Tag: orchestral

Sibelius: Impromptu
Ibert: Pièce
Arthur Foote: A Night Piece
Grieg: Two Norwegian Airs
Aulis Sallinen: Aspects of Peltoniemi Hintrik’s Funeral March
Telemann: Don Quixote Overture no.10 in G major (Burlesque de Don Quixote)
Mendelssohn: Symphony for Strings no.10 in B minor

NZSO String section, Bridget Douglas (flute), Vesa-Matti Leppänen (director)

Michael Fowler Centre

Thursday 30 September, 7.30pm

It is an interesting innovation to have sections of the NZSO featured in their own concerts; this year, the string players (or 18 of them) and next year it will be the turns of the woodwind players and the brass players. Vessa-Matti Leppänen has chosen the music for all these concerts.

Since the sad demise of the NZSO Chamber Orchestra (co-founded, and directed, by Donald Armstrong), we have not heard regular string orchestra playing, apart from baroque groups.  I would say that with this group there is not yet the warm timbre of a string orchestra that has played together for years, but nevertheless the players made a fine sound, and played almost impeccably.

There were 18 players, and they stood to play (which they will not be used to), except, of course, the three cellists.  There were as well ten violinists, three viola players and two double bassists.  The personnel of the group provided additional interest, since it was the first concert for the new principal cellist, Andrew Joyce.  Not only was the new cellist having his first outing, but trialling the position of principal viola was his wife Julia, who is none other than Julia McCarthy who only a few years ago, was a talented violin student at Victoria University’s School of Music, and member of the National Youth Orchestra.  Studying overseas has seen her switch to viola as her chief instrument, and also acquire a musician husband.

Vessa-Matti told us that this concert should be relaxing, but not send us to sleep.  I  began to have my doubts, despite the excellence of the playing.  Certainly there was much music of a muted, even dreamy quality.  While it was very good to hear unfamiliar music for strings, I found rather an over-emphasis on dark Scandinavian music, which some described as gloomy, and others as lugubrious.

The poor attendance at the concert probably showed that a lot of people enjoy the big sound and the variety of a symphony orchestra, and a much smaller string group like this doesn’t ‘do it’ for them.

The opening work was described by the director as ‘happy Sibelius’, but despite the still, calm opening, bouncy use of spiccato, and a lively waltz in the middle section, it was mainly melancholy, as the programme note described the final section.  Originally written for piano, early in his career, the work was soon arranged for string orchestra by the composer.  The instruments played with mutes, giving a lovely sustained, mellow tone. 

After this came a surprise item: a short work of Ibert’s from 1936, named simply Pièce.  This was introduced and played by principal flutist Bridget Douglas, who wore a beautiful silver dress, matching her instrument well.  As she said, this work was reminiscent of Debussy’s well-know Prélude à l’après midi d’un faune.   A slow and meditative opening was followed by a livelier section, reminiscent of birds, and then it was back to a slower, more contemplative mood.

Arthur Foote, who died in 1937, wrote A Night Piece in 1918.  It was written of it that it ‘has no concern to shake the world…’ but that the composer had ‘a sensitive response to beauty which has enabled him to capture a distillation of sheer sensuous delight.’  Here again, the word ‘melancholic’ is used in the programme note, along with ‘a fresh and exotic elegance’.  It was not in any sense avant-garde music, but a charming, subtle, beautifully played piece for flute and string orchestra.

Both the Ibert work and this one were played by the soloist without score, and with quite ravishing tone and technique.  True to title, the piece was certainly nocturnal in mode and character, being dreamy and lyrical.

Continuing in Scandinavian vein we had Grieg’s Two Norwegian Airs; firstly, ‘In Folk Style’ and next ‘Cow Call and Peasant Dance’.  Following the opening there was a long viola and cello section, the two instruments conversing with each other in a mellow way.  Then the violins joined in, initially on the lower strings.  Parts of this piece were quite dreamy and melancholy; this meant that all the three pieces so far heard (apart from the Ibert solo) were rather similar in mood.

The second of the two Airs featured very musical cow calls (without any lowing response from the animals) followed by a lively dance.

Aulis Sallinen, composer and conductor visited New Zealand a number of years ago, on a conducting exchange with Sir William Southgate, who conducted in Finland.  As a result, Sallinen (as reported by Leppänen in a radio interview a couple of days before the concert) has written a New Zealand Symphony.

His piece was based on a traditional folk funeral melody, which had been voted in Finland as the most depressing and dark tune ever!  Whether Peltoniemi Hintrik was a real person, I have been unable to discover.  Perhaps he was a figure of folk tradition, like Peer Gynt in Norway.

The first statement of this theme was extremely bare, played by solo violin and solo cello, in octaves.  This gave a steely cold sound.  Then one viola and viola and one second violin joined in, playing pizzicato, before the other players entered, at which point all appeared to be at cross-purposes.  The techniques included strumming, and pizzicato deliberately played with the finger-nails, to produce a hard sound.

Later, in a more dynamic mood, sections of the music involved discords resolving, interspersed with unison playing, i.e. discord then concord.  The ending of the work was quite folksy.  Despite the ‘funeral’ title, there was humour in the music.

Now for something completely different.  The Telemann work was fun, and quite dissonant in places.  This performance included harpsichordist Donald Nicolson; there were three fewer violinists.

