Tag: piano

Ground – (and knuckle – ?) breaking Debussy and Ligeti

Posted on by Peter Mechen

Wellington Chamber Music presents:

XIANG ZOU and JIAN LIU

György LIGETI – Etudes for solo piano Bks 1-3 (complete)

Claude DEBUSSY – Etudes for solo piano Bks 1-2 (complete)

Xiang Zhou (Ligeti) and Jian Liu (Debussy) – piano

Ilott Theatre, Town Hall, Wellington

Sunday May 5th 2013

Time was when many people would look at the kind of fare offered by a concert such as this and suddenly discover all kinds of other things that they simply HAD to get done instead, such as mowing the lawns. Although the Ilott Theatre wasn’t packed to the extent that it was for Michael Houstoun’s recent Beethoven concerts, I thought the attendance was a “good average” for what seemed, on paper a fairly “studied”, and perhaps slightly daunting affair.

Thirty or so years ago most people’s consciousness of the name of Ligeti wouldn’t have gone past encountering the wonderful music of his used in the film 2001- A Space Odyssey;  and one might imagine little more of Debussy’s music than things like the Children’s Corner, Suite Bergamasque,  and random selections from the composer’s books of Preludes and sets of Images being given here in recitals.

Now, thanks in part to local musicians such as the New Zealand String Quartet fearlessly tackling works of the order of difficulty of Ligeti’s First String Quartet, the composer’s music has begun to shape something of a local performance profile – and though Debussy’s Etudes would, for most people, inhabit the more esoteric realms of his output, complete performances of other works such as the two books of Preludes for solo piano have been given within these shores over living memory by people like Tamas Vesmas and David Guerin. So a way of sorts had been prepared – and now, here we were, pushing the frontiers back even further.

Two pianists had been pressed into service for this concert, the quality of their credentials suggesting that we were being treated to luxury casting. First up, playing Ligeti, was Xiang Zou, of Chinese birth, and a product of both the Shanghai Conservatory of Music in China and the Juilliard Music School in New York. He’s won various prizes for his piano-playing in various international venues over the years (he’s now thirty years old), and currently he teaches at Beijing’s Central Conservatory of Music. He recently gave the Chinese premiere of all three books of Gyorgy Ligeti’s Etudes, so the music one would reasonably assume, would have already been well-and-truly explored, and “taken-on-board” for the purposes of this concert.

Though Ligeti lamented his own lack of pianistic skill, his creative imagination was able to transcend any physical limitations, to produce in these pieces what could well be regarded as the twentieth century’s most Lisztian keyboard explorations (ironic that both composers were Hungarian). Despite the protean technical difficulties of keyboard works I’ve encountered by people such as Busoni, Godowsky and Sorabji, I would feel that perhaps only the piano music of Messiaen can claim to having comparable levels of both technical exploration and poetic creativity to Ligeti’s Etudes.

So – these are a few comments regarding the range and scope of the first of the books. Xiang Zou’s playing of the opening study, Désordre (Disorder), gripped our sensibilities with pincer-like force from the outset. These were sounds which instantaneously conveyed a sense of incredible force and energy, the music setting the keyboard’s white keys across the hands against the black via inexorably rapid, vortex-like movements. The effect was strangely exhilarating, at one and the same time vertiginous and claustrophobic.

Contrasted with this was the Berg-like austerity, the sparse romanticism of Cordes à vide (Hollow Chords), the second of the Etudes. Where the first piece was tightly-worked, to the point of being oppressive, here were opened-out spaces, with calm, delicate detail, impulses nudged and rippled (beautiful left-hand legato figures) rather than things muscled or thrusted. As for the third, the Touches bloquées (Blocked Touches), this highlighted a visual aspect to the studies, as towards the end of the piece the player was required to press keys already held down, the hands therefore mixing ghostly resonance with a kind of dumb-show aspect. At the start the music created an uncanny stuttering ambience, with voices seeming to cancel out each others’ tones, with the dialogue then breaking off for a trebly-voiced trio section, a kind of “noises off” musical mise-en-scène. 

