Tag: orchestral

NZSM Orchestra with conductor Hamish McKeich showcases achievements by 2020 award-winning composer and instrumentalist at St.Andrew’s-on-The-Terrace, Wellington

Posted on by Peter Mechen

Te Kōkī New Zealand School of Music presents:
Music by Mica Thompson, Carl Reinecke and Johannes Brahms

THOMPSON  – Song
REINECKE – Flute Concerto In D Major Op.283
BRAHMS – Symphony No. 2 in D Major Op.73

Isabella Gregory (flute)
Hamish McKeich (conductor)
New Zealand School of Music Orchestra

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

Saturday, 26th September, 2020

Pandemic restrictions having been relaxed of late (though judiciously more “on hold” than entirely done away with), we were allowed more-or-less regularly-spaced seating at St. Andrew’s to hear the most recent of the NZSM Orchestra’s public concerts, one featuring the recent winner of the School’s Concerto Competition, flutist Isabella Gregory (see the review at https://middle-c.org/2020/07/nzsm-concerto-competition-an-evening-of-elegance-frisson-and-feeling/), playing the Reinecke concerto with which she won the prize, though on this occasion with a full and proper orchestral accompaniment! Flanking her polished, sparkling efforts were two other items, the concert beginning with a work for orchestra  entitled “Song” by Hawkes Bay-born composer Micah Thompson, and concluding with the well-known Second Symphony by Brahms.

Thanks to the aforementioned ravages of Covid-19 upon the present year in respect of public music-making and -presentation, this was, I think, the first 2020 NZSM orchestral concert I’d attended , though I had seen a few of the individual players in other orchestral and chamber presentations at various times. It was certainly one worth the wait for, and promised much beforehand, with the NZSO’s principal Conductor-in-Residence Hamish McKeich due to rehearse and direct the performances. Also, one of the NZSO’s recent Guest Conductors, Miguel Harth-Bedoya apparently worked with the orchestra during this period – though it’s not clear whether the latter had any direct involvement with the orchestra’s preparation for this concert.

The evening began with “thanks and praise” from the director of the School, Prof. Sally Jane Norman, thanks for the efforts of people in staging the concert in the face of near-insuperable difficulties, and praise for the efforts of the musicians and their tutors – mixed in with all of this was warm appreciation for people’s actual attendance at the concert, supporting the school’s activities in fostering the careers of young composers/musicians.

First we heard a work by composer Micah Thompson, called “Song”, and inspired in part by the poetry of British poet Ted Hughes (1930-1998), specifically in this case a 1957 poem “The Hawk in the Rain”. Thompson explained, both in a progamme note and by means of an internet post (https://www.facebook.com/NZSMusic/videos/1186964995018168) how the poet’s interest in the “identity, history and mythologies of particular animals” had informed his own approach to exploring musical instruments’ characteristics and their use – he used Hughes’s “wild, sometimes brutal, but always expressive and melancholic” verses as a kind of counterpoint to his own creative impulses. As the programme printed the text of Hughes’ verses, I couldn’t help comparing his earthier, more confrontational expressiveness to that of an earlier poet, Gerard Manly Hopkins, in the latter’s comparatively rarefied (but just as dramatic and musical) poem from 1877, “The Windhover”, describing the flight of another bird of prey, a falcon.

Thompson’s work also took a number of previously-composed solo pieces, for piano, clarinet and flute, and “collaged” them into what he called “an orchestral space”. This space coalesced into life, the ambient beginnings featuring slivers of percussion, mingled with taonga-puoro-like calls, creating an atmosphere of wildness and vast resonances of possibility – long string lines were punctuated with birdsong and wild gesturings, the sounds suggesting flight both with impulses of wing-beatings and the stillnesses of soaring. Long-held notes for cello, winds, brass and violins accentuated the spaces while various scintillations suggested light-changes, both osmotic and sharp-edged. The celeste brought an almost cow-bell nostalgia into play, contrasting with the increasing combatative-edged intrusions from both clarinet and horn solos, the implicit violence of the poem’s words here suggested abstractedly, one of a number of “perceptions” hinted at by the music. Returning to whisperings, the sounds took on a kind of “mystic” feeling, the flute playing a fanfare-like birdcall, a cadenza-like passage which seemed to awaken the surrounds more markedly, the strings rustling, the percussions tinkling, the basses gently rumbling, the piano chirruping, everything freely modulating before drifting into a silence coloured only by the flute’s gentle call. I like the “assuredness” of it all, its focus supporting tangible imagery and feeling amid all the ambient suggestiveness.

Carl Reinecke’s Flute Concert has long been regarded as the instrument’s principal Romantic flagbearer, given that the composer was of the Romantic persuasion  along the lines of Mendelssohn and Schumann, rather than of Liszt or Wagner – though befriended by Liszt and given introductions by the latter to contacts in Paris, Reinecke remained a firm adherent of the more conservative 19thCentury school. The work’s gentle, Brahmsian opening was essayed beautifully by the players, here, with some lovely horn playing, and beautiful phrasing from the flute at the player’s entrance. The soloist’s “big tune” was answered by the brasses the exchanges taking us into a melancholic, romantic world of feeling, rounded off by a stirring orchestral tutti. I thought Gregory’s playing even more astonishing than when encountering her in the competition’s final, the orchestral accompaniment perhaps giving the soloist more variety to react to and establish a personality very much her own.

The slow movement took on the character of a kind of “Romantic legend”, a gift for a skilled storyteller, dramatic brass and timpani preparing the way for the flute’s narrative, which was here developed with a real sense of occasion and adventure, the ensemble seizing its chances to dramatize the music at every opportunity, an impulse somewhat tamed by the flute’s bringing the ending of the movement into the major key, as an antidote to the relative darkness! Horns and wind threw out a jaunty aspect at the finale’s opening, the flute taking up the polonaise rhythm with gusto, throughout the movement steadfastedly steering the music back to the dance whenever different episodes sought to diversify the expression – a charmingly winsome game of dominance, in which the flute was triumphant, the work’s coda featuring exciting exchanges between Gregory and the musicians, Hamish McKeich keeping the momentums simmering, right to the work’s festive conclusion.

Concluding the programme was a quintessential conservative-Romantic work, the Brahms Second Symphony, one which gave  the composer opportunity for some impish fun in describing the music beforehand to his friends – his tongue-in-cheek characterisations of parts of the work were reproduced in the excellent programme notes, comments such as the words “so melancholy that you will not be able to bear it – I have never written anything so sad, and the score itself will have to come out in mourning”. If at times gruffly expressed, Brahms certainly didn’t lack a sense of humour!

I enjoyed the performance enormously, in the first movement right from the near-perfect horn-playing at the work’s beginning, with its answering winds and floating string responses, through the “lilt” of the playing of the second subject theme by all concerned, and the stirring brass response to the increasing ferment of the development’s exchanges, to the lovely “spent” character of the climbing strings and the glowing wind replies when the opening was recapitulated (I loved the confidently-produced “zinging” quality of the strings’ playing of the dotted-rhythm fanfares shortly afterwards!). And though not absolutely note-perfect, the solo horn’s valedictory passage towards the movement’s end was so beautifully shaped and sounded, the string-playing that followed couldn’t help but sound ravishing (ravished, perhaps?) in reply.

The strings dug into the second movement’s opening as if the players really meant it, the top note of the succeeding upward phrase a bit shaky first time round, but more secure on its repetition – again the horn-playing shone, with the strings, and the winds following, and similarly shining   in succession. As the music floated over graceful pizzzicati both winds and strings sang full-throatedly, confidently leading from this into the music’s darker-browed sequences and holding their ground amid the storms and stresses, the winds eventually coming to the rescue, encouraging the strings to pick their way through the wreckage, putting the crooked straight and making the rough places plain as they went……the return of the opening sequence by strings and winds here made such a heart-warming  impression, even if  the horizons were again darkened and the brasses and timpani held sway for a few anxious moments – amid the uncertainties, winds and strings registered a further brief moment of apprehension with the timpani, before squaring up with a “let’s get on” gesture that brought the sounds to rest.