Its seven movements were thoroughly descriptive of their titles, based on the famous knight’s adventures.  It was good to hear the NZSO players, despite their use of modern instruments, performing this music so well in baroque style, with little vibrato but strong accents, especially on the first beat of every bar.

The ‘Overture’ (yes, the Overture had an overture) was peaceful and happy, then very fast.  The ‘Awakening of Don Quixote’ had a quiet a sleepy mood, followed by ‘His Attack on the Windmills’ which indeed was quite a battle, vigorous and fast.  The ‘Sighs of Love for Princess Dulcinae’ were just that.  ‘Sancho Panza Swindled’ was a very jolly movement, but simple (perhaps to show the squire as simple?), and featured upwards-swooping phrases, presumably depicting the swindling.

The movement of minuet-trio-minuet describing ‘Rosinante Galloping’ and ‘The Gallop of Sancho Panza’s Mule’ had appropriate rhythm (though the galloping seemed a bit slow to me – perhaps in Spain in the Don’s day horses galloped at a more leisurely pace than now?).   The mule was quieter and slower, the trio being set for a quartet of the four section leaders, before the return to the minuet.

‘Don Quixote at Rest’ seemed to belie its title; more straight-forward music, but at a fast pace becoming ever faster.  This was a humorous finale, with spiccato from violas, cellos and basses.

The final work on the programme was Mendelssohn’s tenth String Symphony, written when he was only 14 years old.  It is a delightful, relatively uncomplicated piece, well crafted and well played here.  It is not brilliant, but astonishing for someone of the composer’s age at the time. 

There was a good weighty sound despite the relatively small group of players.  It was not as delicate as the Scandinavian music, but nonetheless, there were some lovely pianissimos, and some fine themes.  Brian Shillito’s solo viola passage was beautifully played.

There was an enthusiastic response from the audience.  Leppänen had done a good job of preparation of the musicians; I am not so sure about his programme choices.  It is good to have a varied and different programme, and this was an interesting exercise, but not one I would want to take in too often.

BRITTEN – Four Sea Interludes from “Peter Grimes”

MacMILLAN – Veni, Veni, Emmanuel

RAVEL – Pavane for a Dead Princess

R.STRAUSS – Death and Transfiguration

Colin Currie (percussion)

Alexander Shelley (conductor)

New Zealand Symphony Orchestra

Michael Fowler Centre, Wellington

Saturday 18th September

I liked this programme because it broke the mould – it didn’t follow the concert format which the NZSO seems to visit more often than not, to the detriment of pieces such as Ravel’s enchanting Pavane pour une Infanta défunte (or, Pavane for a Dead Princess). The common concert layout (overture, concerto, interval,  symphonic-type work) is obviously favoured by orchestral managements because it provides variety over the course of an evening, and enables the appearance of a prominent soloist in the concerto, who will hopefully bring in the crowds. But to repeat this formula almost ad nauseam is counter-productive, as it negates in the longer term the variety that a single concert seeks to provide, as well as reducing the opportunity for concertgoers to hear “live” many delectable orchestral pieces of only moderate length. The present concert, perhaps due to its matinee status certainly had its “star soloist” in the first half, but then featured two shorter works after the interval, the aforementioned Ravel and a tone-poem by Richard Strauss, Tod und Verklarung (Death and Transfiguration).  Ravel and Strauss certainly provided a contrast, though I wonder how many people would agree with me that some music “feels” better if heard in the evening, as opposed to the morning or afternoon? – somehow, Strauss’s Death and Transfiguration seemed diminished by the daytime ambience, whereas the Ravel was perfect – perhaps more of the same composer’s music would have been preferable, the gorgeous ballet Ma Mere L’Oye (Mother Goose) immediately coming to mind as a different kind of darkness-to-light experience.

I was interested to hear Alexander Shelley conduct, being the son of one of my favourite pianists, Howard Shelley (such connections, made helpfully or otherwise, always add interest to a performer’s aura and music-making abilities). An extremely elegant-looking young man, he brought a brisk, certain focus to his music-making throughout, beginning with the first of Britten’s Four Sea Interludes from Peter Grimes, a Dawn whose streaks of light across the sky and answering shimmers of reflection from the water were clearly and bracingly articulated in this performance, precise rather than long-breathed and atmospheric. Surprisingly, I fancied the strings’ off-beat syncopations weren’t as clear as I thought they might be at the outset of Sunday Morning, the rhythms taking a while to “settle”; but amends were made with the next piece Moonlight, the playing catching the piece’s deep-toned “hymn to the night” aspect splendidly and sonorously. The concluding Storm’s fury burst upon us vehemently, with properly baleful brass and wonderful tuba notes, though I felt the side-drum a bit glib-sounding (not enough “flail” to really sting); and though the “running frightened” scherzandi passages towards the end had plenty of energy, I wanted more tension in the build-up towards the apocalyptic downward cascade that concludes the piece. So, a good performance, but I thought a trifle wanting more of the knife-edge in places (perhaps more difficult to achieve during the afternoon!).

James MacMillan’s Veni, Veni, Emmanuel is, in effect, a percussion concerto, able to stand as an abstract piece of music in its own right, but illuminated from within by the composer’s intention for the work to represent “the human presence of Christ” and the accompanying liberation of humankind “from fear, anguish and oppression”. Its title forms a direct link with the 15th Century French plainchant of the same name, regularly sung by choirs during the Christian season of Advent. In fact, the composer apparently began working on the piece on the first Sunday of Advent, and completed it on Easter Sunday of the following year, dedicating the work to his parents.