Fanfares, the fourth in the set, had the player alternating and entangling brass and wind calls with roulades of connecting tones, pianist Xiang Zou breathtakingly dovetailing the separate rhythms between the hands, and nicely shaping both the music’s winding down, and the feathery flourishes at the end. Then, with Arc-en-ciel (Rainbow), a free, airy and floating ambience at the start contrasted with richer, more substantial tones that grew with the piece, as if the composer was detailing first the sky and then the earth below. Xiang Zou’s marvellous control of texture and colour enabled the music to dissolve at the end into what seemed like thin air. After such pantheistic delicacy the concluding Automne à Varsovie (Autumn in Warsaw) cruelly brought human emotion into play with the elements, as the music’s tragic, obsessive descending figure seemed to spread like inexorable darkness over everything and everybody,  Xiang Zou’s playing piling on an ever-increasing weight of gloom and despair towards a crushing conclusion at the bottom of the keyboard.

In retrospect, placing the four completed Etudes from Ligeti’s Third Book immediately afterwards was, I felt, too much of a good thing, especially as Xiang Zou’s playing of the first Book was so “of a piece”, bringing out the contrasts so unerringly placed by the composer. The Four Book 3 pieces had for me, their own ambient world, but their presence, in view what else was to follow in the recital, overtaxed the balances, in my opinion. When Jian Liu, currently Head of Piano Studies at Te Koki New Zealand School of Music, finally walked out on the stage to begin his traversal of the Debussy Etudes, we were more than ready for him.

Xiang Zou ‘s playing had excitingly met Ligeti’s demands for a kind of up-front, confrontational virtuosity head-on. Now, we were treated to a marked contrast of both style and content, with the older pianist’s rather more relaxed, less “coiled spring” approach to music that, to be fair, seemed also more inclined to persuade rather than coerce its listeners to accept a point of view. Straightaway, one registered a tonal richness and depth in Debussy’s music largely eschewed by Ligeti, writing almost three-quarters of a century onward.

Unlike with Xiang Zou, I had previously heard Jian Liu play, and his qualities were all that I remembered from my previous encounters with him – first and foremost an ease of tonal production with almost nothing unduly forced, except those strokes by composers which are all the more telling when sparingly employed; and second, a clarity and balance of tone, colour and articulation, which I thought here ideal for the composer of these particular pieces. Since the time of their composition, Debussy’s Etudes have been regarded with as much awe (one writer called the Doux Etudes  “an ultimate in perfection, an end of conquest”) as have Ligeti’s, though for different reasons –  the former create their own unique impression on the listener, for much of the time fulfilling the composer’s oft-quoted remark,”Let us forget that the piano has hammers…”, an attitude to which the performance we got from Jian Liu certainly paid its dues.

Space precludes an exhaustive discussion of every individual item’s performance by each pianist – so, as with Xiang Zou’s Ligeti, I’ll record a few specific impressions of Jian Liu’s playing of the first Debussy group. To begin, the composer’s affectionate tribute to “the five-finger exercise” courtesy of pedagogue Carl Czerny was given appropriate ambivalent treatment, nostalgia tempered by gentle mockery, as befitted a parody-piece, the swirling main idea “put up” to all kinds of antics, impulsive, absent-minded and reflective. Pour les tierces (For the thirds), which followed, placed the “exercise” at the service of the music’s poetry and visceral movement, Liu’s beautifully modulated undulations capturing a readily-evoked “play of waves” effect.

The following Pour les quartes (For the fourths) had a properly volatile character, the march-rhythm capturing the piece, exciting the figurations and carrying our sensibilities triumphantly along, before running out of steam. I like the way Liu’s beautifully brushed-in upward arpeggios at the end restored the music’s equanimities. The pianist’s elegantly-realised tones underlined Debussy’s affinities with Chopin in Pour les sixtes (For the sixths), setting down a beautiful carpet of sound whose resonances supported both feathery brilliance and tones of great stillness. The big-boned Pour les octaves (For the octaves) also demonstrated the pianist’s command of contrast between bravura and delicacy, while the rippling, scampering flat-handed finger-whirling Pour les huit doigts (For the eight fingers) set our senses spinning, glissandi and all, right up to the delightful throwaway ending.

