Tag: piano

Chamber Music Hutt Valley presents:
LUDWIG TREVIRANUS (piano)

HAYDN – Piano Sonata in E-flat Major Hob.XV1/52
MENDELSSOHN – Variations sérieuses in D MInor Op.54
CHOPIN – Ballade No.4 in F Minor Op.52
GERSHWIN (arr.Wild) – 2 Etudes : Embraceable You / I Got Rhythm
SCHUMANN – Carnaval Op.9

Ludwig Treviranus (piano)
at the Lower Hutt Little Theatre

Thursday 21st August 2014

What a programme and what a performer! Ludwig Treviranus won all hearts and engaged all sensibilities besides at his Lower Hutt Little Theatre recital last week, with playing and presentations of real, flesh-and-blood character. In his hands the music sprang into life – he could well have echoed the Oscar Wilde character who  famously remarks, “…anybody can play accurately – but I play with wonderful expression…..”

But there was more to the evening than Treviranus seating himself at the piano and pouring forth the music via the instrument – we were warmly welcomed by the pianist the beginning of it all, and made to feel as though we were giving to him, rather than the other way round, by our presence. He talked a little about each of the pieces, about what we would hear and how the music came into being. It all underlined our sense of the music being for him a living, meaningful entity, whose beauties he wanted to share.

We began with a piano sonata by Haydn, the very last of his sixty-two works in that genre. There’s still a tendency afoot to regard Haydn’s productivity as a composer with some condescension, to the effect that a lot of his music is that of a somewhat “watered-down Mozart”, that those vast numbers of symphonies, string quartets and piano sonatas are the result as much, if not more, of industry as of artistry.

Well, I’ve yet to encounter a symphony, string quartet or piano sonata by Haydn that I thought unworthy of its composer – of course there are “apprentice” works in each genre, as there are in Mozart’s output, but each has its particular interest and insight into one or more aspects of the composer’s writing which matured and flourished throughout many years of composing, not merely in the works of his old age.

So it was the somewhat confusingly catalogue-numbered Hob.XVI/52 in E-flat which began the evening’s music. Treviranus’s response to Haydn’s writing was typically whole-hearted and orchestral in effect – big-boned in gesture, while finely-wrought in detail. But he demonstrated the ability to maintain the line, the music’s overall coherence, while keeping a certain spontaneity, a sense of surprise and delight at what he was playing – all very engaging.

I did wish at the time that he’d played the first-movement repeat – but philosophies vary regarding this whole issue, ranging from those held by the omnivorously-inclined to the positively austere. Of course, ignoring a repeat can be like leaving something unspoken in conversation, sometimes to great effect. But it’s an attitude I’d mostly care to disregard in favour of that enrichment of the discourse, that chemistry of ripening experience which a repetition can heighten between music, performer and listener.

We relished Treviranus’s traversal of the composer’s quixotic development with its wonderfully discursive harmonic explorations. The musical flow took on a tremulous tightrope-tightening aspect in places, and there was a wobble and rhythmic stumble just after the recapitulation’s entry – but, more importantly, the rest went with a flourish!

And we enjoyed the richly-toned Beethovenian slow movement, with its anticipatory echoes of the latter’s Les Adieux Sonata, and its expressive impulses of energy – the pianist’s tones took on a warmth and glowing aspect towards the end that temporarily and wondrously stilled time, pulse and movement.  Then, the finale’s brilliant repeated notes and scintillating runs whirled us through paroxysm of pleasure – an occasional suspicion of “rattling over the points” in one or two places was countered by an overall exuberance which suggested to us a joy of recreation, served up for our delight.

Mendelssohn’s Variations sérieuses, next on the program, provided a perfect foil for the Haydn – at the outset, a dignified, baroque-like theme, followed by seventeen variations which energized the material in various ways, some of them remarkably Schumannesque in effect. Almost a compendium of early romantic pianism, the work brought forth both poetry and brilliance from Treviranus’s fingers, the pianist readily and wholeheartedly evoking the different character of each variation.

I particularly liked Treviranus’s playing of the parts of the work which seemed to take the composer “out of himself” – those sequences which had real glint and fire and sinew and muscle, including, of course, the Schumannesque Florestan-like bits.  These seemed refreshingly removed from the usual stereotypal image of Mendelssohn as not much more than a sentimental Victorian “Songs-without-words” composer. In fact the austere beauty of the work’s more thoughtful sequences played its own part in this revelatory “recasting” process.

Of the pre-eminence of Chopin in romantic piano music there can be no doubt, exemplified by the last of four Ballades written by the composer – each a dramatic narrative superbly sculptured, balancing heroic energy, romantic feeling and reflective poetry. The Fourth Ballade, in F Minor, is said to have been inspired by a Polish folk-tale of three brothers who, send to fight and destroy the enemy, win instead three brides – but I can testify to as much appreciation and enjoyment of the music over the years without knowledge of any such accompanying programme.

In any case, Treviaranus’s involvement with the music and the vividness of his characterization of the different episodes readily took me to a world of my own fashioning, with characters, ambiences and scenarios disconcertingly intermingling with the sounds. The playing seemed to me to convey all the right instincts for this music, the mood dreamy and tender at the work’s beginning, before darkening with resolve and quickening with energy as the narrative aspect took shape, but ever ready to entertain a remembrance of that opening tenderness at appropriate moments.

Not even a momentary derailing within a sequence impeded the music’s flow from the pianist, as the piece’s second half inexorably tightened its grip upon the music’s phrasing  and pulse, detailings and dynamics, and left us nicely breath-bated as we awaited the coda’s onslaught. A pianist friend who accompanied me to the concert admired the “coolness under pressure” of the young musician, the misdirected impulse and its retraction very adroitly making good part of the territory of live music-making.

After an interval we were treated (literally) to two delightful manifestations of the arranger’s art, in the form of a pair of  Etudes, virtuosic re-enactments of Gershwin’s songs contrived by the great American pianist Earl Wild. First came the flowing ease of “Embraceable You”, deliciously replete with arpeggiated counterpoints to the melody; and then followed “I Got Rhythm”, the music all angularity at the start, before galloping away with exuberant joy, returning for a kind of fox-trot, at which I’m sure people would have got up and danced to had there been available floor-space on which to strut their stuff.

The principal business of the evening’s music-making was, of course, Schumann’s Carnaval, a colourful collection of character-pieces depicting people both real and imagined, in the guise of revellers at a masked ball. Schumann had, in his earlier work, Papillons, produced a similar, if smaller-scale scenario, with particular reference to a novel Die Flegejahre by Jean-Paul Richter. By comparison, Carnaval is a grander design, incorporating not only character  sketches but a whole creative philosophy, embodied in the work’s triumphal finale, where Schumann’s artistic brothers and sisters, the Davidsbündler, put to flight the “Philistines”, the composer’s name for the musical reactionaries of the day.

To an extent all performances of great music represent work in progress, with artists continually and repeatedly striving to realise, unto themselves and their listeners, what these works have to offer. By turns forthright, quixotic, tender, philosophical, playful and enigmatic, this music requires of the performer a disconcerting range of abilities and sympathies for the composer’s purposes to be sufficiently activated.