This concert featured percussionist Colin Currie, like his fellow-Scot Evelyn Glennie (who premiered this work) one of the world’s foremost instrumentalists, who’s helped to develop amongst both audiences and composers a new appreciation of percussion and its expressive potential. Very much on show throughout this piece, Currie revelled in the diversity of sounds which colour the opening sequences of exchange – amid orchestral fanfares all the percussion families were introduced, the soloist underlining the variety of texture, colour and spatial depth of sound by physical movement whose fluidity and energy defined the spaces between the instruments and suggested a journey paralleling the course of the music. Then there’s a “heartbeat” section, where pulses of varying metricality play, propelling and colouring the music, the soloist’s patternings punctuated with sharp, coruscating comments from the orchestra. After building towards frenetic rhythmic passages which suggested we’d reached the “Dance” section of the work, Colin Currie was able to show us a more deeply-felt, poetic aspect to his musicianship with the central “Gaude” section (the title taken from the refrain of the plainsong) – marimba figurations gently danced over prayer-like murmurings from the orchestra, as if revealing for listeners the spiritual calm at the centre of a believer’s universe.

There was more dancing, brilliantly characterised by a virtuoso stint from the soloist on the vibraphone, great chorale-like fanfares from the brass, and antiphonal percussion effects, with the timpanist matching the soloist and the orchestral musicians producing triangles, spreading the scintillations throughout the soundscape (a pity about the noisy children in the gallery!). And what wonderful resonances Currie achieved with the tubular bells at the end, the resonances seeming to last for an eternity (I didn’t think the sounds of burbling children at that point entirely inappropriate – wasn’t it Christ who said “Suffer the little children to come unto me, for theirs is the kingdom of Heaven”, or words to that effect? – but some people who spoke to me during the interval were very angry about the disturbance!).

Fortunately, not one extraneous post-interval warble from the auditorium spoiled the limpid beauty of Ravel’s homage to the painter Velázquez, Pavane pour une Infante Défunte (in the printed programme both attempts at reproducing the French title came unstuck). The composer’s point about the music being an evocation of a dance rather than a funeral lament was nicely realised by conductor and players. Before the Strauss work, Death and Transfiguration, Alexander Shelley spoke to the audience concerning the programme of the music, explaining the composer’s intentions and tracing the music’s course throughout – so we were fully prepared for the fray, as it were, though some of the audience would have been at last year’s performance of the same work by the Wellington Orchestra, so it wouldn’t exactly have been an unknown quantity. On that occasion I thought the Wellington Orchestra surpassed themselves, with committed, full-toned and fiery playing under Marc Taddei’s direction; so I was interested to hear what the NZSO would make of it, albeit in a different venue and with another conductor.

Only with the first arrival of the “Transfigured” theme did I markedly prefer the earlier performance – somehow (and probably aided by a more ample and resonant acoustic in the Town Hall) Taddei and his orchestra managed to “fashion” the theme from those preparatory gesturings more convincingly and organically, as if it was all the time growing into the shape and form of its first appearance; whereas with Shelley and the NZSO the warmth and radiance of it all seemed like a new idea, fetched up from somewhere else. Perhaps it was that Taddei’s reading seemed longer-breathed than Shelley’s, just that bit more boldly and deeply conceived; though in other respects, the NZSO’s playing for Shelly sounded truly resplendent in all departments, the winds in particular covering themselves with glory. The performance certainly had a sheen and burnished splendour of its own, the NZSO’s greater weight and refinement of tone imparting, if not the whole truth, a Brucknerian radiance at the very end that was well worth the waiting for.

  ‘1910’ – Firebird

 

Barber: Adagio for Strings

Stravinsky: Firebird Suite (1919 version)

Elgar: Violin Concerto, Op.61

 

The Vector Wellington Orchestra conducted by Marc Taddei with violinist Feng Ning

 

Wellington Town Hall

 

Saturday, 11 September, 7.30pm 

 

The concert ended, somewhat unusually, with the violin concerto – but as the longest work, it was sensibly placed after the interval.  The concert began unusually, too, with the orchestra playing itself ‘Happy Birthday’ in a short and amusing orchestration by Stravinsky, created for the conductor Pierre Monteux’s 80^th birthday.  This was for the orchestra’s 60^th birthday since its founding as the Alex Lindsay String Orchestra.  It has had several name changes since then, and become a full symphony orchestra.

 

In his pre-concert talk, Marc Taddei said that Barber’s famous elegy-like piece (originally written for string quartet) had at first been criticised as not very American.   While it has become widely used for public occasions of grief and mourning, it is surely always now thought of as American.  The work was first played in the orchestral version by the NBC Orchestra with Toscanini conducting, in 1938.

On Saturday it was particularly significant, being the ninth anniversary of 9/11. Marc Taddei dedicated the performance to the memory of Dr Allan Thomas, Wellington musician, musicologist, university lecturer, and broadcaster, who died a few days earlier.

 

The ‘1910’ theme was borne out by that being the birth-date of the composer; while the other two works were composed in that year, although in the case of the Stravinsky, it was the 1919 version that was being performed.

