, mezzo

Robert Schumann Cello Concerto
Inbal Megiddo, cello

Felix Mendelssohn Midsummer Night Dream
Barbara Paterson, Michaela Codwgan, sopranos,
Dryw McArthur, Alex Greig and Danielle  Meldrum, actors,
Women’s voices of the Orpheus Choir.

Orchestra Wellington
Marc Taddei (conductor)

Michael Fowler Centre, Wellington

Saturday, 20th August, 2022

Schumann and Mendelssohn may seem like traditional programming for an orchestral concert, but – trust Marc Taddei, – it was anything but run of the mill standard fare. This was a concert of works seldom heard or seldom heard in the form presented.

Schumann Dichterliebe, arranged by Henrik Hellstenius

It opened with Schumann’s song cycle, Dichterliebe. This, along with Schubert’s Winterreise and Die schöne Müllerin is a work that established the song cycle form as more than a collection of songs, and is a landmark of the lieder repertoire. The songs are settings of sixteen poems by Heine. Heine was some ten years older than Schumann and was already celebrated as the leading German lyric poet. Perhaps Heine’s intrinsic contradictions appealed to Schumann’s split personalities. Maybe the cunning craft of Heine’s poetry brought something out of Schumann the master miniaturist. But what we were presented with was not the well known song cycle of Schumann with its dramatic piano accompaniment, but an arrangement by the contemporary Norwegian composer,  Henrik Hellstenius.

Instead of the piano, we had a large orchestra with even an exotic ophicleide, a keyed brass instrument.  Its deep voice was a welcome addition to the brass section. The piece started with a bell-like sound produced by violin and flute. The piano part is deconstructed right through the songs into a kaleidoscope of colourful orchestral sounds. Wai Kapohe sang not as the usual image of a classical lieder singer, but like a jazz singer, or more like a chanteuse, using a microphone, and despite the vast auditorium of the Michael Fowler Centre, she gave the impression of singing intimately for every person of the large audience. Her beautiful warm voice touched every one.

The  settings of sixteen of Heine’s poems are about love,  flowers, sorrow and pain, dream, memory of a kiss, the Cathetral of Cologne, a lark’s song of longing, a broken heart, fairy tale, and death.. The arrangement of Hellstenius turned Schumann’s music into a haunting post-modern musical experience. It is not a matter of being better than Schumann, bringing Schumann up to date; it is about looking at Schumann’s music through a contemporary lens, hearing it as eternally meaningful music.

Schumann Cello Concerto

The song cycle was followed by Schumann’s last orchestral work, his cello concerto, which he completed two weeks before he attempted suicide, and never had the opportunity of hearing it performed. It is a remarkable work, the first ‘romantic’ concerto written for the cello, a world away from preceding works for the cello, the cello concertos of Haydn and Boccherini.  The concerto starts with three chords played by the strings then the cello takes over with a beautiful melody, which Inbal Megiddo played with a ravishing sound. This set the tone of the whole work. The piece is episodic, a mark of much of Schumann’s work, short contrasting themes make up the building blocks of the overall piece, slow melodic sections interspersed with dramatic virtuoso passages.

The themes are like his songs, melodious. engaging.  The three movements, a lyrical yet dramatic first movement,  a slow second movement and a lively, energetic final movement, are connected by brief bridging sections. A song like quality pervades the work. Inbal Megiddo gave this concerto a beautiful, convincing reading. Acknowledging the warm applause, she played as an encore the Gigue from Bach’s Cello Suite No.1. She played it with a scintillating light touch. It was an appropriate bridge to the final item on the programme.

Mendelssohn A  Midsummer Night Dream

Mendelssohn wrote the overture to Midsummer Night Dream for the house concerts in his family’s lavish home, when he was a boy of seventeen and this it stayed in the popular repertoire ever since. It is a scintillating piece of music, but the Incidental Music was written much later, at the instigation of Frederick William IV, King of Prussia, a music lover. Mendelssohn expanded the Overture into a forty-five minute suit exploring scenes from the play, that included the among its thirteen movements, the sprightly goblin-like Scherzo, the light jolly, otherworldly song with the choir, the dreamy Nocturne with its solo horn, the stately Wedding March, played at innumerable weddings since its first performance, and the foot stomping Dance of the Clown. The use of three actors as narrator reading out the lines from the play, and two solo sopranos singing some of the choral numbers greatly enhanced the music.

Hearing the whole Incidental Music to Midsummer Night Dream was a joyous experience. But it was more than that, it was an insight into Romanticism in music, fairies, dreams, magic, ingredients of romantic music and literature, that echoed the music of Schumann and other romantic composers.

Orchestra Wellington and Marc Taddei offered, as usual. an imaginative programme,  played well, with understanding, which amounted to more than the sum total of the works performed. It captured the spirit of an era, with contemporary commentary on it by the orchestral arrangement of the Schumann songs by Henrik Hellstenius