Ludwig Treviranus had, by this stage of the evening, impressed with his vivid and engaging characterisations (Haydn), his concentration and strength of purpose (Mendelssohn), his poetic and dramatic instinct (Chopin) and his sense of fun and gaiety (Gershwin/Wild). All of these things were brought to bear in his playing of Carnaval, so that Schumann’s parade of colourful personalities was brought vividly to life.

Two things, each playing a part in prompting my “work-in-progress” remarks above – I did sense at the work’s beginning and end a whiff of caution in the playing in places where full-blooded exuberance (Schumann did nothing by halves!), even at the risk of inaccurate detail (a frisson of which briefly happened, to no deleterious effect whatever, during the work’s Preamble) needs to be the order of the moment. Unfortunately, in today’s chromium-plated world of piano technique, wrong notes are regarded as unforgivable – whereas a different generation of pianists knew well the value of their galvanising effect!

More importantly, I thought the decision to leave out most of the repeats throughout the episodes had a diminishing effect on the work as a whole – turning parts of it to my ears into a kind of “Visions fugitives”! Perhaps Treviranus thought that the repeats would make the piece too much of a long haul for the audience – being of the omnivorous rather than of the austere persuasion I simply wanted the music’s full measure – and my remarks regarding the enriching effect of being able to spend more time as a listener with a characterisation, an ambience, a mood, a state of being, apply here as strongly.

Enough of this carping! – the rest of my scribbled notes bear testimony to the life and colour of Treviranus’s performance, with far too many felicitous details for me to individually dwell upon. We were then prevailed upon by the pianist to applaud the piano (which we did) and afterwards help conclude the proceedings in singular fashion by singing along with the final encore “Show me the way to go home”. These Hutt Valley people certainly know how to do things properly.

Classical Expressions 2014 presents
Jian Liu (piano)

WILLIAM BYRD – Hugh Ashton’s Grownde (from “My Ladye Nevells Book”)
SOFIA GUBAIDULINA – Chaconne
JS BACH / FERUCCIO BUSONI – Chaconne
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN – 6 Variations in F Major on an Original Theme
JOHANNES BRAHMS – Variations on a theme of Paganini

Classical Expressions, Upper Hutt
The Gillies Group Theatre

Monday 21st July 2014

I missed whatever printed or spoken announcement had alerted others to the re-arrangement of the programme order – so that when Jian Liu began his Classical Expressions recital with William Byrd instead of Sofia Gubaidulina, I experienced a kind of reverse apoplexy! I had girded my loins in preparation for a Slavic onslaught of sorts, and was thus completely and disconcertingly rendered helpless by the gentle Tudor-English melancholy of Byrd’s treatment of a fellow-composer’s “ground” (a bass pattern to which melodic and harmonic variations are added).

It may have been a mere echo of my expectation of hearing Sofia Gubaidulina’s work – but in the opening theme of Byrd’s music I thought I caught more than a hint of plainchant mode, a phrase or two whose trajectory resonated like a sung phrase from an Orthodox service. Of course, as well it might have been Byrd’s own background as an English Catholic bringing out a Latin plainchant phrase or manner, however secular in intent the actual work was.

The music in this case came from a collection called My Lady Nevelles Booke, one which Byrd himself had compiled as a gift to the “lady” in question (one of his pupils). In doing so Byrd immortalized both her and (with this particular piece) his slightly older contemporary Hugh Ashton, devising wonderfully exploratory figurations and strongly-wrought harmonies and counterpoint figures to go with the older composer’s ground bass.

Jian Liu gave a predictably lucid, beautifully-voiced set of responses to the music’s different variations, though early on there were places where I thought he kept the trill-laden figurations on too tight a rein. I wanted more sense of the fantastical, more spontaneous unfolding of those trills and their laughter and sense of wonderment. Here it seemed as though the figurations were a shade too stiff in effect, and their roundings-off at times too abrupt.

It could have been that Liu was deliberately contriving this effect, feeling that the music had sufficient wonderment in itself, and needed clarity and shape, without allowing too much indulgence. As the music grew in animation and vigour, Liu’s playing seemed to relax and knit more readily with the fantastical textures, his control giving the composer’s arguments and counter-arguments great eloquence, especially in the Ninth Variation, and making the most of the welter of notes over the following two variations, and the harmonic richness of the tune’s final statement.

Sofia Gubaidulina’s Chaconne gave us the greatest possible contrast with the Byrd in terms of its dynamic angularity and overall physical impact. Liu gave the opening playing of astonishing power and girth, building granite-like structures, around which circled angular counterpoints and leap-frogging figurations. Mad boogie-woogie sequences crashed to earth, the remnants picking themselves up and dashing madly hither and thither in desperately fugal pursuits. One marvelled at the composer’s seemingly endless keyboard inventions, time and again setting immovable objects against irresistible forces, as with rampant left-hand octaves terrorizing right-handed chords into cowering submission (shades of Shostakovich, here, probably cavorting in glee!).

All of these irruptions and coruscations were delivered by Liu with strength, brilliance and fearless resolve, going to the heart of each of the variations with unerring instinct. From a sequence in which the music was becalmed grew bell-sounding impulses, both tinitinabulations and “strong gongs groaning”, the bright-voiced bells building the excitement, supported by wondrously deep-throated clamoring from the turrets and towers of cathedrals.  Then, majestically, the work’s opening returned, as jagged and angular as before, but with extra, insistent octave support from the left hand, Liu beautifully controlling the textures, and allowing the silences to drift softly backwards as the voices took their leave of us.

That miracle of adaptation, Busoni’s “realization” of JS Bach’s mighty Chaconne from the Violin Partita No.2 BWV 1004, was merely one aspect of the pianist’s veneration for the older composer and his works – he also produced his own editions of The Well-Tempered Clavier, the Partitas, and the English and French Suites. With the Chaconne, Busoni thought it possible to recreate the work from a more theatrical and Romantic perspective, thereby adding to his age’s understanding of the music. I’ve not been able to find any additional evidence for the story (which I read somewhere) of Busoni touring with the violinist Ysaye, frequently hearing him play the Chaconne as part of the Partita, and eventually producing his transcription of the work, and playing it to the stupefied violinist, after cautioning him to refrain from making any comments until he, Busoni, had finished the performance!

Busoni wrote his transcription in 1892, dedicating the work to the celebrated pianist Eugene d’Albert, who apparently was not pleased – in fact d’Albert reproached Busoni for what he called “tampering” with the original, but the latter was famously unrepentant. In fact Busoni’s reply to d’Albert deserves to be quoted – “I start from the impression that Bach’s conception of the work goes far beyond the limits and means of the violin, so that the instrument he specifies for performance is not adequate.” As was his wont, Bach had left no performance instructions – dynamic or tempo markings – on his manuscript, aside from the notes themselves. The work and its possibilities remained alive in Busoni’s thoughts for many years afterwards as he revised his transcription at least three times.