 

There is something about the cadences and falling lines of melody in this work which give a feeling of sadness and melancholy.  There is sustained tension through its long phrases  – one feels one can hardly breathe.  It was given a particularly slow performance, with wonderful controlled dynamics, especially the pianississimos, and splendid tone.

 

The Firebird was also the subject of a dedication – to Elsa Jensen, violinist, who was present and who had been a member of the Alex Lindsay String Orchestra.   This exciting and delightful work is always a joy to hear.   The vast amount of percussion used, and the use of particular techniques, such as the strings playing subtle and ethereal harmonics, make for constant interest.

 

The Introduction movement of this performance was rather slower than I’ve heard it before, but this enabled much detail to be heard, especially from the wind sections of the orchestra.

 

Among the many joys was the harp and piano playing (Jenny Newth and Donald Nicolson), and Moira Hurst’s clarinet.  The hall was nearly full to hear this enchanting and exhilarating music, which Taddei conducted without the music score, as he did for the Barber also.  The performance was not quite perfect, but for me it was very nearly so.

 

Elgar’s violin concerto is a demanding work, and thus not heard as often as his cello concerto.  It was therefore not surprising that a soloist as young as Feng Ning (winner of the 2005 Michael Hill violin competition in Queenstown and Auckland) used the score.  Taddei had told us that he considered the concerto the greatest of Elgar’s compositions, but that it was Germanic rather than English, with influences from Richard Strauss, and that it was possibly the hardest concerto in the repertoire, with double and triple stopping for the soloist to negotiate.   Despite all these factors, he thought Elgar the most nostalgic of all composers.

 

Feng Ning has a wonderfully warm and sweet tone.  This was a worthy performance of a massive work.   A brilliant first movement began with a very crisp opening, followed by a broad sweep approach, yet with great rhythmic precision.  Delicious woodwind was a feature.  The soloist had a luscious sound, full yet delicate.  Nevertheless, this reading of the work was not as romantic as that on the Elgar/ Menuhin recording I have.

 

There is a nice connection between that well-known 1932 recording of the concerto by the London Symphony Orchestra with Elgar himself conducting, and the 16 year-old Yehudi Menuhin as soloist, since Feng Ning attended a master-class with Menuhin.  After the great man had heard Ning play he offered no comment, but gave the young violinist a hug.

 

The adagio movement was quite magical, the soloist thoroughly in command of this taxing and difficult music; all nuances were in place.

 

The last movement had a wonderful sense of stillness and of the slow passage of time, in the quiet parts.  The concerto uses no percussion, only timpani, so there was little of the bombast one can associate with Elgar.  The orchestra was somewhat overshadowed by the soloist in this movement, but nevertheless, played splendidly. 

 

The orchestra joined the large audience in giving much applause to the soloist.  Applause between movements may irritate some of us, but it is good news.  It means that there are people present who do not normally attend symphony concerts.

 

The concert ended with the release of yellow and black balloons from a net suspended from the ceiling of the hall.   We need not only to congratulate the oldest of the regional orchestras, but to hope and to lobby to ensure that this fine orchestra, with its community functions throughout the southern North Island and the northern South Island can continue its role, and withstand government pressures on Creative New Zealand to cut its funding.

 

A Radio New Zealand Concert interview with the orchestra’s manager, Diana Marsh, the day before the concert revealed that changes to the funding were to be made by Creative New Zealand without consultation with this orchestra or the other regional orchestras.   She explained that the orchestra arranges its yearly timetable around the ballet company’s and the opera company’s scheduled performances as well as those of the Orpheus Choir which require an orchestra.  Around that it arranges its own orchestral concerts, featuring top line soloists and concerts particularly for children.  These are held not only in Wellington, but in cities and towns where the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra seldom or never goes, e.g. Masterton (where this same programme was played the night before this concert), Nelson, Palmerston North.  Its role is therefore to take music to ‘the provinces’ and to provide live music for opera,  ballet, and choral concerts, as much as it is to give symphony concerts in Wellington city.

 

If all the coughers at Saturday’s concerts were to join (as I have) the Friends of the Vector Wellington Orchestra organisation, then the coffers of the orchestra would not only be well filled, but it would demonstrate that people care about this orchestra’s continued existence.

 

Vector Wellington Orchestra – ‘1810’

BEETHOVEN – Overture ‘Egmont’ Op.84 / SCHUMANN – Piano Concerto in A Minor Op.54

ROSSINI – Overture ‘The Barber of Seville’ / STRAVINSKY – Ballet ‘Jeu de Cartes’

Michael Houstoun (piano)

Marc Taddei (conductor)

Vector Wellington Orchestra

Wellington Town Hall

Saturday 24th July, 2010

The idea of learning one’s history through music seems an attractive one; and the Wellington Orchestra’s 2010 programme has taken pains to forge links in time between the present year and various composers and their works connected with one, two, and three hundred years ago. The latest in this year’s concert series focused upon the year 1810, though only two of the four works on the programme seemed to have an association with that year. Of the others, the Stravinsky ballet Jeu de Cartes was part of a parallel series featuring the composer’s ballet works, and Rossini’s perennially delicious Overture Il Barbiere di Siviglia was included to highlight Stravinsky’s use of one of the most prominent tunes from the work in his own ballet.