And to think that, at the interval, there were still plenty of worlds within the worlds of these works that we hadn’t yet explored! To reproduce all my notes regarding what we heard afterwards would be to expose my poverty of description – suffice to say that each composer’s music in the second half seemed to be as excellently served by its respective interpreter as before, the two strands again creating an even wider angle of divergence from one another throughout. Jian Liu’s Debussy playing further delighted in the music’s evocations of poetic sonority, while Xiang Zou’s Ligeti continued to rage, melt, burn and whisper, refurbishing our perceptions of pianistic possibility – if the concert was for me a shade too elongated and balanced slightly off-centre, it nevertheless packed plenty of meaningful punches, both iron-fisted and velvet-gloved – a truly memorable occasion.

 

 

 

 

Konstanze Eickhorst – recital from Vienna

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

New Zealand School of Music

Mozart: Sonata in A minor, K.310 (allegro maestoso; andante cantabile con espressione; presto

Schubert: Fantasy in C, Op.15 (D.760) “Wanderer” (allegro con fuoco; adagio; presto; allegro, played without a break)

Mozart: Fantasia in C minor, K.475

Schubert: Sonata in C minor, D.958 (allegro; adagio; menuetto: allegro; allegro)

Konstanze Eickhorst

Adam Concert Room

Thursday, 18 April 2013 at 7.30pm

Recitals by visiting instrumentalists are not nearly as frequent as they were when the old Concert Section of the New Zealand Broadcasting Corporation promoted recitals by artists who were here to play concertos with the Symphony Orchestra.  So it is gratifying that the New Zealand School of  Music has taken up some of the slack in Wellington by bringing overseas musicians to conduct master classes for the students and perform for the public.

Konstanze Eickhorst was here in Wellington both to give a master class and to perform a recital (and she has a cellist sister here), but her principal occupation will be to play in the New Zealand International Piano Festival, in Auckland.

Her all-Viennese programme was different from the typical piano recital programme that begins with Bach and ends with a contemporary composition.

The Adam Concert Room was virtually full.  A pleasing feature was that the lights were left on, so that it was easy for audience members to read the notes and check the tempo designations for the movements.  Other promoters, please note!  It is a strange New Zealand aberration to lower the lights at concerts, so that the programme the punter has just bought cannot be read in the auditorium.  A recital, particularly, is not a stage spectacle, so there is no need for the lights to be lowered.

The opening Mozart sonata began with a bold attack.  I noted what very flexible fingers, hands, wrists and elbows Eickhorst possesses.  Of course, the differing kind of concert dress worn by male versus female artists makes this easier to observe in the case of the latter.

I would have liked a slightly gentler approach to Mozart, remembering the pianos of his period.  The treble of the piano had my ears ringing at times.   However, the pianist did vary the tone and touch of her playing.  The problem is the small size of the venue and the bright, reflective, varnished wooden floor; performers need to take this into account.  The brittle, hard-edged sound was commented (without any remark from me) by my neighbour at the concert.

The programme notes spoke of the suspensions ‘that wail unhappily throughout’ in the first movement; indeed they were most apparent.  This sonata has much depth, and although a relatively early one, shows emotional and musical profundity not always true of the later ones.

The slow movement featured a singing melody, and the playing truly lived up to the composer’s designation for it.  Phrasing was superb and there were appropriate rubatos.  The third movement was almost playful the speed demonstrated Eickhorst’s sturdy technique.

Of all Schubert’s compositions for piano, the ‘Wanderer’ Fantasy is one of the longest and most demanding technically.  As the programme note said “[it] is Schubert’s most challenging and flamboyant composition for the piano.”  Following the busy opening movement, we were straight into the slow movement, which is based on Schubert’s song of the same name.  The movement proceeds as variations on the song’s theme.  The opening was very telling, pensive, inward, and expressive.  The slightly ominous undertone and a furious middle section rounded out a highly varied and interesting movement.