Jian Liu’s playing certainly entered into the spirit of Busoni’s “theatrical and Romantic perspective” – here, expressed through his hands, was grandeur set alongside rapt intimacy, variegated pianistic colour next to simple transparency, harmonic augmentation and single voicing. Throughout, both player and instrument sounded Bach’s music-framework in full conjunction with Busoni’s creative responses to the same. At times the virtuoso charge of it all was edge-of-the-seat stuff, as with the left hand octaves thrillingly driving the tight-handed figurations with Lisztian brilliance, or both hands harmonizing cascades of pealing bells while some of the gentler musings had whole sea-changes of mood, such as the contrast of “withdrawal” from major to minor mode three-quarters of the way through the piece.

Both the interval and the Beethoven work which followed provided relief of sorts from the overwhelming weight of concentration from both music and performance, and from the orchestral weight of sound made to emanate from the piano. “Beethoven’s “Enigma” Variations” quipped a friend, upon seeing the “On an Original Theme” subtitle to the work – though not quite as far-reaching or as enigmatic as Elgar’s, Beethoven’s variations are unusual in that each piece is in a different key. This work, from 1802, marked an intensification of creativity for the young composer, what he called a “new road”, and along which he was shortly to squarely face his life’s first major crisis, the onset of his deafness. This work, however, gives little sign of impending tragedy, the theme a brief but lovely cantabile melody, the variations discursive and imaginative.

Jian Liu brought out the character of each variation with great relish, the bagatelle-like D-major, the rumbustious B-flat-major with its contrasting high and low registering, the graceful, drawing-room-like E-flat-major, the purposeful march-like C Minor, with its Schumannesque pre-echoes, and the final adroit merging into C major and then F Major, the Mozartean flow punctuated by Beethovenian muscle at cardinal points! Liu played the flowing, rippling passagework which decorated the final Adagio beautifully, the cascadings giving way to a simple, unadorned fragment of the original theme at the end.

Rounding off this evening’s presentation of virtuosic chaconne-like works came one of the most fearsome – the Variations on a Theme of Paganini, by Brahms. This work is one of the “big three” adaptations (the other two are by Rachmaninov and Lutoslawski) of violinist and composer Niccolò Paganini’s 24th and last Caprice from his set of Caprices for solo violin. And, for the adventurous, there seem to be plenty more explorations of the same work by composers employing a bewildering range of instruments, from traditional to techno-based.

At first the combination of Brahms and Paganini would seem incongruous – here, after all, was the champion of the conservatives exploring and extending the music of one of the great romantic virtuosi. Parts of the work sound also as though they could have been written by Liszt, whose music Brahms had little time for. But the common ground here was the young pianistic wizard Carl Tausig, Liszt’s favourite pupil (“When the little one goes on the road I shall shut up shop!” Liszt was reported to have said of Tausig). Refusing to align himself exclusively with either conservative or radical elements of the age, Tausig also befriended Brahms, who wrote the Paganini Variations for him, calling them “Studies for Pianoforte”. One critic described the requirements for any interpreter of these pieces as “fingers of steel, a heart of burning lava and the courage of a lion”.

Jian Liu certainly had those prerequisites, engaging the work’s difficulties, both technical and interpretative, with strength, flair and purpose. Never over-flamboyant at the keyboard, his seemingly tireless fingers, wrists and arms channelled a bewildering amalgam of complex responses and emotions into the music’s heart, realizing its brilliance, power, charm, exhilaration and tragedy. To choose individual variations for comment would seem almost churlish, as it was Liu’s overall sweep which impressed most, in retrospect, his integration of the disparate elements, making the work seem like a true reconciliation between form, technique and emotional content. One came away from this performance with a deeper appreciation of the composer, of his music, and of the times that produced such an outpouring of creative imagination.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wellington Chamber Music presents:
JOHN CHEN (piano)

BARBER – Piano Sonata in E-flat Op 26
BEETHOVEN – Piano Sonata in C Minor Op.111
MENDELSSOHN – 7 Character Pieces Op.7 – Nos 3 and 5
HINDEMITH – Piano Sonata No.3 in B-flat Major (1936)

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

Sunday, 18th May 2014

This was in many respects a masterly recital, a most interesting and, indeed, challenging programme, delivered by John Chen with piano-playing whose seismic performance energies in places would have given the foundations of St Andrew’s-on-the-Terrace a particularly singular workout. It was music that seemed to bristle with challenges for the pianist, though a different kind of challenge for both player and audience was due, I thought to the running order of the music that was chosen. I did know beforehand, for example, that both Beethoven’s Op.111 Sonata and Samuel Barber’s 1949 Piano Sonata were being performed, but not that they would be put right next to one another.

At the point when John Chen finished his blistering traversal of the Barber, which opened the program, I was ready for strong coffee, or something of an even more restorative nature! This was by way of my feeling somewhat drained of listening energy through close proximity to such supercharged music-making. What I really didn’t want to happen at that particular moment in time was to then be confronted with the alarming incongruity of encountering nothing less than Beethoven’s Op.111.

But here was this young pianist, having thrown off one of the great keyboard masterworks of the twentieth century with huge aplomb and complete commitment to the cause, ready to climb a different kind of Everest, with what seemed scarcely a pause for breath. It seemed a fraction – well, excessive……Perhaps if someone had appeared and said something like, “There will be a short break before the programme’s next item….” we would have been able to better realign our sensibilities for what was to follow.

Once Chen began the Beethoven, certain things about his playing of the music compounded the incongruity. With the Barber work he seemed to have both understood and fully entered into the music’s free-wheeling spirit of fearless creative ferment. However, his playing throughout the opening of the Beethoven work seemed somewhat constrained, the rough-hewn, elemental piano-writing I thought a shade too moderated in effect, to convey a sense of the music’s composer hurling his message outwards and upwards towards the heavens.

So much about his reading was to be admired – its pacing, timing, clarity of fingerwork and overall structuring all seemed clearly thought-out, and skilfully brought into play – and perhaps, in a different context it would all have convey more of the music’s intrinsic character. But after that performance of the Barber work it seemed to me as though Chen had with the Beethoven become too intent on conveying the music’s different “style”, instead of trying to directly get to grips with the work’s physical, emotional and spiritual content.

Symptomatic of this approach to the music was Chen’s omission of the first-movement repeat, as if for the pianist some structural logic was best served by its excision. I find its inclusion a significant intensification of the music’s character, a fleshing-out of the composer’s own dictum that “the idea counts more than its execution”. Removing the passage might serve some abstracted formal symmetry, but surely detracts from the range and scope of Beethoven’s emotional and spiritual architecture. It’s not quite a stylistic matter, but again it raises the question of priorities, this time regarding form and content and their relative importance. Of course, as with so many things musical, opinions will vary.

Going back to the issue of which piece should have followed which, my preference would have been for the pianist to have re-aligned the program, beginning with either the Hindemith Sonata or the Mendelssohn Character Pieces instead of the Barber Sonata, and playing the latter as a barnstorming finale  – after which, of course, the coffee would go down REALLY well!  But one day, I hope Chen will choose another alternative solution when programming Op.111, which will be to bring more of his own particular kind of creative abandonment to his playing and interpreting of the work. I don’t mean he should be riding roughshod over the music’s stylistic elements, but nor should they inhibit or be treated as ends in themselves – they’re a starting-point, a springboard from which to express Beethoven’s idea as the player sees fit and feels the music.