One could posibly cavil at the shortish playing time of the concert, just as some of the audience at the NZSO last Saturday night objected to the longer-than-usual presentation. Perhaps room could have been found for another work, or the Rossini replaced by something a bit more substantial length-wise. A positive aspect was that the contents of the concert made a refreshing change from the usual formulaic componentry of such concerts – overture, concerto, symphonic work – one which seldom admits any pieces which don’t fit the mould, and are thus neglected. A soprano could have been engaged and given us a couple of the orchestral songs from Beethoven’s Egmont music. Alternatively, another Stravinsky work could have been included in the concert (one which would have contrasted nicely with both the Rossini Overture and Jeu de Cartes) such as the Dumbarton Oaks chamber concerto, a piece which seldom gets played in symphony concerts because of its awkward length (about 12 minutes).

Of course, less is sometimes more, as my grandmother used to say; and what’s important is quality, more so at times than quantity. I thought this concert had sufficient quality to make it an eminently worthwhile venture. Marc Taddei, as is usually his wont, spoke with his audience before the concert started, emphasising the interactive links between the orchestra and its community, as reflected in both the attendance at concerts and the sponsorship the orchestra receives from locally-represented businesses. In hindsight the speech’s message served as a counterweight to the scenario painted by speakers at an after-concert reception, involving arts funding from Creative New Zealand for the orchestra being cut, a policy that would also affect the NZSO. It would be a pity if the Wellington Orchestra had any of its activities impaired by such a policy.

The concert started snappily and strongly with the Egmont Overture – and a rattling good performance it was, too, athletically directed by Marc Taddei, the playing notable for muscle rather than mass. This is an orchestra which consistently punches above its own weight, and this concert and the playing of things like Egmont demontrated living, dynamic proof of its quality. Only a lack of numbers in the string section disadvantages the balance in tutti passages, where the brass and winds seem to hold sway, without the strings being able to properly soar over the top and exert plenty of tone and muscle.

I was really looking forward to hearing Michael Houstoun playing the Schumann Concerto, partly because I’d enjoyed his Beethoven series with the orchestra last year so much, and partly because I was looking forward to comparing Houstoun’s with Diedre Irons’s performance which I’d heard earlier this year. Well, in a sense the occasion didn’t disappoint, because the interpretations were very different. Houstoun brought all of his familiar virtues to his interpretation, strength, directness and incredible focus, setting up a great sense of flow in the first movement  and achieving a lovely build-up to the first big orchestral tutti – the orchestral solo playing was notable, with both Merran Cooke’s oboe at the beginning and Tui Clark’s clarinet in the dreamy exchanges doing a very lyrical and sensitive job. Occasionally I thought Houstoun’s playing just a bit too abrupt – he’s not really into romantic rhetoric – and so the pianist’s big octaves statement mid-movement had muscle and fire rather than a grand declamatory air. So, in general it was an interpretation which went for drive and urgency rather than any kind of big-boned romanticism.

The slow movement was successful in bringing about a necessary contrast – the exchanges between piano and orchestra were sufficiently poised to give a sense of poetic feeling, though one sensed still a current of urgency beneath it all. What lovely ‘cellos at their big moment in the middle section of the movement! – and then, a beautifully-shaped build-up by the whole orchestra towards the last statement by the strings of this very romantic theme! These were touches of radiance in the midst of what seemed like serious business.

And serious business I thought the players made the finale – it was exciting in its way, it danced and surged, but for me it had very little of the tumbling warmth I’ve always enjoyed in this music. The speeds were very quick, and there was an element of precariousness about the exchanges between soloist and orchestra in places which added to the tension the urgency was already generating. Now call me old-fashioned if you will, but I don’t actually seek this music out as a listener for its dogged, insistent qualities, or its tensions – I’m wanting the music in this finale to evoke surgings of joy and warm-heartedness that I suspect in Schumann’s life were very precious, and savoured to the utmost when they happened for him. The “serene delight” of this music spoken about by numerous commentators was only fitfully in evidence here, and hearing Houstoun play this work left me wondering just how much he actually loved it, if at all. For me, not very much love came across in its performance overall, however impressive along the way I might have found the drive, the virtuosity, the control and the delineation of the themes.

I have to say that Houstoun got a great reception at the end – he was recalled more than once to foot-stamping ovations – so people obviously enjoyed that sense of the concerto being strongly and excitingly delivered. And I would be the first to declare that music can take as many interpretations as there are performers, if that music is delivered with sufficient conviction by those performers; and that one ought to rejoice at such variety stemming from realisations of a single work. However, Schumann’s music doesn’t “play itself”, and for me a certain dogged quality about the playing made it all just a bit one-dimensional.

The Rossini Overture, straight after the interval, was excitingly delivered, via one of Marc Taddei’s no-nonsense entrances – a brisk walk, a leap onto the podium, and a gesture plunging us straight into the music. While I enjoyed some of it immensely, I also want my Rossini to “smile”, and insinunate as much as scintillate – but there wasn’t much subtlety, though the energy was exciting enough in places.

All in all, I enjoyed the first and last items the most at the concert – Marc Taddei seems to have a “feel” for twentieth-century repertoire, as evidenced by previous forays into this repertoire with the orchestra. I thought his interpretation of Stravinsky’s wonderful Jeu de Cartes (The Game of Cards) allowed his players plenty of space to phrase and point in a way that brought it all to life, notwithstanding a couple of hesitant moments. What a feast of a score for orchestral soloists – so many solo lines, like a concerto for orchestra! Especially wonderful was the writing for brass, both solo phrases and in ensemble.