The third movement, an Allegretto grazioso featured a perky oboe supported by clarinets and followed by flutes  – lovely! The strings delicately danced into the picture, the tempi amazingly swift, the playing precise! – fabulous playing and skilful dovetailing when the oboe rejoined the mix with the opening theme – the lovely “flowering” of the wind textures was then matched  by the strings’ “darkening” of the same, after which the dancing resumed with earnest and energy – and I loved the re-delivery of the opening wind tune by the strings, the downward part of the phrase played with what sounded like a satisfied sigh! – very heartfelt!

The finale was, by contrast, all stealth and mystery at the start, creating great expectation before bursting forth, McKeich and his players creating an invigorating “togetherness” of ensemble, the winds gurgling with excitement when given their turn! The strings gave their all with their “big tune”, the tempo kept steady, the tutti blazing forth with excitement, the syncopations flying past at a tempo, and the sotto voce of the opening’s return maintained. Another excitable tutti was relished, before the triplet-led episode allowed a hint of melancholy to descend upon the textures before the movement’s opening sequence returned with a few ear-catching variants – a bit of scrawny playing here and there simply added to the excitement and abandonment, the brass heaving to with some elephantine comments, and the rest of the orchestra girding its loins for the work’s cataclysmic coda – noisy, but joyful and exuberant! It was a performance which got at the end a well-deserved accolade, doing the composer, as well as the conductor and players, proud!

Wellington Chamber Orchestra justifies attention to neglected Schumann symphonies, among some less triumphant performances

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Wellington Chamber Orchestra conducted by Luka Venter 

Schütz: Symphonia from ‘Die sieben Worte Jesu Christi am Kreuz’
Haydn: Symphony No. 104 in D, “London”
Brahms: Variations on a Theme by Haydn, Op. 56a (St Anthony Variations)
Schumann: Symphony No 2 in C, Op 61

St Andrew’s on The Terrace

Sunday 20 September, 3 pm

This was the first concert by the Wellington Chamber Orchestra that Middle C has attended this year. And I think this was the first time that Luka Venter has been the conductor. He studied at the New Zealand School of Music at Victoria University, in singing, composition and conducting. Since then he has had grants from the opera foundation and other trusts, has studied in Florence, London and Berlin, with conductors like Simone Young, Simon Rattle and Esa-Pekka Salonen; and he has been appointed assistant conductor of Orchestra Wellington as well as a conductor of the “inaugural conducting intake” of the NZSO’s Fellowship Programme.

Heinrich Schütz
The opening piece was curious: a two minute instrumental Symphonia from Heinrich Schütz’s cantata, ‘Die sieben Worte Jesu Christi am Kreuz’. (Schütz was born exactly a hundred years before J S Bach and lived through the dreadful Thirty Years War (1618 – 1648), curiously contemporary with Johann Schein and Samuel Scheidt). It’s scored in five parts, here played by three trombones (descendants of sackbuts) and two violins.  Quite what its relationship was with the rest of the programme wasn’t clear to me, apart from drawing attention to the antiquity of serious music in the German world, illustrated by the rest of the programme. It was restrained and calm, perhaps intended to call attention to the church’s challenging and onerous acoustic.

Haydn’s London Symphony 
In any case, its relationship with Haydn’s last symphony was hardly evident. The virtues of the symphony’s performance were evident more in the quieter passages than in the essentially arresting and witty, or dramatic episodes. Though the opening was somewhat untidy, and string passages didn’t enjoy much feeling of ensemble, energy and understanding of Haydn’s creative instinct were there.

Happily the neat, slower pace of the Andante movement was much more successful, with more accurate and enjoyable playing. Though the surprising interruptions by boisterous strings timpani-dominated passages, suggesting a revival of the style of the Military Symphony, didn’t succeed so well. The Minuet and Trio opened with rather blurred playing but oboes and strings rescued the witty Trio part of the movement that moves to a minor key. And there was plenty of energy in the quite demanding last movement, thought to derive from a Croatian folk song. It shifts back and forth from calm to military-style, from quiet to loud, boisterous passages, quite demanding, that the orchestra handled well.

Brahms’s orchestral variations 
Brahms first major orchestral work was another ambitious work for the orchestra. The theme, not by Haydn, was long thought to have perhaps been by Pleyel (who was born the year after Mozart), but there is no proof. More brass and woodwind instruments, strikingly including a contra-bassoon, took their seats and the performance opened calmly, delivering and elaborating the full melody, with proper respect for whoever might have composed it.

Each of the eight variations has a particular character which the orchestra handled with individuality. The 3rd variation, Con moto, for example was carefully played, ‘fluidly’ in the words of the notes, and successive sections maintained charm and variety. The 7th variation was congenial with no excessive bluster, and while there were minor shortcomings in both the 8th and the Finale, it’s hard to find fault with a performance that’s generally committed and seriously tackled.

Schumann Symphony in C 
For a long time it has seemed to me that Schumann’s symphonies have been undeservedly overlooked, and less performed than those of other leading orchestral composers. Beethoven, Brahms, Tchaikovsky and Dvořák have remained well-attended, while in the last fifty or so years, Bruckner, Mahler, Sibelius, Prokofiev and Shostakovich, and for me at least, Nielsen, have become leading symphonic figures; not to mention various French symphonies.

Perhaps those have been at the expense of Schumann and Mendelssohn, though for me, Mendelssohn is marked only by the Scottish symphony, while I rate all four of Schumann’s.

Schumann’s second symphony is actually his third, as the second was the D minor symphony written but not published in 1841, just after the first symphony; revised in 1851 and published as No 4.

The slight fumble at the Sostenuto assai start was absolutely untypical of what was very soon to become a splendid performance of the 40 minute-long work. Instruments whose playing had earlier been a bit insecure became confident and energetic as the tempo increased; as Un poco più vivace became the Allegro ma non troppo, revealing a pulse and clear articulation that suggested an orchestra that was not entirely amateur. The first movement was not far advanced before there was clear proof of Schumann’s inspiration and orchestral flair (discrediting the tendency many years ago to draw attention to his ‘crime’ of doubling some wind parts allegedly because Düsseldorf wind players tended to show their poor opinion of Schumann’s conducting by staying home).

The playing of the Scherzo second movement gave clear signs of both the composer’s spirited composition, with the confident contrast between the Scherzo and the two pensive Trios, and his flair for orchestration; the string ensemble was admirable. As for the charming, beautiful Adagio espressivo in C minor, opened by strings and oboes, and later even the horns (which had not been entirely blemish-free in the Haydn and Brahms), were here arresting, rewarding Schumann as they should have.

And the horns behaved notably well in the last movement, meeting the Allegro molto vivace demands with confidence, as did the woodwinds. My notes, sometimes hard to understand, remarked how admirable it was that some of the orchestra’s shortcomings in the first half had disappeared. The balance and sense of purpose that the young Venter drew from the orchestra was impressive in Schumann, and I was more than delighted to hear a the composer decently treated, and played so spiritedly by Wellington’s long-established amateur orchestra. (Marc Taddei and Orchestra Wellington should devote a year to them, fleshed out with the cello and piano concertos).