What a complete change of mood there was for the scherzo!  The emphasis here was on rhythm.  The pianist exhibited fantastic finger-work in the fast figures.  There were some wonderful sonorities in the final movement and the pianissimo passage was played with great feeling, while the last section was sheer bravura.

I found the first movement somewhat over-pedalled at times, and some chords hit a little too hard for this small, very resonant auditorium.  Nevertheless, this was a tour de force indeed.  It was a virtuosic performance of this showpiece, by a formidable pianist.  A little memory lapse here and one in the Mozart hardly mattered in the midst of such prodigious feats as these.

Back to Mozart after the interval, and one of his three Fantasias.  It is notable that there were only two composers represented in the recital, yet we were treated to a great variety of music.

A slightly curious comment in the notes implied that this work and the composer’s C minor sonata, published together with the same opus number, had also the same Köchel number, but this piece is K.475 while the sonata is K.457.

This is a quite gorgeous piece of music, and I found the playing more to my taste than that of the Schubert Fantasy.  There was lovely variation of touch and subtle changes of dynamics; in my view, more true resonance is obtained from the piano, as opposed to getting it from the room, when the playing is not too loud.  Not that this was a gentle, relaxing piece; it, like the other works on the programme had changes of character, and stormy passages.  Again, the character was not such that one normally associates with Mozart’s piano music.

Schubert’s sonata in C minor, another lengthy work, was striking in its shifting keys and switches between lyrical passages and more dynamic, declamatory ones.  The prestidigitation required to obtain these dramatic contrasts of tone and texture was remarkable.

In the adagio, the lines were sometimes muddled a little by the pedal again.  Elsewhere there was considerable clarity and weight.  The third movement was unusual for a minuet, with its interruptions.  The finale was again a technically demanding movement; it returned to the lyrical before the end, in episodes.

Although the programme was by well-known composers, the music played was not ‘run-of-the-mill’, and did not conform to what one might think of as typical of these composers.  This made it interesting, and despite my quibbles, it was superb recital of relatively little-heard music of great brilliance, drama and passion, played by a pianist with formidable skills.  Apart from anything else, the recital demanded great stamina on the part of the pianist.

It was refreshing to find that Eickhorst did not feel it necessary to sweeten the programme with some lighter works or encores.

Michael Houstoun – Beethoven Revisited

Posted on by Peter Mechen

Chamber Music New Zealand presents:

Michael Houstoun (piano) – Beethoven ReCycle 2013  (Programme Three)

Sonata No.5 in C Minor Op.10 No.1 / Sonata No.10 Op.14 No.2

Sonata No.22 in F Major Op.54 / Sonata No.106 “Hammerklavier” in B flat Op.106

Ilott Theatre, Town Hall, Wellington

Monday 15th April 2013

One of the highest accolades a musician can receive is to have his or her name indelibly associated in people’s minds with that of a particular composer’s music – and more than any other pianist in this part of the world, Michael Houstoun’s name has become practically synonymous with Beethoven.

It’s not been an association lightly or casually wrought – it’s grown and developed over a span of time and through the pianist’s Herculean efforts involving preparation and performance of all of the composer’s significant keyboard works. Both the passing of time and life-changing events have made their own contribution to the association, so that Houstoun is presently a different musician to what he was twenty years ago, around the time of his first Beethoven voyage through the sonatas. He himself delineates aspects of the change in his musical outlook in the excellent program booklet, an account that makes absorbing reading.

Many concertgoers attending the present series would have been there last time round, and able to remember well the impact of that first cycle, momentous in so many ways. If the present series seems not quite such a “charged” occurrence, it still generates its own storehouse of interest from the point of view of Houstoun’s own growth and development as a major artist, and the broadening and deepening of his views about the music.

I found having to choose one of three recitals from Houstoun’s first “round” of his Beethoven Re-cycle a costly experience, as there was so much to lose as well as to gain – but I finally plumped for the third programme, which had the mighty “Hammerklavier” as a kind of finale to three earlier (and briefer!) works.