I’ve got to say that I thought the orchestra’s playing had tremendous spirit and character – there were occasional burbles in the brass, which any player will tell you is par for the course if you play such an instrument and your name isn’t Dennis Brain. The strings also had a lot to do, plenty of treacherous rhythmic dovetailing (this is Stravinsky at the height of his “neo-classical” period, revelling in rhythmic complexity and textural juxtapositions). Generally the players acquitted themselves magnificently, the odd purple patch of ensemble aside – as with the performance, earlier in the year, of Danses Concertantes, I feel they caught the “spirit” of the music and characterised the different sections vividly. Especially telling was the music for the Joker, who, throughout the work, was the disruptive “villain ” of the scenario.

The three movements are called “deals” as in a card game – and in the last deal, Stravinsky quotes from other composers’ music, in Rossini’s case directly from the Overture which we heard earlier in the second half of the programme. One could surmise that these quotations are nothing but deceptions on the part of the Joker, who, however, is defeated at the end of the game by a royal flush. Conductor and orchestra contrived to bring out all the theatricalities and chameleon-like colourings of these rites of deception, raising a ripple of mirth with the Rossini quotations, and underlining the finality of the Joker’s fate with the final, brusque quotation of the opening theme, its severity and abrupt closure splendidly conveyed, and leaving no doubt as to the hero/villain’s come-uppance.

HARRIS – Three Pieces for Orchestra

HAYDN – Cello Concerto No. 1 in C Major

MAHLER – Symphony No.5 in C-sharp Minor

Li-Wei Qin (‘cello)

New Zealand Symphony Orchestra

Pietari Inkinen (conductor)

Michael Fowler Centre, Wellington

Saturday 17th July, 2010

This was a blockbuster of a concert, regarding both its overall length and the epic nature of the music throughout its second half. The Mahler Fifth Symphony isn’t the longest of the canon, but it has an epic grandeur that invites big, measured utterances, and the performance by the NZSO and its conductor Pietari Inkinen squared up to the work’s demands magnificently. Earlier we got Ross Harris’s Three Pieces for Orchestra, evocative vignettes of different times, places and personalities, followed by some lively, elegant Haydn from one of the stars of the world of ‘cello-playing, Li-Wei Qin.

Having a piece of contemporary music, and especially a world premiere put onto a programme always gives a concert a special flavour. Such occasions are welcomed with great interest and expectation in some quarters, and received in more conservative circles with attitudes ranging from mild tolerance to avid dislike. Ross Harris’s piece got its foot in the door rather cleverly with its different evocations of three places in Europe associated with well-known composers, one of whom was Mahler, whose name is of course forever linked with Vienna.

The work was a commission from Peter and Kathryn Walls, and was originally intended as a “calling card” for the orchestra to take on their European tour later this year. With each of the three European places named in the piece planned as part of the orchestra’s concert schedule, it seemed an ingenious idea that the orchestra should play at least the movement from the work referring to the concert’s location on each of those three occasions. One would think that concert promoters in each of those cities would jump at the idea of having a visiting orchestra play a piece written about their own part of the world, each piece emphasising an association with a great composer.

I hope the idea of touring the work goes ahead, if only because the music is so good – each piece unerringly captures a world of vivid impressions concerning a place and its effect upon a powerful creative mind. The Vienna/Mahler piece is a spiky, grotesque waltz, not unlike that of the composer’s Seventh Symphony scherzo, from which there is a quote at the music’s beginning. Parts burlesque, reverie, nightmare, and satire, the piece catches a volatility, a juxtapositioning of vastly different moods throughout, the waltz-rhythm as much a tribute to Vienna as to Mahler’s use of the dance in his music. Of the three pieces I thought it the most subtle in that the direct links to the music of the associated composer were the least “signalled”, leaving the world of pastiche far behind.

The second piece, entitled Lucerne/Wagner, began with a tolling bell, the resonances drifting over still waters, evoking the scene that must have greeted Wagner on many a morning while he lived at the Villa Tribschen, on the shores of Lake Lucerne. This was reputedly the happiest period of the composer’s life, so it was interesting that Ross’s tribute had an elegiac, almost valedictory tone, with a cor anglais solo beautifully played by Michael Austin. The last piece was called Dusseldorf/Schumann, the music right from the start restless and agitated, for me reflecting Schumann’s energetic and obsessive activities as a composer and anxieties as a performing musician. Throughout the piece the Schumannesque fingerprints juxtaposed nervous tensions and dream-like fantasisings, with golden “Rhenish-Symphony” horns summoning the composer back from the most distant realms of his creativity, and returning the music to the opening agitations, the piece concluding with an ethereal upward flourish, an ending which seemed to take most listeners by surprise.

People have been quick to point out that such an ending to a piece doesn’t make enough of a rousing impression on audiences, especially when it’s an unfamiliar work. I thought the music’s “not with a bang but with a whimper” conclusion entirely appropriate given Schumann’s tribulations and eventual descent into madness while at Dusseldorf. I was more concerned with the obviousness of one or two of the quotations in the second and third pieces, quotes which pushed the pieces more towards the realms of pastiche – I wondered whether the “Rheingold” and the “Prophet Bird” motifs in the second and third pieces respectively needed to be quite so exposed, especially as, in the “Mahler” movement, by comparison, the references to original work made for a somewhat less cliched effect. Even so, I thought that each of the pieces was quite delectably written, managing to say significant things about the ambience of interaction between composer and location in all three instances – rather like acts of homage from one creator to three others. As such, it’s a very “international” piece that should travel well – and I feel certain the orchestra will have a lot of success with it, wherever they play it, either in part or as a whole.