The remainder of the program seemed admirably suited to John Chen’s skills and sensibilities. Mendelssohn’s two Character Pieces (Op.7 Nos. 3 and 5) in places literally bubbled with enjoyment in the pianist’s hands. These were both fugal, and were from a set of seven, which the composer called “Character Pieces”, in line with how fugues were regarded by the Romantics, responding to the moods and intensities created by the interplay of different voices. In No.3 I enjoyed both the “ring” of the pianist’s right-hand work and the lovely singing quality he brought out from the lines, while the following, more devotional-sounding opening of No.5 gradually grew in warmth and momentum here, towards a wonderful and celebratory conclusion.

Paul Hindemith’s music is often a puzzlement for listeners mindful of reputation and prevailing attitudes. Contrary to the “dry and academic” labels which my early encounters with descriptions of his music seemed to repeatedly turn up, his music seems to me as deeply-felt as any, and in some instances, great fun to listen to. There is a certain rigour at times – but while I wouldn’t characterize the composer’s Third and last Piano Sonata as a barrel of laughs, it’s as readily approachable as any of the composer’s trio of works in this genre. Central to this accessibility is the first movement which uses a beautiful, slightly folksy melody that for me recalled a tune in Gustav Holst’s Brook Green Suite. Here Chen confidently and whole-heartedly brought out all the composer’s variants and developments of the theme in various “adventures” culminating in a kind of “laying-to-rest” ritual amid chordal progressions whose delicacies of dynamics were unerringly shaped, before the melody’s final winsome statement.

Then came a garrulous scherzo whose bumptious angular manner contrasted beautifully with a skitterish and sometimes gossamer-sounding trio (beautiful pianism, here), followed by a third movement March, grand and stately at the outset, but replete with lovely, mock-serious touches, Chen’s colourful playing by turns excitingly orchestral and atmospherically withdrawn. The fugal finale was a glorious undertaking, strong and assertive in places, more circumspect and playful in others – shades of the composer’s glorious Weber Symphonic Metamorphosis breaking though – Chen’s performance doing rich and whole-hearted justice to Hindemith’s rigorously-organised but fascinatingly-varied world of sound.

At the recital’s end I couldn’t help recalling the words of Sir John Barbirolli in an interview I once heard, during which the conductor talked about ‘cellist Jacqueline de Pre’s wholehearted approach to music and performance, and the reaction from various commentators to her allegedly over-fulsome style – “I love it!” grunted the maestro – “When you’re young you should have an excess of everything – otherwise, what are you going to pare off as you mature and refine your approach?” Which is not to characterize John Chen’s playing as excessive and fulsome – but that “excess of everything” referred to by Barbirolli is, I think, part of the essence of being a young performer, and wanting to encompass the full range of what music has to offer.

John Chen certainly exuded that essential quality in places throughout this recital – and we can count ourselves as fortunate that we’re able to share those moments, those transportings of delight when music combines with performance to produce something unique and memorable.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Te Kōkī – New Zealand School of Music presents:
Piano recital by Jeffrey Grice

Gounod / Liszt – Hymne à Sainte Cécile
Lucien Johnson – To the sea (Shimmer – Scuttle – Still)
Debussy – Estampes
Jenny McLeod – Tone Clock Piece no 5 (Vive Messiaen)
Lilburn – Sonatina No.2 / Ravel – Sonatine
Chopin – 24 Preludes Op. 28

Jeffrey Grice (piano)

Adam Concert Room, NZ School of Music,

Kelburn, Wellington

 Monday 7th April, 2014

Christchurch-born Jeffrey Grice studied with Janetta McStay and Brian Sayer at Auckland University, before winning a bursary in 1976 to study in France with Yvonne Loriod and Germaine Mounier. Since that time he has mostly lived in or been closely associated with France, though he’s kept his antipodean connections humming with regular advocacy of new works by both Australian and New Zealand composers.

Grice’s recent Adam Concert Room recital demonstrated those sympathies amply, with performances of two works which had in the past been premiered by the pianist – Lucien Johnson’s To the Sea, and Jenny McLeod’s Tone-Clock No.5 (Vive Messiaen) – as well as a more “established” piece by a New Zealand composer, Douglas Lilburn’s Sonatina No.2.

Well might this recital have been called “Living Echoes” with such things in mind – but the remainder of the programme’s items took on much the same qualities of freshness and immediacy throughout what I considered to be an evening’s remarkable music-making. One had an almost palpable sense of the pianist spontaneously reliving each of the composers’ actual creative processes, so that the music leapt, burst, burgeoned, floated, trickled or resounded from the sometimes metaphorical music-pages as if for the first time.

I imagined that what we listeners experienced was akin to the kind of playing that would have proliferated in an earlier age which more readily accepted, and, indeed, expected Beethoven’s famous attributed dictum – “the idea counts more than its execution” – to be observed in performance. Not that Grice’s actual execution of the notes was in any way deficient or insufficient in quality to realize the music – in fact, the reverse was the case, with technical gestures and processes seemingly wrought by the music at every stage, rather than simply “applied” from without. It was playing which repeatedly made one ask “why?” and “why not?”, instead of “how?”

Sensing that words are beginning to fail me, here, I shall move quickly onto the content of the actual program, some of which has already been touched upon. Whether by accident, instinct or design, Grice’s first item brought us face-to-face with a composer whose skill as a performer was regarded by many as that of one of the greatest of recreative artists of all time, Franz Liszt.

Perhaps one’s initial reaction to the latter’s “arrangement” of Charles Gounod’s violin-and-piano piece Hymne à Sainte Cécile might well be along the somewhat reproving lines of “Gounod, hi-jacked by Liszt!” – but as the energies and intensities of Liszt’s elaborations upon Gounod’s music expanded and flourished, a kind of radiance began to cast its glow over the sounds and associated resonances, a veritable beatification of the rather plain original, proclaiming the process to be the work of a genius.

I thought Grice’s playing all-encompassing in its range of expression generated not only on the saint’s, but on the composers’ behalf, from the “charged” softly-brushed fingerwork of the prayerful opening, to the orchestral grandeur of the concluding declamations. Gounod himself may have never heard the work in its Lisztian form, but he would surely have approved of its new-found expansiveness and enlargement of expression.

A marvellous contrast of mood came with New Zealand -born, sometimes French-domiciled jazz composer Lucien Johnson’s three-part work from 2007 To the Sea, with its three subtitled parts Shimmer, Scuttle, Still. The opening brought both distant and more immediate kinds of sonorities between the hands, trills and repeated notes in the treble and shifting shadow-chords in the bass, the whole enlivened occasionally by scintillations of light and energy,

Scuttle was more insistent, its agitations expressed through tremolandi and ostinati-like figurations, the patternings further energizing the harmonies and and textures, with a particularly volatile, free-wheeling right hand bringing plenty of surface excitement to the soundscape. Dramatic then, indeed, was the change to Still, everything at once cut adrift amid cool, spacious chords and occasional widely-spaced leaps, rather like fish suddenly jumping from still waters – the delicious cluster-chords amid the ambient spaces gently coloured the music’s evocations of timelessness.