A memorable debut by a new ensemble – “The Capital Band” presents works by Mozart and Schubert

Posted on by Peter Mechen

The Capital Band presents
“DEATH AND THE MAIDEN”

MOZART – Symphony No.29 in A Major K. 218
SCHUBERT – String Quartet in D Minor D. 810 “Death and the Maiden” (arr. string orchestra)

The Capital Band
Music Director – Douglas Harvey

Vogelmorn Hall, Vennell St., Brooklyn, Wellington

Saturday, 5th September, 2020

A warm welcome to “The Capital Band” and its conductor/Music Director, Douglas Harvey, on the spirited showing made by the musicians during their first Wellington concert on Saturday evening! At a time when Covid-19 is wreaking havoc for organisations planning concerts of live music-making, any fresh endeavours in such a respect are welcomed, but even more so when presented with the kind of enthusiasm and verve that greeted we of the audience, gathered in a seemly, socially-distanced manner in Brooklyn’s charming and atmospheric Vogelmorn Hall (a new venue for me as an audience member!). Each of the two works programmed were given in a way that conveyed a kind of essence appropriate to the spirit of the occasion, and certainly left this listener in a buoyantly satisfied frame of mind relating to the overall experience.

There may be others who, like me at first, might imagine an ensemble with the name “The Capital Band” as consisting of strong, jovial and fearless brass band-people, ready even to try their hand at reimagining and reworking classical symphonies and romantic string quartets! However, reading “between the lines” of the ensemble’s online post advertising the concert did, I admit, seem to indicate (even in this most remarkable of all possible worlds) that the musicians were classical orchestral players – in fact, (and here, I quote) “an innovative and exciting group of younger semi-professional, amateur, and non-fulltime musicians and comprises current and former members of Orchestra Wellington, the Dunedin Symphony Orchestra, the National Youth Orchestra, the New Zealand School of Music ensembles, and various other orchestras in the greater Wellington region”. I recognised at least two of the players as members of the previous year’s NZSM Orchestra, though most of the faces were new to me.

Ruminating that “strong, jovial and fearless” could well be synonymic with “innovative and exciting”, I settled down to enjoy the concert, pleasurably anticipating the strains of the opening of one of my all-time favourite symphonies, one representing an acme of youthful symphonic achievement on the part of its composer, the eighteen year-old Wolfgang Mozart, whose adorable Symphony No.29 in A Major K.201 began the evening’s music. Unlike other “Salzburg” symphonies written around this same time by Mozart, most notably the explosive G Minor K.183, this work begins gently, with a gracefully rising set of octave leaps proclaiming the simplicity of absolute mastery – I remember being left open-mouthed when I first heard this music almost fifty years previously, and still marvel today at its focused utterance, whatever tempo its life-pulse is measured at by different interpreters.

I learnt the work through a 1960s recording made by Otto Klemperer with the New Philharmonia Orchestra of London – a reading whose first movement gestures seemed more like implacable movements of heavenly bodies in the firmament than expressions of youthful energy – even though Klemperer’s performances of the Minuet and Finale were as spirited as any, the latter with magnificently al fresco horns resounding across the vistas. The slow movement’s progress was also stately, though exquisitely shaped, with the coda marked by full, rich wind-tones answered by strings in like manner. For years afterwards I couldn’t listen to any other performance of this music, as each seemed trite and superficial compared with Klemperer’s profundity and substance. Then a recording conducted by Benjamin Britten (a gifted Mozartean) with the English Chamber Orchestra seemed to me to triumphantly marry Klemperer’s strength with more urgency, paving the way for my listening to become more accustomed to lighter and swifter readings of the work without experiencing a feeling of some essential quality being lost.

Here, with a performance by “the Band” that celebrated the music’s youthful vigour rather than seeking any profundity or timelessness, my “born again” attitudes were given a splendid going-over by Douglas Harvey’s and his players’ spirited reading of the opening movement –  a case of “Thus, though we cannot make our sun / stand still, yet we will make him run”! The playing brought out all the dynamic contrasts one could want, as well as allowing the “middle voices” of the work to speak – there was a certain rough-hewn quality about some of the passagework, with the lead-up to the second subject in the repeat particularly “grainy” in effect; and some of the staccato work I thought blunt almost to a fault (arguably a matter of taste in places, of course!). By contrast, the slow movement had plenty of grace and charm , with flutes here substituting for oboes (and doing a wonderful job, it needs to be said), their held notes together with those of the horns “warming the textures” beautifully, the string phrases allowed their “internal voices” effect with ease and naturalness of flow. I actually wanted the winds to be given a bit more time to enjoy their mid-movement trill, but the players made the most of their “moment” at the movement’s end, the strings answering in splendid accord.

A mischievous and sprightly Minuet featured some deliciously saucy flute-and-horn unisons at the end of each string-sentence – very rustic and unequivocal, like a disapproving village policeman’s “Ere! – Wot’s all this, then?” By contrast the Trio’s repeated, gracefully “swooping” string phrase was charmingly “choreographed” by some of the players, putting their all into it! The finale was all bluster and dust, Harvey and the players going for broke, the scurried string figurations excitingly executed, and the horns in particular having a ball with their “Yoicks! – tally-ho!” calls ringing out, the occasional “cracked” note merely adding to the excitement of the chase! I loved the “He said damn!” chattering of the divided strings in the second finale episode, the second violins doing particularly well in taking the lead during the reprise. Some concluding energetic unisons, exuberant fanfares and farewell flourishes, and it was all over, to great acclaim!

After the interval the string players returned for an ensembled performance of Schubert’s “Death and the Maiden” Quartet, one I thought must have been the Mahler arrangement (though unfinished by him and completed by David Matthews) – but I’ve since been told this particular version was an arrangement made by the Capital Band players themselves. Having never heard the string orchestra version before I was amazed by how “effective” it all sounded, the opening particularly arresting by dint of the string numbers and, in this performance, the attack and commitment of the players. The ensemble frayed a little during the second subject’s quicker sequences, though the players did better with the “inverted theme” passages that followed. Some of the lines were given to solo strings in places, which added to the music’s overall light and shade, and making the reintroduction of the opening all the more dramatic. And the agitated coda and its dissolution into shadow and mystery was most confidently and securely negotiated – all very spooky!

I loved the “heartbroken” aspect of the slow movement’s opening, the textures made almost Tchaikovskian with those additional strings, the “faintly beating heart” impression all the more palpable, the melody line beautifully nuanced, light hand-in-glove with shadow. The ensuing variations featured a significant amount of solo playing, the players involved splendidly negotiating the sometimes torturous melodic twists of the various lines – and I was taken as never before by the similarity of one of the variations (in a minor-key way) to a corresponding sequence in Brahms’ St Antoni Variations! Another impressive sequence was a throbbing pedal-point episode which gradually built in intensity, before dissipating in a halo of lovely snow-bright harmonies at the movements end. The heavy-footed Brahmsian syncopations of the scherzo’s opening sounded like great fun, here, giving way to a Trio whose grace and elegance seemed worlds apart, even if the violins were tested by the high-lying passages in places.

The galloping rhythms of the finale again brought a strongly committed physical response, readily conveying a sense of headlong flight, and tellingly interrupted by the heroic stance of the second subject, the playing strong and unyielding! And both violin sections did well with the contrasting rushing figures (1sts) and the singing lines (2nds), coming together to catch the music’s incredible drive forwards into the music’s vortex-like heart, and through the opening’s recapitulation into a fragmented amalgam of desperate, fugitive-like impulses, something which only the white heat of the coda’s kinetic energies could hope to quell – the peformers found incredible surges of elemental feeling at the end, giving their all.

At the end, conductor Douglas Harvey thanked us all for attending the concert, the musicians then applauding us most heartily for our support! An encore was a “lullaby” a piece whose provenance I forgot to ask about – but it sounded as though it could have been something written by Aarvo Part, simple voicings expressed in radiant. luminous, open-textured lines – all part of a most impressive first outing by this new ensemble, of which we will hopefully hear a great deal more!