By dint of his association with Vienna, both as a choirboy in his young years and as a senior composer, Haydn was readily aligned with Mahler for the purposes of this concert. And if there appears to the ear very little in common between them stylistically, each composer did share and express a joy in the countryside which they expressed in their music, Haydn far more so than many of his classical contemporaries, and Mahler through his frequent “nature-music” episodes in his scores. With the latter’s Fifth Symphony, however, the impression is less of evocation of nature than of a kind of neo-classical spirit, the composer declaring that he wanted the work “to combine the contrapuntal skill of Bach with the melodiousness of Haydn and Mozart”. As for Haydn himself, there were touches of rustic vigour in his newly-discovered ‘Cello Concerto in C Major, played here by one of the stars of the world of the ‘cello, Li-Wei Qin.

This was a gentler performance than I was accustomed to, having recordings by both Rostropovich and Yo-Yo Ma, both of whom ride the work using their instrument as a kind of bucking bronco in places, a very exciting and earthy “pesante” approach to which the music readily responds. But Li-Wei Qin made the work his own through gentler, more restrained means, very musical, if in places somewhat circumspect, my impression being that he was putting the music first and the performer second. The scaled-down orchestra kept things on a similar wavelength, concentrating on beauty of tone and unanimity of phrasing, rather than snap and bite. He didn’t make the upward scales in the finale behave like skyrockets, or evoke the madness of a Keystone Cops chase with rapid figurations – it was a performance that spun the music out like gossamer thread, everything more elegant than earthy, and in the end coming off beautifully.

The evening’s heavyweight business came with the Mahler Symphony in the concert’s second half. I thought that, corporately and individually, the players delivered this work magnificently, under the direction of Pietari Inkinen. Right from the opening trumpet fanfare (Michael Kirgan’s playing of this had a wonderfully urgent sense of sounding an alarm to the world, which sent shivers down the back of my neck!), one felt that the players were there for the long haul, bar by bar, bringing out everything they possibly could from the music. I was struck by the excellence of the solo instrumental playing as much as by the ensemble – and this work, as with a number of the Mahler symphonies, abounds in opportunities for solo playing, quite scarily in places where the player is so exposed (as with that trumpet opening).

I can recall hearing at least two previous performances by the orchestra of this work, the most recent being in 2006 with Susanna Mälkki (coincidentally, from the same part of the world as Inkinen)  – and, while I admired Mälkki’s skills and her commitment to other music she conducted here, I thought her interpretation of the Mahler fairly unsympathetic. The work was rattled through at what seemed like a tremendous pace, which brought forth brilliant playing from the orchestra but with so much of what I thought of as the music’s character ignored – its tremendous weight at the start, its charm and circumspection in the middle, and its lyrical beauty and good humour at the end – all seemed to me sacrificed to brilliance. Of course, this is music that, like all great works of a similar ilk, can be played many different ways and still work its magic upon audiences – rarely is a great piece of music performed to nobody’s (or everybody’s) satisfaction.

Thankfully, Pietari Inkinen seemed far more involved with the work’s spirit throughout, taking great pains to characterise strongly the symphony’s three parts – the grim purpose of the first two movements, the dancing energies and nostalgic remembrances of the third movement, and the romance and gurgling good humour of the final two movements all received their dues. Where the interpretation really blossomed for me was with the third movement, the waltz-scherzo, the movement of which Mahler predicted that “conductors for the next fifty years will take it too fast!”. Inkinen seemed to have fully heeded the composer’s warning, and directed a performance with such lilt and charm and sensitivity to changing moods that the whole hall took on a kind of ambient glow at the shared pleasure of it all. The horn section, led by Ed Allen, played like heroes, sounding their frequent calls with golden tones across magically-conceived soundscapes, while the rest of the orchestra danced and ruminated by turns, Inkinen getting from the players real point to the Viennese rhythms throughout.

Another of the work’s features was the contrapuntal character of Mahler’s writing, again in the waltz-scherzo, but also in the finale. Conductor and players brought out these interactive lines with lots of energy, humour and bubble, the music given room to breathe and for the phrases allowed plenty of “point” – in fact the music takes on an almost concerto grosso aspect in places, with frequent quotations from the composer’s own songs and the counterpoint to which the melodic lines were yoked given as much to a variety of solo instruments as to the strings or brass sections. As for the work’s most famous movement, the strings-and-harp Adagietto, beloved of both film-makers and musak-merchants, it was played here so simply and with such pure intensity (at a natural breathing-pace) that it sounded for all the world as though it had been freshly-composed – it just unfolded, strand by strand, episode by episode, to magical effect (and I loved the basses’ choreography throughout their final descending phrase, the players swaying and digging into each bow-stroke as though their lives depended upon the outcome).