One could go on enumerating the manifold delights of the recital’s remaining performances and finish up with a lengthy treatise somewhat beyond this review’s scope, one perhaps taking longer to read than the pianist took to play the music! With the exception of Grice’s revelatory presentation of the Chopin Op.28 Preludes, over which I need to hover and ponder and wonder anew at the recreative daring of it all, I can content myself, however regretfully, with snatches of impressions of the Debussy, Jenny McLeod, Lilburn and Ravel items.

Debussy’s Estampes was a miracle of different evocations, the first of the three parts, “Pagodes”, delivered rapidly and mistily, seeming almost overpedalled in effect at first, but making its point all too clearly by comparison with the arresting surge of focused tone from what one imagined to be the largest of the gamelan instruments the piano was imitating. In “La Soirée dans Grenade”, the “Habanera rhythm carried all before it, but with the utmost flexibility of line and while maintaining a sultry, hypnotic atmosphere – Grice managed the mutterings and impetuous scamperings of the ad.lib. guitar passages with perfect ease and fluidity. Finally, with “Jardins sous la Pluie”, the playing resembled an impressionistic blur, the lightest of touches producing an almost alchemic effect, with pianistic detail brushed in amid the fantastic flourishes – exhilarating!

Jenny McLeod’s “Messiaenic” tribute from the fifth piece of her Tone Clock series had an engaging “imitation is the sincerest form of flattery” aspect, the piece coming almost straight out of the French composer’s “Catalogue d’ Oiseaux”, and having a wonderful clamour alternating with sequences evoking nicely “charged ” silences. There were connections echoing connections when Grice played a piece by Douglas Lilburn, McLeod’s composition teacher, to follow –  this was Lilburn’s Sonatina No.2, a work whose exquisitely-voiced evocations readily bore out the pianist’s contention that Lilburn subliminally echoed impulses found in Ravel’s Sonatine – Grice played for us a particular figuration which Lilburn seemed to have uncannily “copied” from Ravel, in spirit if not exactly in letter.

In Grice’s characteristically fleet-of-finger performance of the French work, I confess to missing, in the first movement, that vein of melancholy which peers out as do eyes from behind a glittering mask, in much of Ravel’s music. The remaining two movements were, however, beautifully paced, the pianist again favouring a very “ambient” keyboard texture, whose focus cleared for the more forceful animations, with magnificently cascading passages (Grice had a second “go” at the opening of the final headlong plunge, which meant that, in the frisson of this moment we unexpectedly got double the pleasure!)…..

As for the Chopin Preludes, it took only a few seconds of the opening to indicate that the pianist was to give us something special and distinctive, his shaping of the piece’s dynamics alive with possibilities, and the upward-thrusting arpeggiated rhythms so impulsively and freely figured. Both Hans von Bülow and Alfred Cortot somewhat notoriously “named” each of the Preludes, doing literally what interpreters of this music worth their salt would do anyway, however subjectively or otherwise – draw from each piece a poetic, theatrical or dramatic idea which fuses performance and interpreter with these representations of the music’s essence.

It seemed to me that Grice took absolutely nothing for granted, neither notes nor pauses between, as if he was freshly rediscovering the pieces and expressing his delight in the process of engagement with them. Resisting the temptation to revisit my pleasure at every single one of his individual explorations, I’ll regretfully content myself with a handful of instances, remarking firstly, however, on the spontaneously-wrought fusion of many of the pieces, progressions which seemed perfectly organic and natural as they occurred.

To be absolutely truthful, singling out individual Preludes for comment from this performance feels akin to creating a Chopinesque equivalent of Wagner’s “bleeding chunks” from his operas, so organic was Grice’s thinking throughout the work. Still, I can’t abide the thought of not sharing my delight in moments such as the “dying fall” of the repeated chords in the well-known No.7 in A Major – Grice obviously siding with Cortot’s description of the music involving “memories floating like perfumes”, rather than Bülow’s “Polish dancer”. And the drama of contrast created by the following agitato suggests also Cortot’s description of an “internalized” tempest, something quite raw and gut-wrenching.

Grice brought to every piece a similar kind of “edge”, suggesting some kind of lurking fear or disturbed awareness of chaos or oblivion – even the relatively placid Preludes seemed “haunted” by either where the music had been, or what was to follow. By the time we came to the final trio of pieces we were “well-tenderised” by the somewhat fraught nature of the various exchanges, with darkness either predominating or framing the more lucid episodes. So the G Minor No.22’s sombre, agitated angularities seemed “relieved” by the following F Major’s gently-flowing fluidity, the mood reminiscent of parts of Liszt’s “Suisse” book from his “Années de Pèlerinage”.

However, repose was banished by the set’s finale, appropriately marrying the Allegro appassionato marking with the key of D Minor, and with Grice’s total involvement in the “ordered chaos” of it all underlined by the rhythmic counterpointing of his feet on the floor in front of the pedals. A great downward cascade of notes at the piece’s end and a dark, brutal sounding of the note D brought the piece, the set and the recital to a properly sobering finish….after we gobsmacked folk in the audience had taken a few moments to draw breath once again, we were able to justly acclaim the achievement of both performer and composer – truly and deeply memorable!

 

 

 

 

 

 

St.Andrew’s-on-the-Terrace presents PIANO +
A week of concerts in support of the proposed new Welcome Centre

Concert No.5 – Ya-Ting Liou (piano)

BEETHOVEN – 6 Bagatelles Op.126
BERG – Piano Sonata Op.1
LISZT – Années de Pèlerinage – Première année: Suisse

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

Saturday 16th November 2013

I had thought at first that last night’s poor attendance at pianist Melanie Lina’s St.Andrew’s recital was the fault of a kind of “Friday night” syndrome. As it transpired, I had singled out Friday most unfairly, because this evening (Saturday) less than half last night’s already meagre number turned out to hear pianist Ya-Ting Liou. It’s true that neither of  the pianists were “names” to conjure with as far as the public was concerned, but each of their programmes as listed spoke volumes in terms of interest and musical pleasure.

Fortunately for those of us who had gone to these concerts, each of the pianists seemed completely unfazed by the lack of audience numbers, assuring we who were there that the important thing was to be able to play, and that SOMEBODY was there to listen. And judging by the programme that Ya-Ting Liou had put together this evening, it was obvious that here was potentially a most interesting and questing spirit wanting to play for us.

Taiwanese-born Ya-Ting Liou came to New Zealand in 2009 to live, and has since concertized both as a soloist and chamber musician throughout the country. I’ve seen and heard her play only once before, in a 2011 Wellington concert with her husband Blas Gonzales, as part of a duo called the “Pangea Piano Project”, playing works by New Zealand composers (https://middle-c.org/2011/05/pangea-piano-project-the-art-of/). On that occasion I was impressed by her artistry, but my appreciation was somewhat decentralized both by the excellence of her musical partnership, and the interest generated by the home-grown repertoire. In short, I wasn’t really prepared for the overwhelming experience of encountering her work as a recitalist.