Camerata’s latest Haydn in the Church concert elegantly “framed” by youthful endeavours

Posted on by Peter Mechen

Camerata presents:
HADYN IN THE CHURCH
Music by Mozart, Haydn and Grieg

MOZART – Sinfonia K.V.35  from the Singspiel Die Schuldigkeit des ersten Gebotes
HAYDN – Symphony No. 11 in E-flat
GRIEG – From Holberg’s Time – Suite in Olden Style Op.40

Camerata
Concertmaster and Director: Anne Loeser

St.Peter’s-on-Willis.St, Wellington

Thursday, August 20th, 2020

With a single downbeat at the beginning of this concert from Camerata we were taken, it seemed to me, into a kind of youthful magicland of creative wonderment, via the eleven year-old Mozart’s Sinfonia from a sacred Singspiel Die Schuldigkeit des ersten Gebotes  (translated as “The Obligation of the First and Foremost Commandment”), a kind of allegorical depiction of the trials of a Christian soul. This was Mozart’s first opera, premiered in Salzburg in 1767, a shared endeavour (a not uncommon occurrence at the time) with two other composers, Michael Haydn and Anton Adelgasser, organist at the Salzburg Cathedral – for whatever reason, only Mozart’s contribution, which was the first of the work’s three parts, has survived.

We heard only the Overture to the work, but it was enough to give notice of the budding genius of its composer, the music having a buoyancy and confidence that I recall marked my first encounter with some of the young Wolfgang’s wonderful early symphonies in those late 1960s’ Argo recordings made by Neville Marriner’s St.Martin’s Academy, recordings which were made in a similar kind of church acoustic. Here, Camerata’s bright and energetic playing instantly brought back to me something of that long-ago thrill of discovery – in fact, the relative unfamiliarity of the first two pieces of the concert had the effect of entering into a “bright new world”, while the better-known Holberg Suite by Grieg which concluded the concert itself still had a freshness of approach here from the players that further added to our sense of rediscovery.

I’ve been delighted with Camerata’s presentations of Haydn’s early symphonies thus far, and was as charmed as before with the ensemble’s “latest”, the Symphony No. 11  (which, incidentally, was given a remarkably high rating (7th out of 104!) in the canon by an on-line commentator who set himself the task of evaluating in order ALL of the Haydn Symphonies!). One could immediately “feel” the music’s distinction – the beautiful opening processional aspect, hinting at a deeply-felt sense of occasion, with the horns’ “held” notes beautifully opening up the vistas created by the strings’ silken lines, prepared the listener for an allegro which had C.P.E-Bach-like touches (the vigorous downward phrase that “answered” the opening, and the tremendous energy that drove the music on), with momentary minor-key sequences breaking into smiles as the sounds rolled forward.

The Minuet had both weight and “snap”, the players bringing out the angularity of the “leaned on” accents, with festive, trumpet-like figurations proclaiming the “country sports” aspect of the music. And I loved the way the winsome, wispy syncopated-note texture shrouded the trio in a bit of “elsewhere business” mystery, with one voice leading the other a merry dance! After this the Finale’s Presto opening theme snorted and snuffled its way through the textures, the hi-jinks punctuated by horn calls and reinforced by chattering winds whose sounds coloured the ample St.Peter’s acoustic in a pleasingly ambient fashion. The sleight-of-hand off-beat figures of the second episode had my ears pricked for a few moments, wanting a place to safely put my two left feet! – but the playing’s control was never in doubt, the music’s recapitulation nicely keeping us guessing as to which way our antennae would point in pursuit, and the sheer elan of it all encouraging us to hang on as best we could, with breathlessly exhilarating results.

Though more familiar territory, Grieg’s Holberg Suite (despite its piano version origins one immediately senses how the music “blooms” in its string orchestra version!) came up here right from its opening “as fresh as paint” (that phrase has unaccountably “stuck” with me from somewhere!) with playing that never looked back from the ensemble’s lively accenting of the very first note, the ascending phrases almost trenchant in their “digging into” the music, and contrasting beautifully with the light-as-air, flowing replies. The brisk tempo brought some smartish scampering from the inner voices, and some exciting descending spirallings which reprised the (now augmented) opening theme – and how the players relished the grandeur of the final statements!

How beautifully sounded was the opening of the Sarabande, hymn-like in effect, but enlivened by the energised echo-phrase at the end of each sentence – there’s some lovely work by the ‘cellos, with their individual lines drawing us into the detailings of the texture, and then followed by a wondrously-glowing reiteration of the opening theme from the ensemble, the music singing like crazy! The next movement , the Gavotte/Musette, featured violins and violas introducing the folkish opening strains, answered by the full orchestra, with lovely antiphonal statements adding to the music’s out-of-doors ambiences – the Musette, taken a bit faster, brought out the drone bass and folk-fiddle sound more pictorially, over which the melody was allowed to blossom with each succeeding phrase.

What really caught me up in the music’s flow was the Air, here launched with great concentrated purpose, and built with finely wrought tensions from the upper strings to a full-throated climax, the combination of a sombre bass and  anguished upper string lines making for a moving effect. The major key sequence featured some heart-warming exchanges between solo cello and the violins, before the other cellos joined in, taking the lead, and drawing with them the upper strings towards a reiteration of the earlier outpourings of feeling, before everything rapidly and circumspectly fell away to silence. Out of the somewhat “spent” ambience then began the Rigaudon, the solo violin cheekily enjoining its companions to “cheer up” and join the “life-dance” , underlining its enjoiner with a saucy ascent to its final throwaway note – lovely, delicate solo  playing by Anne Loeser! The ensemble then acquiesced with a flourish – and, a brief introspective sequence later, the invitation and its response was repeated – the day had been won!

Most unexpectedly and  charmingly, we were given a brief encore – a piece of Sibelius’s music I didn’t know existed, one called Vesipisaroita (Water droplets), supposedly his  first composition, written at the age of nine, for violin and ‘cello – a far cry from the masterpieces that had brought the composer world-wide fame (and including several beautiful, if lesser-known works for string orchestra), but certainly ending the concert as it had begun, with youthful endeavours, and in the process underlining a kind of “return to simplicity” which we could take unto ourselves into the night comfortably and reassuringly…….

 

 

 

Simon O’Neill generates plenty of “Spirit” in NZSO Podium Series Concert

Posted on by Steven Sedley

NZSO Podium Series
SPIRIT – with Simon O’Neill

Simon O’Neill (tenor)
Hamish McKeich (conductor)
New Zealand Symphony Orchestra

Berlioz – Overture “Le Corsaire” Op.21

Mahler – Lieder eines Fahrenden Gesellen

R.Strauss – Lieder – Allerseelen Op.10, No. 8 (orch. Heger) / Ruhe, mein Seele, Op. 27 No. 1 (orch. R.Strauss) / Cäcillie, Op 27 No. 2 (orch. R.Strauss) / Heimliche Aufforderung, Op. 27 No. 3 (orch. Heger) / Morgen, Op 27 No. 4 (orch. R.Strauss) / Zueignung, Op. 10 No. 1 (orch. Heger)

Prokofiev Symphony No. 5 in B flat Major, Op. 100

Michael Fowler Centre, Wellington

Thursday 6 August

Hurrah for the NZSO, one of the very few orchestras anywhere in the world able to give live concerts. The large audience showed its appreciation. For reasons not clear to this writer, the concert was labelled “Spirit” though there was nothing particularly spiritual about the programme.

There was no narrative theme to the programme, but this didn’t matter. Many in the audience came especially to hear the renowned New Zealand heldentenor, Simon O’Neill, star of the greatest opera houses and concert halls of the world. They were not disappointed. He presented an uncompromisingly challenging fare, Mahler’s song cycle, Songs of a Wayfarer, and a selection of six songs by Richard Strauss from his Opus 10 and Op. 27 series, composed ten years apart, between 1884 and 1894. These were orchestrated later by Richard Strauss himself and by the German conductor and composer, Robert Heger.

On the face of it, there was much in common to these selections of songs by Mahler and Strauss. They were all composed in broadly the same period, they could all be described as late romantic works, yet they reflect the different personalities of the composers, Mahler deeply introspective, Strauss detached, the thorough professional, focused on his craft. Mahler wrote these songs when he was only 24, getting over a disappointing love affair. The songs, words by the composer, trace the journey of a distraught young man from desperation to acceptance: “I weep, weep! For my love” and “I think of my sorrow” in the first song, but by the second song it is “Good day! Good day! Isn’t it a lovely world?” The words are set to a joyful theme that Mahler used later in his First Symphony. In the third song he has a vision of his lost love, but the final song is about acceptance: “Love and sorrow, and world and dream”.