My only reservations came with the first two movements, neither of which I thought generated enough “weight” to adequately support what the brass players were doing so wonderfully with the top lines. I didn’t think there was quite enough sense of enormous crushing power in the tread of the first movement, and especially not in those baleful chromatic descents which conclude with percussive strokes that ought to shake the surrounding’s very foundations – I wanted the lower instruments at those points to really dig in and to “thwack”, to bring us right to the edge of the abyss, as it were, generating more of a sense of “Do not go gentle into that good night” throughout what the composer intended to be a funeral march. In the second movement, I felt the music’s baleful aspect was underplayed, the horns for one not given sufficient encouragement to roar in places, and the percussion held in check for most of the movement – that is, until the appearance of the work’s mighty crossbeam, the great brass chorale, where Inkinen seemed at last to really “open the music up” and give us a searing glimpse of something akin to the eternal, the orchestral playing magnificent almost to the point of pre-empting the chorale’s re-appearance at the end of the finale.

Had we experienced this degree of tonal weight and deep intensity earlier in the work, I would want to say that the performance was the finest I had ever heard of the symphony. As it was, Inkinen and the NZSO were able to spectacularly convey the work’s cumulative effect sufficiently for us to take into our hearts something of the composer’s idea of this worlde’s joye. No matter that the concert stretched on into the night later than was usual (a 7:30pm starting time would have helped in this case) – the exhalations of pleasure I heard from people all around me at the exciting conclusion of the symphony’s finale spoke volumes regarding the thrills of the music-making and the success of the concert.

New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, Pietari Inkinen (conductor), Li-Wei Qin (cello)

Arnold Schoenberg: Transfigured Night

Schumann: Cello Concerto in A minor, Op.129

Brahms: Piano quartet No.1 in G minor, Op.25 (orchestrated Schoenberg)

Friday 16 July, 6.30pm

A concert with such an interesting programme as this, and with such a superb soloist, should not have suffered so many empty seats; one is tempted to think that some would-be patrons were scared off by the name Schoenberg – or were they all at the rugby?  There was no need to be scared with this programme.

Schoenberg’s five-movement work, Transfigured Night, based on a poem by Richard Dehmel, is very far removed from atonal.  It is based on a string sextet that he composed early in his career, and is scored for strings only.  It is lush and romantic.

Its slow, quiet start opens with cellos only, then violas join in and later the other strings.  Guest principal violist Jethro Marx (who was in New Zealand earlier in the year with the Zukerman Chamber Players) had plenty to do; his solo passages were strong and resonant.  The section’s position to the right of the conductor made the violas more noticeable, and probably made their sound more prominent.

The music becomes more angular, reflecting the distress of the woman in the poem, who is carrying a child by a man other than her lover.  Towards the end of the work (the movements played continuously) there is contrasting quietude and restful resignation.  All was beautifully played, with much feeling in the last section, and finally, serenity and exaltation.

In addition to the guest principal violist, there was an acting principal of the cellos, a young Englishman, who was able to come to the fore in the cello concerto, where he has a duet section with the soloist.  In addition to these two, an Australian clarinettist was brought from Sydney at short notice, when the orchestra’s regular principal clarinet was unable to play, and a guest principal bassoonist from Amsterdam was also part of the line-up.

The high point of a very good concert was undoubtedly Li-Wei Qin’s playing of Schumann’s cello concerto.  The soloist had a rich sound; no doubt helped by the 1780 Guadagnini cello he plays.

This was his first visit to New Zealand, although he lived in Australia from the age of 13 before going to Manchester to study.  However, he has played with the NZSO before, at the Beijing Olympics Cultural Festival in 2008.  His playing of the work was passionate and romantic.  He has an apparently effortless technique, married to good articulation and phrasing.

The duet between the soloist and the principal cellist was played with typically Romantic ecstatic longing.  The soloist was somewhat flamboyant of gesture at times, but what gorgeous and brilliant playing!  It was a thoroughly luscious interpretation, alternately robust and delicate as required. 

The virtuosic cadenza was completely musical in its execution, despite the soloist not having free rein, free of the orchestra, (or ‘free reign’ as the programme notes had it).  One could only agree with the quotation in the notes from Pablo Casals – ‘one of the finest works one can hear – from beginning to end the music is sublime’.

Li-Wei Qin responded to the tumultuous applause with an encore – a little March by Prokofiev which featured double-stopping and left-hand pizzicato, and was quite delightful.

With its very lively movements, this piano quartet of Brahms perhaps lends itself to a full orchestral arrangement more than many would.  However, I found it strange to hear a chamber music work that I know reasonably well, being played by full orchestra.  The effect was of a Brahms symphony.

There was no question that it is a fine orchestration, but I would still rather have it as a quartet.  It sounded heavy and even dull at times, despite the exciting percussion and winds that Schoenberg has employed.  The delicacy one gets with a chamber ensemble was almost entirely absent, though there were glimpses in the second movement’s trio, especially the lovely woodwind sections.

The opening theme, normally on piano, sounded quite strange on bass clarinet (?). Elsewhere there were big washes of sound where in the original there would be subtlety; the work was expansive instead of introspective.

The third movement became pompous, but the themes were brought out well. The gypsy finale suffered less from the orchestration, its gaiety and syncopation were merely amplified, especially by the use of percussion: tambourine, xylophone, triangle, glockenspiel and side-drum.  But at times the unison effect was rather overpowering.  It was delightful to have a small section in this movement scored for string trio alone.