And what music she offered! – Beethoven’s final set of Bagatelles for piano, the richly-wrought Op.1 Sonata by Berg, and Liszt’s first youthful Year of Pilgrimage, inspired by Switzerland. Each of these works tends to be talked about more than played, though interestingly enough it was the third occasion I’d heard the Berg Sonata in concert in relatively recent times. The Beethoven however, took me all the way back to my first and only experience of Alfred Brendel playing “live”, in Wellington in 1975, while Liszt’s Première année I’d never before heard in recital complete (I fancy there may have been a Vallée d’Obermann or two at some stage along the way…..).

The first Beethoven Bagatelle elicited warm, rich sounds from player and instrument, but without smoothing over the piece’s rhythmic and melodic angularities – and to follow, what a contrast Liou got with the impulsiveness of the following allegro! Her engagement with the music was at all times apparent, demonstrating a spontaneity and volatility surprisingly at odds with her diminutive appearance and seemingly tiny hands! After a richly contemplative Andante she again released great surges of energy for the rumbustious Presto, in full command of the dynamic contrasts in the music, and creating a gorgeous liquid flow throughout the “trio” section, one whose gossamer finish had a slightly “other-worldly” quality.

As for the final Bagatelle’s remarkable fusion of grand serenity and dismissive volatility (one commentator described the explosions of energy which introduce and dismiss the piece as “the composer delivering to his instrument a kick down the stairs”), Liou brought out the kinship of the music’s visionary explorations with the slow movement of the Hammerklavier, allowing free play between both immediacies and the mysteries of the sounds – at the end, only a slight mis-hit took away some of the finality of the payoff that its composer perhaps intended.

What to make of Alban Berg’s enigmatic one-movement piano sonata? Berg was simply thinking along the lines of Debussy who famously remarked that “after Beethoven, sonata form was no longer valid for composition”. Here, after a brief exposition, the music takes its cue from the piece’s opening phrase, and develops accordingly and organically.

Interestingly enough, some of Berg’s sequential passages reminded me of Rachmaninov’s keyboard writing in his First Sonata – what’s common to both, I feel, is the emotional drive at the bottom of the sequences, however much in thrall each composer is to a prevalent ideology of composition. Ya-Ting Liou expressed this yearning and striving towards these “remote consonances” with real feeling, as wholeheartedly as she delineated the piece’s haunting downward intervals towards even more remote regions. She brought to life the rhapsodic surface of the music throughout, while keeping the underlying strands of the music’s journeyings unbroken.

In the minds of many people, Franz Liszt’s fame is based upon his flashy, virtuoso instrumental pieces, and the greatly exaggerated tales of his “frequent” amours (which, if true, would have left him precious little time for his better-documented activities and achievements). He was, of course, reputed to be the greatest pianist of his age, and a good deal of his music reflects that extraordinary keyboard facility. However at least as much again shows the composer in a more serious and purposeful mood, and many of these less overtly spectacular works have, until recent times, been seriously neglected, known only to scholars and connoisseurs.

Perhaps it would be unfair to class Liszt’s three collections of music inspired by his travels – he called them Années de Pèlerinage (Years of Pilgrimage) – as neglected in toto, because certain pieces from each of the three volumes have been regularly featured in pianist’s recital programs. From the opening Swiss Year comes Vallée d’Obermann, and from the Italian (Second) Year there are the Petrarch Sonnets and the concise but powerful Dante Sonata. Finally, from the Third Year collection there’s the justly famous Les jeux d’eaux a la Villa d’Este (The fountains of the Villa d’Este). However, performances of any of the books as complete entities have, until recent times, been rare.

Most welcome, then, was Ya-Ting Liou’s presentation of the first of these collections, the Première année: Suisse. Liszt and his mistress Marie d”Agoult travelled extensively in Switzerland during the 1830s, the composer recording his reflections in a collection of pieces titled Album d’un voyageur, published in 1842. He later revised the cycle of pieces, adding two further ones and rechristening the collection Première année: Suisse (“First Year: Switzerland”) republishing the set in 1855.

If I go on to describe Liou’s performances in detail it will take people longer to read the review than it would to listen to a recording of the cycle! – tempted as I am by the impact of witnessing her achievement, by the totality of her conception, the brilliance of her playing and her conveyance of a great love for and understanding of the music, I’ll reluctantly content myself with a few brief descriptions of certain “moments”, hoping that readers will glean from these something of my excitement and thankfulness at “being there”.

Grand, rich chordings opened the first piece Chapelle de Giuillaume Tell, giving the music eons of resonance and space – bold, colorful playing! – I liked the touch of “diavolo” in places, with mischievous and sometimes menacing snake-slithers of sound, one that gave way to the grandest, most orchestral of conceptions of the music, which we revelled in like great lords and ladies! From this, the change to the tranquil waters of the Lake Wallenstadt was almost surreal, producing a magical effect, the playing “embracing” the music’s textures and colours, and painting a “landscape of emotion”.

The next piece sounded like Liszt’s homage to Beethoven via the latter’s “Pastoral” Sonata, while the lively and volatile Au bord dune source seemed to gather both momentum and girth to the point where the music became a rushing torrent – very “organic” thinking by the pianist, in view of the onslaught of the following Orage, with its terrific physical attack and ferocious, incisive aspect. As with Melanie Lina’s playing of Ravel’s Alborado the previous evening, I was astonished at the incredible “glint” in the pianist’s tones, and wondered if that was helped by what appeared to be Liou’s sparing use of the sustaining pedal – nothing, no sound, colour or texture, was indefinite or muddled, the pianist’s fingers doing all or most of the work so brilliantly.

Vallée d’Obermann was next, a veritable tone-poem in itself, and a touchstone of romanticism in music. Liou’s performance had a positively psycho-analytical ring, the music delving into the Byronic character’s growing crisis of confidence and faith, and overwhelmingly coming to terms with the world at the end, amid Musorgsky-like sonorities, with the traveller having the last word when nearly all was said and done. Much-needed relief from these full-on outpourings was provided by the Grieg-like delicacies of the following Èglogue, Liou’s wide-ranging capabilities of touch producing all kinds of easeful sonorities here.

How affecting, then, was Le mal du pays, its emotion fetched up from the depths and striking at the heart of the weary and comfortless traveller. In Ya-Ting Liou’s hands the feelings grew from out of the sounds, remembrances of home overlaid by world-weariness and anxiety, and seeking some kind of equilibrium and solace in the rich ambient chords which quietly closed the work. More celebratory and ritualistic was the final Les cloches de Genève, Liou’s seemingly boundless tonal resources at the music’s service whole-heartedly, making for a resounding and celebratory conclusion to the journey.