Simon O’Neill sang these with feeling and empathy, reflected in his powerful yet controlled voice and in his clear diction. His singing touched all by its emotional intensity The orchestra supported him with beautiful responses and echoes to the vocal line, which involved notably fine solo instrumental playing.

The six Richard Strauss songs were originally written for voice and piano and were later arranged for voice and orchestra. The songs are set to poems written by now largely forgotten poets. Strauss wrote the four songs from Op. 27 as a wedding present for his wife, soprano, Pauline de Ahna. These were bracketed by two from the earlier Op. 10. Significantly Strauss added the orchestral accompaniment to the song, Ruhe, meine Seele (Rest thee, my Soul), many years after the song was composed, in 1948, just before his death at the age of 85. The words “Rest thee, rest thee troubled spirit and forget all, thy sufferings will soon be over” had a special meaning in the years after the war. The orchestral accompaniment to these songs added a striking colour, with a fine violin solo in the penultimate song, Morgen, beautifully played by Vesa-Matti Leppänen . This was a memorable performance that will stay in the memories of all who were there to hear it.

The major symphonic work on the programme was Prokofiev’s Fifth Symphony. It was written in 1944, by which time the war was turning in the Allies’ favour. It is a work written for a very large orchestra. There were 94 players on stage. It is full of rich melodies and strong Prokofiev rhythms. It is a long 46 minute colourful work. Prokofiev claimed to have conceived it as a symphony on the greatness of the human soul. This might have satisfied Stalin and his cultural henchmen at the time, but there is a sense of cynicism behind the lovely melodies and exaggerated bombast. It is a challenging work for the orchestra and without any question, the orchestra coped well with the difficult passages, with some outstanding solos and great brass chorales. A wide range of instruments were at work, including something of a solo passage for the wood block. It would be ungenerous not to acknowledge that the work was thoroughly well prepared and performed with dedication. Yet there was something missing, the passion, the warmth of the melodies, the striking contrasts. It was a deliberately careful, but understated performance.

The concert opened with the vigorous start of Berlioz’s Le Corsaire Overture,  followed by a rich extended melody, then more tempestuous music. The contrasting passages represented the adventurous life of a pirate at sea. The title was a clear reference to Lord Byron’s poem of that name. It is attractive programme music which gave an opportunity to every section of the orchestra to shine, with busy strings and great brass chords. The music embodies the emotional extremes of Romantic music, adventure, pirates, tender nature and love. It was cheerful music, and a contrast to the melancholic mood of the Mahler songs, but it foreshadowed the rousing energy of the Prokofiev Symphony of the second half of the concert. It was an appropriate introduction to a varied evening of music that followed.

This was a great concert with which to open a shortened concert season. It was recorded and is available on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watchtime_continue=823&v=6hFqcxikBYY&feature=emb_title and will go on tour of to many of the main and provincial centres, so that people can access it anywhere in the country.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Attachments area

Preview YouTube video NZSO: Podium Series – Spirit with Simon O’Neill

“Emperor of Composers” – an eponymous Piano Concerto and a lovely Symphony, “live” from the NZSO

Posted on by Peter Mechen

BEETHOVEN – Piano Concerto No. 5 “Emperor”
–  Symphony No. 6 “Pastoral”
Diedre Irons (piano)
Hamish McKeich (conductor)
New Zealand Symphony Orchestra

Michael Fowler Centre, Wellington

Wednesday, 8th July 2020

Following its hugely successful inaugural post-lockdown concert Ngū Kīoro… Harikoa Ake (Celebrating Togetherness), the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra has refocused its concert activities on rather more conventional repertoire with this all-Beethoven presentation, a sure-fire audience drawcard which certainly worked its magic in that respect, the result being a sold-out Michael Fowler Centre for the concert. An additional attraction was the presence of Diedre Irons, one of the country’s finest pianists, as the soloist. Most enterprisingly, the orchestra made arrangements for the concert to be streamed “live” on both radio (RNZ Concert) and on “Facebook” by RNZ Concert’s recording team and camera operators. My experience of hearing previous concerts I’d attended in the Michael Fowler Centre via recordings by RNZ Concert had already disposed me positively towards the results achieved by the latter, often securing a finer, better-balanced sound than I’d had when attending the actual concert – so people who had recourse to viewing and/or listening to the broadcasts were, in my opinion assured of an excellent musical experience sound-wise!

In addition, the “live-stream” audience was advantaged by an informative commentary from the Concert FM announcer, as opposed to the complete lack of documentation available in either written or spoken form for the concert-hall audience – I was surprised no programme was printed for distribution, the ticket-holders having been “informed” that “a printable programme was available on-line”. To my way of thinking, this situation was a poor advertisement for the orchestra and especially when one of the items performed, Beethoven’s “Pastoral” Symphony, had a definite and informative “programmatic” aspect which, had it been printed and distributed, would have helped people new to concerts to enjoy the experience more deeply (the usually-eschewed audience-clapping between movements which took place on this occasion suggested that there were a number of people present unfamiliar with the music and with concert-hall conventions.

Nevertheless, the crowd was a cheery one, and the buzz of excitement beforehand was palpable, no doubt partly a reflection of people’s delight at having a real, “live” concert to attend once more, and partly a response to the programme’s undoubted appeal – it was something that altogether seemed to reflect and revitalise the world of live music-making as it existed before the pandemic’s ravages. What better composer than Beethoven could be chosen to reflect in his music this “revitalisation”? Of course, with so many great works to choose from, the concert organiser could hardly go wrong – easier, though to choose the “Emperor” Piano Concerto as the stand-out work among Beethoven’s compositions in that genre than to suggest a Symphony, where there are so many equally great ones! As it turned out, the “Pastoral” was an inspired choice – though what more arresting way might there be to begin a concert than with a piano concerto whose “title” is “The Emperor”?

True to its nickname, the work was here grandly begun, with each of the three opening orchestral chords bedecked by answering solo flourishes from the pianist, Diedre Irons, resonating from these arresting gestures in differing ways and setting the tone for an intriguing interplay of interpretative energies from orchestra and piano throughout the movement. Conductor Hamish McKeich and the orchestra then set off as they meant to go on, gathering the music’s detail up and into a trajectory of sure-footed, finely-graded purpose, each statement beautifully “terraced’, flowing from one another with its own character shining forth (some wonderful horn-playing) but keeping both ebb and flow subject to the overall rhythm’s driving energies. Irons’ piano-playing was straightaway more expansive in reply, savouring her phrases with characteristic point and focus, but opening up the poetic vistas and ensuring that every note, it seemed, was given its proper weight, reaffirming its place in the scheme of things.  This slight duality of purpose between orchestra and piano was evident with every orchestral tutti,  McKeich and his players pushing the basic pulse ahead by a notch or two, followed by Irons’ slight expansion of those same pulses as if responding to the beat of a slightly different drum. One couldn’t fault Irons’ eloquence in what she did, though in one or two places I thought the left-hand passagework seemed slightly too emphatic at the expense of forward movement. Still, the music’s line was always engagingly maintained on both “sides”, nowhere more so than in the exchanges leading up to the recapitulation of the work’s opening, begun with orchestra and piano hammering chords at one another at point-blank range with great gusto!

Conductor and players got a lovely “colour” at the slow movement’s beginning, capped off beautifully by the flute’s  voice joining the strings. The piano’s entry instantly enchanted, with the winds seeming almost loath to properly dove-tail their utterances with the soloist’s opening phrases for fear of breaking the spell, but unhesitatingly joining in later, horns contributing a kind of “dreamy fanfare” carried on by the winds over the pianist’s poetic musings. Later, flute, clarinet and bassoon exquisitely took up the music’s lines with the piano in tow, right to the movement’s precipitous edge, with the sounds teetering on the points of the music’s far-flung pre-echoes, and “the horns of elfland” softly beckoning, the piano then plunging into that exhilarating hurly-burly of the finale’s beginning, daring the orchestra to do likewise! Again, Irons’ manner was grand and expansive, obviously the fruit of her deep love of and familiarity with the music, a warm and rich response to Beethovenian energies, as much glowing and retrospective a viewpoint as immediate and spontaneously-wrought. McKeich and his players matched her every impulse, gesture and outpouring with sounds that rounded off the colour, variety and wholeheartedness of the music and its performance.

The concert’s second half wrought for us a different kind of sublimity, perhaps a more solitary and personal outpouring of emotion on the part of the composer, in the form of the “Pastoral” Symphony, written  a year or so before the “Emperor” Concerto. Famously described by Beethoven as “more an expression of feeling than painting” the work nevertheless has enough pictorial elements to constitute a seriously-regarded “programmatic work”, the three middle movements in particular depicting specifically-described natural and human-generated phenomena, such as a brook’s rippling water, various bird calls, a village band, and a violent thunderstorm.

I so relished the first movement’s performance, here – I thought McKeich and his players straightaway caught that “first, fine careless rapture” of experiencing nature at first hand, a true “awakening of pleasant feelings” as described by the composer. I loved how the playing suggested the rusticity of the sounds, through the ever-so-slight “chunkiness” of the rhythms, avoiding any sense of glibness or picture-postcarding. The famous “walking rhythms” of the first movements development section were deliciously realised, the crescendo in each case having a “glowing” quality, a true “expression of feeling” which overwhelmingly suffused the senses. All the instruments involved covered themselves with glory, here, with the rhythmic gait of the strings, the singing quality of the winds and the sonorous glow of the brass producing a memorable evocation of contentment.

For me the “Scene by the Brook” wasn’t quite so effusive at first, the string figurations not given the “room” for the stream waters to gurgle and babble as I would have liked – but the winds were, by way of compensation, encouraged by McKeich to play out and generate a scenario of exquisite beauty, with beautiful exchanges of timbre and colour among the various instruments. The conductor’s encouragement of whispered tones from the strings throughout placed the emphasis on the winds and created something of a Beethovenian “chaos of delight” through the birdsong – and the nightingale, quail and cuckoo imitations at the movement’s end were sublime!

The scherzo, styled by the composer as “Peasants’ Merrymaking”, involved me the least of all the movements, save for the wind-playing – oboe, clarinet and horn played their parts to perfection as “not very confident” village musicians doing their best! Despite the efforts of the players I thought McKeich’s tempi here produced a somewhat bland effect, not rumbustious and “hearty” enough at the beginning, and with too extreme a tempo change for the more vigorous sections, certainly one beyond the capabilities of a rustic village band! The storm, however, was sensational, with the timpanist using hard sticks (and possibly “authentic” drums – what articulate skins!), all of which imparted real menace to the thunderclaps, augmented by the screaming winds and baleful brass – a terrific onslaught!

Came the finale, introduced by gorgeous wind and horn solos, and sublimity returned, the balances beautifully judged, the tempo allowing a radiance sufficient room to flourish and suffuse the ambiences, and the playing filling out the ample spaces with a heartwarming generosity. I liked, as with the first movement, how McKeich again got a certain chunkiness of articulation in places, maintaining a rustic kind of feeling and entirely avoiding any slickness or unwanted glossiness to the end result – the work’s rapt conclusion rounded off a singular and rewarding concert experience.

 

 

 

 

First in the world with a normal public concert : NZSO’s record, celebrating the emergence from Covid 19 lock-down

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

New Zealand Symphony Orchestra conducted by Hamish McKeich

Soloists:
Eliza Boom – soprano; Simon O’Neill – tenor; Maisey Rika – ‘vocalist’; Horomona Horo – taonga pūoro
Singers from Voices New Zealand Chamber Choir and schools in the Wellington region

Gareth Farr: From the Depths Sound the Great Sea Gongs: I. ‘The Invocation of the Sea’
Bizet: Carmen Suite No. 1: VI. ‘Les Toréadors’; Duet of Don José and Micaëla: “Parle-moi de ma mère”; Suite No 2: VI. ‘Danse bohème’
John Psathas: Tarantismo
Maisey Rika: Tangaroa Whakamautai and Taku Mana
Puccini: La bohème: duet – “Mi chiamano Mimi”, tenor aria – “O soave fanciulla”
Verdi: Otello: tenor aria: “Niun mi tema”
Strauss: Suite from Der Rosenkavalier, Op. 59
Tomoana: Pōkarekare Ana

Michael Fowler Centre

Friday 26 June, 6:30 pm

The orchestra announced that this was the first post-pandemic concert by a professional symphony orchestra anywhere in the World in front of a full audience: the extraordinary achievement of intelligent and clear-sighted management of our response by government and people.

The programme’s content and balance was carefully thought out, with a couple of pieces by established New Zealand composers, opera arias, Māori songs and one extended orchestral work. And there was a particularly rapturous feeling in the large crowd which was obviously thrilled to be in the Michael Fowler Centre once more. It was a fine occasion for the orchestra to show its confidence in conductor Hamish McKeich. It enjoyed a sold-out house.

After some appropriate Māori ritual from the taonga pūoro player Horomono Horo, the concert proper began imaginatively with Gareth Farr’s From the Depths Sound the Great Sea Gongs. The oceanic tone-poem has become genuinely popular both on account of its musical material and through the composer’s flamboyant use of large numbers of tuned and untuned percussion. John Psathas’s Tarantismo, which ended the first half, was less remarkable and rather less familiar, but it offered the orchestra interesting emotional and technical challenges. Both works got performances that were thoroughly accomplished, spectacular and vivid.

There were three impressive singers: Tenor Simon O’Neill is a well-known international opera singer and soprano Eliza Boom; her name was unknown to me but she revealed a most attractive and polished voice. I looked in the usual places for some biographical details. Interesting: she has just gained a place with the Bavarian State Opera in Munich.  See http://elizaboom.com/biography.html .

A third voice was heard in the second half: Māori singer Maisey Rika; her contribution was a remarkably synthesis of Māori and European musical traditions.

Opera excerpts
In the first half O’Neill and Boom sang the Act I duet by Don José and Micaëla “Parle-moi de ma mère” from Carmen: initially the two voices failed to coalesce perfectly but by the time the big tune arrived, they were well matched, credible and impressive.

In the second half Eliza sang “Mi chiamano Mimi” from La bohème, her voice easily penetrating the occasional heavier orchestration; and the two then joined for the duet that follows, “O soave fanciulla”, as Mimi and Rodolfo suddenly get to know each other… . O’Neill then departed from familiar repertoire to deliver Otello’s “Niun mi tema”, his anguished outpouring after killing Desdemona, not a commonly sung stand-alone aria. It was a striking departure from the otherwise celebratory spirit of the concert to touch on jealousy and tragedy, possibly a subtle reference to the dangers of political or race-driven hatred. (Not that either Carmen or Bohème are particularly filled with joy or comedy).

Before and after the Carmen arias the orchestra played striking excerpts from the suites based on the opera. They were a delight, exhibiting the composer’s many-facetted genius; it’s rare to hear them played live, by an excellent symphony orchestra.

Maisey Rika and co
The second half was introduced by a talented, charming young Māori soprano, Maisey Rika (she was described, in pop music terminology, merely as ‘vocalist’). She was accompanied by Horomona Horo performing on taonga pūoro, uttering subtle sounds – perhaps a koauau , which suggest the deep tones of a mellow, low flute. He accompanied his singing with gestures typical in the performance of waiata. In addition, electronic sounds emerged, managed by Jeremy Mayall, with visuals projected on a screen. Maisey Rika, wearing a flowing, ruby-coloured, loose gown, a near match to the reddish robe worn by Eliza Boom, sang two items, named in the heading, above. Both were engaging, interesting and sophisticated; in a certain way, rather haunting. Her voice is warm and flexible, extensive in its range and colourings.