So, by dint of the playing on both of these occasions at St.Andrew’s, our initial dismay seemed to morph into delight!  Very great honour is due to both pianists on all counts – but we Wellingtonians will have to look to our laurels in the future.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

St.Andrew’s-on-the-Terrace presents PIANO +
A week of concerts in support of the proposed new Welcome Centre

Concert No.4 – Melanie Lina (piano)

SCARLATTI – Sonatas: E major K.380 / D Major K.29
BEETHOVEN – Sonata in E-flat Op.81a “Les Adieux”
PSATHAS – Waiting for the Aeroplane
BRITTEN – “Early Morning Bathe” / “Sailing” (from “Holiday Diary” Op.5)
ALBENIZ – El Puerto / Cordoba
RAVEL – Alborado del gracioso (from “Miroirs”)
CHOPIN – Waltzes: E Major (Op.Posth.) / A-flat Major Op.42 / Piano Sonata in B Minor Op.58

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

Friday, 15th November 2013

How unfortunate that, in the wake of Michael Houstoun’s extended weekend of Beethoven Sonata performances at the MFC, which was followed immediately by this present Piano+ series at St.Andrew’s in Wellington, the capital’s music-going public seemed to have “run out of steam” after three of the five nights of concerts.

It was probably a case of event overload, but each of the two remaining occasions, both of them notable piano recitals, were so poorly attended as to induce a degree of actual embarrassment on the part of those who were there. It left me with the not wholly comfortable feeling that the city’s reputation as an arts and cultural centre (which we Wellingtonians all keenly look to espouse) might not be such a “given” as presumed.

Whatever the case, Shakespeare’s immortal lines from Henry V “And gentlemen of England now abed…….”  applied in spadesful to both of these concerts, as the few who attended heartily agreed (we all readily bonded as a group on each of the evenings under these conditions!). There were chalk-and-cheese differences as regards repertoire, though each had a definite link with the aforementioned Houstoun/Beethoven series concluded a few days previously – Melanie Lina’s recital featured the composer’s “Les Adieux” Sonata, while Taiwanese-born pianist Ya-Ting Liou gave us the Op.126 set of Bagatelles the following evening.

The “Les Adieux” Sonata was given by Melanie Lina as part of a first half whose general theme expressed aspects of human dislocation/relocation in places away from homelands, both temporary and lifelong. So, along with Beethoven we had music by (Italian-born but Spanish-domiciled) Domenico Scarlatti, the much-travelled Catalan-born Isaac Albeniz, and the Basque-born Maurice Ravel, whose lifelong affair with Spain is well documented in his works.

Bringing the idea “closer to home” for listeners was John Psathas’s evocative Waiting for the Aeroplane, along with excerpts from Benjamin Britten’s rarely-played but highly entertaining Holiday Diary.  An all-Chopin second half seemed in accord with the dislocation/relocation theme, though the works presented here were more cosmopolitan than nationalistic in outlook.

I felt, perhaps, that the program was over-generous – a pianist friend with whom I attended the concert also thought the recital too long by a couple of items, though remarking that she herself had been “guilty” of a similar largesse of performing spirit in her younger concertizing days. Just one of the Albeniz/Ravel “Spanish” works would, I think, have sufficed, providing sufficient contrast with the rest, and leaving us pleasantly hungry for more…..

Beginning the recital, Melanie Lina gave us Scarlatti – two beautifully-crafted Baroque sonatas here exquisitely rendered by the pianist on a modern concert grand. Throughout the opening E Major (K.380) I loved Lina’s “imaging” – that sense of fantasy with which she so readily infused the music, her tempi and phrasing allowing the music to blossom and live within each bar. I could hear throughout the “twang” of the guitar resonating within a vividly-wrought ambience, one infused with her rich command of keyboard colour.  She revelled also in the more extrovert D Major (K.29), the great toccata-like whirls of sound at the opening conjuring up something very pictorial and dramatic, followed by fingerwork which propelled the music’s thrust with Horowitz-like crystalline clarity.

The pianist very properly alerted us to the correlation between the German word “Lebe-wohl” and the opening of Beethoven’s popularly-styled “Les Adieux” Sonata – the heartfelt three-note motif led to a full-blooded exposition of grief at a friend’s departure, both vigorous and reflective (both elements superbly delivered by Lina – some brilliant toccata-like chording in places, as well as a brief development hiatus which she quickly recovered from), while at the movement’s conclusion the farewell motif (also evoking a posthorn-like ambience) reinforced the sense of loss most vividly.

After this I wanted a shade more stillness from the second movement, a more “stricken” feeling – though Beethoven writes “andante”, he intensifies the feeling with “expressivo” – but Lina’s playing I thought a shade dry-eyed, perhaps registering the impatience of one who awaits the return of a friend more than the sorrow of that person’s absence. Theoretically, a classicist would approve of her structural organization of the whole, whereas a romantic might bemoan the lessening of feeling and atmosphere.

The finale very properly burst upon us with a mighty flourish, and though the pianist didn’t always carry a kind of underlying momentum across some of the sequences there were some thrilling moments. I particularly relished Lina’s repeated right-hand upward triple-flourishes (again, crystalline fingerwork) and, following the reprise of the opening, the hair-raising juxtaposition of left-hand octaves and right-hand dancings which when done, as here, with confidence and élan, produced an exhilaration of physical excitement! And though it was a case of thrills and spills at another point, the pianist prevailed in the face of some Haydnesque “dead-ends” and wrestled back the musical argument, to the great relief of all concerned.

A different kind of ambience informed John Psathas’ bitter-sweet Waiting for the Aeroplane, by turns nostalgic, visionary and jazzy, and here evoked with great surety. It made the perfect foil for two movements from a work I didn’t know, Britten’s piano suite Holiday Diary, written in 1934 and dedicated to his piano teacher, Arthur Benjamin. The first piece, entitled “Early Morning Bathe” nicely delineated the energies required to set the process in motion, the angularities of the opening giving way to the swimmer’s strokes and the water’s undulations.Had I not known the music’s title I would have plumped for a horse-ride of some description, complete with the feel of the wind on the rider’s face!

In the second piece, “Sailing” the playing caught a warmly sostenuto singing mood over gently shifting chords, the line’s water-mark shifting the sonorities to brighter realms in places, when suddenly the music energized and danced in a quasi-Musorgsky mood, the phrases spiky and fragmentary. Then, as quickly, the opening mood returned, this time with a deep tolling bass line underpinning the lyricism – a gorgeous performance of some lovely music.

As for the three “Spanish” pieces, I enjoyed most of all Melanie Lina’s astounding playing of Ravel’s Alborado del gracioso – when she began, I thought her tempo was too fast and that everything would degenerate into a garble of smudged notes – but she made it work with such tremendous zest, buoyancy and clarity, the repeated notes both clear and resonant, and the flourishes full-bodied and properly theatrical. Then, the recitative took us into the ambience’s heart, with pliant yet focused rhythmic impulses, the storyteller’s art coming to the fore, here – Lina was able to throw off the flourishes with such amazing “glint” while still making the melodies sing, spreading the chords as if she was strumming a giant guitar, and launching into the dance-rhythm of the opening once again with exquisite timing – those glissandi completed their mesmeric spell and helped whirl our sensibilities into paroxysms of delight at the end.

Neither of the Albeniz pieces was quite on this exalted level – El Puerto was given plenty of zest and physicality, and Lina did as well as any I’ve heard to keep the piece coherent and varied amid the composer’s veritable torrent of notes. And Cordoba started well, the pianist capturing during the introductory bars the ambivalence of the Spanish night, with its luminosity and fragrance set against darker rituals of purpose, but later, I thought relinquishing too much of the depth and mystery in rhythms which never really dug in – for me, a bit too picture-postcard a response to this soulful music.

The remained of the program was given over to Chopin – firstly, two waltzes stylishly and charmingly performed, the first the Op.Posth. E Major beautifully gauged as regards an appropriate mix of strength and poetry, and the second, the Op. 42 A-flat “Grand Waltz” variously whirling us around the ballroom and encouraging us to snap our heels to attention with the music’s engaging “strut” – all delightful and invigorating stuff.

Then came the “grand finale” – the Op.58 B Minor Sonata – a difficult assignment for any pianist, but especially at the conclusion of a demanding program. Despite some “crowding in” of detail in places, making for a slightly rushed and breathless intermittent effect, I thought Lina’s delivery of the first movement of the work very fine, wanting only in some light and shade here and there, which would have given Chopin’s classically-oriented piano writing a touch more air and space. And I admired her gossamer delivery of the Scherzo’s fleet-fingered opening, and the on-going “tingling” effect of the intermezzo-like passages which followed, more agitato in places than I expected, but nevertheless effective.

But it was the slow movement which truly captured my imagination, here – after emphatically delivering the opening’s dramatic and rhetorical gesture, Lina brought both of the movement’s contrasting lyrical episodes to warm-hearted fruition, with whole vistas of contrasting feeling and colour deftly applied to a poised, easeful change from B major to E Major. I thought the pianist’s tone was”centered” in a way that focused sensibilities on the here-and-now qualities of the music’s emotion – a treasurable sense of something unique to the moment that would never be recaptured.

Impressive, too, in some ways was Lina’s playing of the turbulent finale – except that I thought in places she pushed the “presto” so fiercely that the “ma non tanto” dropped off!  I couldn’t help feeling in her phrasing and articulation a degree of anxiety driving the music ever onwards – as though she didn’t trust the music’s own in-built momentum – which gave the performance as much a sense of breathlessness as of motivation and purpose. I found it all a bit unsettling – perhaps in accord with its composer’s state of mind at the time.

However, these few points aside, this was a splendid and enjoyable recital by a pianist whose musical and communicative skills deserved oceans more than our few hands and voices could give her. I do hope she gives Wellington another chance, before too long.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chamber Music New Zealand presents:
Michael Houstoun – Beethoven reCYCLE 2013
Programme Seven “Les Adieux”

BEETHOVEN – Sonata in F minor, Op 2 No 1 / Sonata in G, Op 79
Sonata in E flat, Op 81a ‘Les Adieux’
Interval
Sonata in E minor, Op 90   / Sonata in C minor, Op 111

Michael Houstoun (piano)

Michael Fowler Centre,Wellington

Monday 11^th November 2013

This was the final concert in Michael Houstoun’s Beethoven reCYCLE 2013 project, which has encompassed the composer’s entire output of 32 piano sonatas, presented in forty concerts, spread across ten centres. The atmosphere of eager anticipation in the Fowler Centre was almost palpable from an audience of some 600 listeners who were clearly devotees not only of Beethoven, but of the artist too.

The concert opened with the first published piano sonata and ended with the final one, written nearly 30 years later. Despite being an early opus, the F minor work is nevertheless full of the drama, beauty, and individualism that we associate with Beethoven’s mature output, and he was indeed already a highly successful pianist and composer in Vienna when he wrote it. Michael Houstoun’s reading was fresh and vigorous, and immediately engaged the audience for the journey through this ambitious programme.

The G major work is a captivating gem, its three brief movements more in the scale of a sonatina than sonata. Houstoun fashioned a wonderful balance between the poetic central Andante and its encompassing outer movements, in an interpretation that offered a lightness and transparency to the ear.

The E flat sonata “Les Adieux” was dedicated to a friend and pupil of Beethoven’s, the Archduke Rudolph. When this patron left Vienna in 1809 to avoid the French advance and bombardment, Beethoven wrote this very personal work with movements entitled The Farewell, The Absence, and The Return. No other Beethoven sonata has an explicit programme like this, and the work has a sense of acute personal involvement, intimately and richly expressed. Houstoun embraced this with moving artistry, particularly in the central Andante expressivo.

The E minor sonata, with only two movements, is reputedly a love story for Count Moritz Lichnowsky, to whom it is dedicated. He had successfully wooed an opera singer, and wedding bells were in the offing, but the first movement seems to capture the moods of  early courtship – the passion, hopes, doubts, even despair, of initial discovery and tentative advancement…….. Conversely, the second movement conveys a sense of profound relief, and the serenity of a rich, mutual understanding finally established.  Houstoun explored all these aspects with a sensitivity that conveyed a particularly special and personal affinity with this work.

The C minor sonata Opus 111 sits within the works usually labelled “late Beethoven”, yet to me it is much more immediately engaging and accessible than, say, some of the late string quartets. The first of its two movements opens with a Maestoso section that then moves into Allegro con brio ed appassionato. The following Arietta is marked Adagio molto semplice e cantabile, and it finally fades away with a beautifully crafted coda resolution. Houstoun’s artistry captured every mood, and conveyed throughout a telling sense of profound fulfilment– as though aligning a deep satisfaction derived from the mammoth reCYCLE undertaking with similar sentiments encapsulated as Beethoven penned his final sonata work.

It seems churlish to harbour even a single reservation about this wonderful concert, but there were a few things I would have liked to hear done differently. Throughout these sonatas there are the characteristic extended periods of high speed, sometimes frenetic, finger passagework, often at a forte dynamic, which Houstoun presents in unbroken sweeps of uniform sound. My preference is for a much more rigorous rhythmic articulation of individual figures and motifs within these passages – which can enable the listener to hang onto the phrasing structure while never losing sight of the overall architecture which always underpins them. Also, these works offer an incredible dynamic range, and I would have appreciated more exploration of the pianissimo region, which the Steinway used here has well within its capacity.

But perhaps the single element I most missed was silence – encapsulated in Debussy’s telling comment “Music is the silence between the notes.” After each statement of a new phrase or subject I craved that infinitesimal spacing that enhances absorption by the senses. And even more so between movements, where a moment’s breath would enable the listener to comprehend fully the artistry of Houstoun’s playing just past, before embarking with him on his journey forward.

Houstoun’s extraordinary achievement and musicianship in presenting the entire reCYCLE project was acknowledged with huge appreciation by a unanimous standing ovation at the end of the concert, where he stood showered in clouds of glittering ticker tape spewed from two confetti cannons overhead, and was presented with a gigantic rich red bouquet. It was a brilliant and memorable moment in Wellington’s music making scene, and an inspired way to celebrate an extraordinary partnership between the artist, the supporters, and Chamber Music New Zealand.

Bravo all!