The blending of taonga pūoro and conventional orchestral instruments was variably successful: sometimes intriguing, sometimes a bit over-orchestrated: that was particularly the case with the second song, Taku Mana. Nevertheless, it was a striking demonstration of how to succeed, quite movingly, in grafting Māori music on to European symphonic language.

And Maisey spoke briefly, dedicating her songs “to those who had kept us safe”.

The item I’d most looked forward to (of course) was the Rosenkavalier Suite.  As well as it was played, exploiting the large orchestra that was available, the early passages somewhat unpersuasive, not particularly evocative of the marvellous delights that are to be found in the opera. But from the arrival of the waltz music one was carried away.

The concert ended with Pokarekare Ana, from members of Voices New Zealand Chamber Choir and singers from Wellington schools, the three solo voices and taonga pūoro, accompanied by electronics. The audience was invited to join – the words were conveniently at hand in the free programme. These kinds of gestures can sometimes seem out of place; but this fitted perfectly, a blending of Māori music and poetry, with sophisticated European music.

This was also the occasion to mark the departure of former Chief Executive Chris Blake and the confirmation of his successor, Peter Biggs. And it was a strong endorsement of the role of Hamish McKeich as Principal Conductor (in residence). His control and inspiration were both visible and audible.

At the end, the audience went wild: everyone on their feet, shouting and whistling like I’ve never heard before.

The orchestra has survived in excellent health, and we can look forward to an even more exciting musical year; bearing in mind however, the risks that still lurk beyond our borders; and especially, the importance of not offending the gods by proclaiming success, by exaggerating human missteps or demanding normality prematurely.

 

A beautiful “Mozart hat-trick” from Orchestra Wellington

Posted on by Peter Mechen

AMALIA AND FRIENDS PLAY MOZART
Violin Concerto No, 3 in G Major K.216
Symphony No. 36 in C Major K.425

Amalia Hall (violin and director)
Members of Orchestra Wellington

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

Saturday 20th June 2020

This was the third and final of the three programmes of Mozart presented on consecutive Saturdays in June 2020 by Amalia Hall and members of Orchestra Wellington, of which ensemble she is the concertmaster. Intended to be a kind of celebration of the nation’s lifting of “lockdown” conditions originally imposed by the Government to counter the presence of the Covid-19 virus, the concerts, though still limiting audience numbers to a hundred per event brought forth an enthusiastic and appreciative response to the ensemble’s return to “live” music-making in the capital.

My Middle-C colleagues, firstly Janice Potter and then Lindis Taylor, enthusiastically wrote about the previous couple of weeks’ performances by the same musicians, sentiments I was more than happy to echo this third time round. Here, I was firstly charmed and delighted with the direction and solo playing of Amalia Hall in the third of Mozart’s delectable series of Violin Concertos, before being thoroughly invigorated by the spirited response of the Orchestra Wellington players (again directed by Hall, this time from her concertmaster’s seat) to the same composer’s “Linz” Symphony, named after the place where Mozart wrote the music – in the space of a four-day sojourn there, no less!

While enjoying the St.Andrew’s venue as a near-ideal place for chamber and solo instrumental performance I’ve always had reservations about its suitability for orchestral performance – however, as we all know, the capital’s capacity for providing such venues has been more-than-usually under siege of late with strictures involving earthquake risk involving the temporary closure of halls, theatres and churches, necessitating places such as St.Andrew’s being brought in as a welcome stopgap for the time being. Here, with a smaller-than-usual ensemble, and a professional standard of performance, my usual concerns regarding sounds over-burgeoned thru players being crammed into insufficient spaces were happily put aside.

Particularly felicitous was the Violin Concerto’s performance, here, the music’s delight engaging the eye as well as the ear – firstly came the cheering sight of the leader/soloist joining in with the work’s opening tutti, playing the first violin part, and integrating her instrument’s sound with her fellows, and then of a sudden beaming her soloist’s single line (reinforced by frequent double-stopping) upwards and outwards as an independent spirit, and clearing the orchestral sound as a bird clears the treetops! Hers was not a “big” instrumental sound on this occasion, but an intensely focused one, whose detailings were etched and drawn like fine gold, as were the accompaniments from strings and winds – not that vigour and energy were at all lacking when required, of course, with the joyousness of Mozart’s writing given full vent at appropriate moments.

Something of the work’s extraordinary range of colour owed a great deal to its unusual scoring, Mozart substituting two flutes in the slow movement for the pair of oboes that had so characterfully contributed to the first-movement’s textures. Along with the violin’s “floating” line, the whole of the movement took on a kind of airborne quality, the muted strings enhancing the flutes’ suggestion of something not quite of this world. Equally remarkable was Hall’s playing of the cadenza, the lines bedecked with echoes and resonances, counter-voices and harmonies, all creating a remarkable multi-layered manifestation of sublimity

Contrasting with such rarefied beauties was the rumbustious, back-to-earth finale which “bounced” its way engagingly around and about, circumventing a couple of quirky contrasting episodes, before  briefly reappearing, and somewhat insouciantly bidding us farewell with a gentle, un-upholstered statement from the winds! Earlier, I had pricked up my ears at hearing Amalia Hall play what I call a “turn” at the end of each of her phrases after the opening tutti, instead of the “accustomed” trill – the first recording I ever owned of this work was David Oistrakh’s, who also played a “turn” (for want of the correct term, as I’m not a “proper” musician!) and it was nice to be “returned” to the memory of that, for me, so-o-o formative performance of this music after hearing “most” other violinists playing (a tad inconsequentially?) a trill….. either would have been a delight in such a context of fruitfulness as was ours in St.Andrew’s that afternoon….

More was to come, of course, if somewhat different in character to the concerto – a symphony, no less, one which Mozart wrote in the space of four days while sojourning at the city of Linz, the name by which the work has been known ever since. I still have the renowned conductor Bruno Walter’s once-popular “rehearsal recording” of this symphony somewhere on my shelves, and therefore can no longer hear the work’s opening without also hearing Walter’s voice exhorting his players to “come off” the note at the end of each measure at the beginning – “Bahm! – OFF! Ba-bahm! – OFF! Ba-bahm! – OFF!” – and so on! Happily the ghost of that memory wasn’t evoked on this occasion, partly because Amelia Hall’s tempi were quicker and the sounds more resonant – and partly because I was too taken by her slightly elevated “podium seat” which enabled her to more visibly perform the function of “leader” and “conductor” of the orchestra at the same time!

Hall and her players brought out the work’s definite “festive”quality at the beginning with those “Bruno Walter” notes, but also made good the sequences imbued with strains of melancholy (yearning lines from both strings and wind during that same introduction, set against the opening call to attention) and also touches of humour (some droll, quasi-furtive passages predating Leoporello’s music in the yet-to-be-written opera “Don Giovanni”) contrasting with the more assertive “joie de vivre” that drove the music forward. I enjoyed, too, the bringing out of those sinuous lines in the development which wreathed up and over the music, casting a new light on what had transpired, and making us listen afresh to the recapitulation, attended at the conclusion by those “lines of experience”.

The poise and grace of the slow movement’s opening fell gratefully on the ear, with drums and brass making splendid counterweighting points to the lyricism – I thought the different lines “swam” a bit in relation to each other in places, the rhythms a tad soft-edged at some of the different voices’ exchange-points, though one could conclude that the performance in general eschewed a kind of vertical precision as an end in itself and favoured singing lines instead. (I was merely looking for something to criticise, I must confess!) A swift Minuet with a lively “kick” made a gorgeous “rustic impression – or aft the very least, the illusion of gentility being “rusticated”, to pleasing effect! The trio’s seamless flow allowed the oboe a magical couple of moments, nicely taken.

At the outset the finale was a real “scamperer”, the first “sotto voce” phrase brimming with expectation, if the tiniest bit frayed at the edges the first time round – though I liked the phrase ends here being played for all they were worth right to their full length, instead of being given what sounds to my ears a self-conscious, somewhat “mannered” tapering off at the ends by ensembles purporting to be “authentic”. I loved the performance’s energy and sense of fun in the exposition, and the cut and thrust of the more “sturm und drang” parts of the development – Hall got a terrific response from her players throughout, the strings working hard, the winds and brass rock-steady for the most part, apart from a few bars where they lagged fractionally behind the strings (albeit together!), everything building up most satisfyingly to a grandstand finish, the heavyweights (brass and timpani) ringing out with the joy of it all, to great and well-deserved acclaim.

 

 

 

Orchestra Wellington’s second concert featuring Mozart violin concertos and city-named symphonies

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Orchestra Wellington
Conductor and violin soloist: Amalia Hall

Mozart: Violin Concerto No 4 in D, K 218
Mozart: Symphony No 38 in D, K 504, “Prague”

St Andrews on The Terrace

Saturday 13 June 2020, 4 pm

This second programme in Orchestra Wellington’s ‘recovery’ series of concerts at St Andrew’s continued with the twin themes: the last three of the five violin concertos written in 1775 when Mozart was 19 {if we don’t count the dubious violin concerto “No 7 (K 271a/271i)”}; and the three symphonies that bear place names.

Now in the pandemic’s ‘alert level 1’, this was a full house, if we don’t count the gallery which was not open.

The acoustic of St Andrew’s has given me problems in the past, when amateur or student orchestras have not calmed exuberant brass and percussion players. But here, an excellent professional orchestra guided by a gifted professional musician as both conductor and soloist found the right dynamic levels.

If there was anything to notice it was the balance in the concerto between strings and the limited wind instruments (two oboes and two horns); and the contrast between the delicacy of Amalia Hall’s solo violin playing and the fairly robust body of orchestral string players. But it’s a matter of taste, whether or not closer dynamic affinities between violin and orchestra might have been rewarding.

As was the unvarying habit in the 18th century, Mozart left no cadenzas for his violin concertos, as the virtuoso soloist was usually pleased to compose his own, thus drawing attention to his genius as both composer and performer. Amalia played cadenzas, not too extended, in each movement. Several violinists have published cadenzas for the Mozart concertos, usually roughly in sympathy with Mozart’s period and style. I don’t know whose versions she played, but they were not uncharacteristic of the period and reminded us that she is a world-class violinist.

The symphony in this concert was the latest of the three. ‘Paris’ was written in 1778, ‘Linz’ in 1783 and ‘Prague’ in 1786/87. It was written 18 months before the three last, great symphonies, after The Marriage of Figaro which had a great success in Prague in December 1786, and was perhaps the occasion for Mozart’s visit when the Prague symphony may have been performed. Don Giovanni was premiered in Prague under the composer later in 1787 and that was the subject of a famous German novella, Mozart auf der Reise nach Prag (‘Mozart on the journey to Prague’) by the poet Eduard Mörike.

There are more dramatic contrasts in style, in instrumentation, in sheer musical genius between a 19-year-old’s violin concerto and a mature 30-year old’s symphony.

The orchestra did it proud, in part because Mozart had access to flutes, bassoons and trumpets, and timpani too, as well as the oboes and horns used in the concertos. Appropriate baroque timpani were used, lighter and crisper than the timpani normally in use today.

Amalia Hall conducted discreetly from her slightly elevated concertmaster’s seat, and the effects were an idiomatic, well integrated performance: both decently bold and light spirited. Her skilled management was evident right from the contemplative opening Adagio introduction, and on through the Allegro with warm strings and timpani; and particularly in the fugal passages in the quite substantial first movement. The second movement acted as both a thoughtful slow movement and also perhaps suggested, in slowish triple time, the normal but here non-existent minuet, third movement,

It’s a symphony that handles many of the emotional elements of the last symphonies, and they were sensitively captured.  Hall’s guidance in the last movement, marked Presto, was indeed that: brisk and robust, reminding us that we have a fine Wellington orchestra, all our own. St Andrew’s provided a fine venue in a crisis environment for a smaller orchestra and more limited audience. We’ll soon be able to hear it at full symphonic scale (here there were about 35 players) in a more generous acoustic with all the luxuries of a modern concert hall.

Orchestra Wellington restores live music to the city with Mozart at St Andrews

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Orchestra Wellington
Conductor and violin soloist: Amalia Hall

Mozart: Violin Concerto No 5 in A, K 219

Mozart: Symphony No 31 in D, K 297, “Paris”

St Andrews on The Terrace

Saturday 6 June 2020,  1 pm

This was the first of three concerts entitled “Amalia and Friends” featuring three violin concerti and three symphonies by Mozart:  “Paris”, “Prague” and “Linz”.

After nearly three months of lockdown without live music, this first outing for Orchestra Wellington was an almost festive occasion for its Wellington audience.  Over the past weeks the NZSO has invited us in to individual members’ homes for cameo performances in the “engage@home Play Our Part”, and there has been a multitude of Youtube creations mainly referring to Covid Lockdown situations, but we’ve been starved of live music performances.

With a limited capacity in St Andrews the available tickets “sold out” very quickly and many keen supporters of the orchestra missed out.  Although there was a limit of one hundred in the audience, there were few signs of separation for physical distancing, as many in the audience came in groups and would naturally be comfortable sitting together.  It was a “free” concert but the audience was encouraged to make a koha as names were checked off at the door.

The violin concerto is the last of the five that Mozart wrote while still a teenager and has earned the nickname “Turkish” from the lively dance-like middle section of the final movement.  The orchestra for this work has a reduced string section and only oboes and horns in the wind section.

Amalia made her appearance in an elegant black velvet dress slightly off the shoulder and welcomed the audience.  She then stepped back amongst the strings and directed the orchestra just as Mozart would have done.  But the difference here was that she played with the tutti sections until her solo began.  The first movement is labelled Allegro Aperto – aperto meaning literally “open” – it is thought that Mozart intended this movement to be played more broadly than the “allegro” would suggest.  This was certainly the impression I had with the opening section, assertive yet graceful, followed by a complete change of mood and tempo with the adagio introduction of the soloist.  When she took up the solo she stepped forward, unobtrusively turning pages on her ipad with a foot pedal.

The second movement opened as did the first with an orchestral tutti before the entrance of the soloist. With many modulations this movement seems to be somewhat sombre in mood, which is in great contrast to the Rondo, whose middle section launches into a vigorous dance-like rhythm which has earned the entire work the nickname “Turkish”.  With it’s radical leaps and percussive bass techniques it probably sounded very exotic to Mozart’s audiences.

Each movement features a cadenza, the last two written by Amalia herself.  She has an engaging presence and her performance showed great rapport with this style and in particular she handled the pianissimo passages with faultless delicacy and control.  One member of the audience later told me “her violin sang”.

The “Paris” Symphony was written a few years later when Mozart was, as you might expect, in Paris. It seems he didn’t have a very high opinion of the Parisians and hoped to please the audience with “simple” music and several repeated sections.  It seems he succeeded as the work was greeted enthusiastically at the time, as it was on this occasion.  It was here that he found that he had a much larger orchestra to work with and for the first time used clarinets (and flutes, trumpets, horns, bassoons and timpani).

Perhaps it was because I’d heard nothing but recorded music for nearly three months, or perhaps because I usually hear this orchestra from the far reaches of the Michael Fowler Centre, but in these more intimate surroundings, the orchestra sounded more vibrant with more clarity and more precision than I’ve experienced previously.  What a pity it is that it would not be economic to put on more concerts in similar venues.