Over the years I’ve worked hard at NOT becoming a total “Hammerklavier-junkie”, though it’s sometimes been a near thing – every great performance I hear of the work has the effect of pushing me close to that edge over which the way back to sanity would be a torturous process. This was such a performance, but one with a difference to some of the more “addictive” experiences I’ve gone through – it was more of a “cleansing” experience here, rather than an immersion in or partaking of something rich and strange.

Until relatively recently I’ve found Michael Houstoun’s playing of Beethoven somewhat enigmatic  –  I would sit and listen to live performances and recordings of various things and admire the playing’s obvious mastery, its strength, purpose, clear vision and command of both structure and detail. One of Houstoun’s most pronounced qualities – a kind of “greatness”, I believe – is the ability to convince the listener of the validity of his approach to any piece of music he plays at the time, however much one might find oneself holding different views in retrospect.

Of course, any musician ought to be able to similarly persuade listeners to accept the “truths” of what he or she plays, but in Houstoun’s case the force of his “in-situ” persuasion is quite remarkable. Nevertheless, I remember thinking repeatedly in those days how strange it was that the pianist’s playing, despite its obvious qualities, hadn’t really ever moved or touched me –  it was music-making I admired, but didn’t love.

After Houstoun’s debilitating encounter in the year 2000 with, and eventual recovery (2005) from focal dystonia (a process documented clearly and movingly in an article on the pianist’s web-site, found at www.michaelhoustoun.co.nz), I began to feel a kind of “thawing-out” in his playing – especially memorable for me were recitals featuring Schumann’s Kreisleriana (August 2010) and Schubert’s B-flat Sonata D.960 (July 2011), both works getting magnificent, expressive readings. My reviews, to my surprise, were punctuated with many comments referring to the pianist’s poetic sensibilities and evocation of free and open spaces – “beautifully and sensitively weighted, equivocally poised between worlds of foreboding and resignation” was some of my purpler prose.

Houstoun mentioned in his account of the FD saga his “rediscovery of a happiness in simply playing the piano” as part of his healing process – and for me that rediscovery is manifest in what sounds to me like a greater warmth and freedom in his playing. I noticed, for example, during the recent Beethoven recital how beautifully differentiated the three first-half sonatas were, each offering very different aspects of the composer’s musical personality – the “Hammerklavier” of course, was something else again!

Simply the selection of keys across the three first half works gave the listener interest and pleasure – plunging into a stormy C Minor to begin with, the recital moved to a good-humored G Major for the second work, and a brief though richly-plaintive immersion into F major for the diminutive Op.54 Sonata. At first, from the beginning of Op.10 No.1, with its terse ascending figurations hurling out a challenge to the world, I thought the Ilott Theatre acoustic would prove too dry and dull for the music to properly “speak” – but as the work progressed I realized that the sounds were bringing out both player and instrument beautifully, without need of much help from the hall at all.

Houstoun relished the operatic character of the second movement, energizing the dramatic, baroque-like flourishes that contrasted with the lyrical lines, and bringing out the playful countervoice dancing over the top of things, before the richly beautiful concluding descent. Having sufficiently expressed his ardour, the young virtuoso composer applied his pianistic spurs once again and galloped off and into an incident-packed third movement, rich with variety. The pianist took us adroitly through all of this towards the somewhat Haydnesque harmonic cul-de-sac which brought the journey to a whimsical halt, then laughingly turned us around and pushed us in the right direction to the final cadence.

The opening of Op.14 No.2 had, by contrast, a feline grace, in Houstoun’s hands, with the music’s contours finely sculptured, but with some easing at the phrase-ends, just as a singer would breathe. The middle section clouded over and giddily whirled us through various agitations to a wonderful release-point nicely held by the pianist before returning to the gentle warmth of the opening – I thought Houstoun’s tones positively glowed in places towards the end, with a kind of burnished quality. The andante stepped out with attitude, Houstoun terracing the dynamics finely and without exaggeration – I had never noticed a kind of kinship of utterance between places in this movement and the variation movement of No.30 (Op.109) before hearing this performance.

Regarding the finale, it was “and now for something completely different….” on the composer’s part. Houstoun brought out the music’s skittishness, in places as much lightly brushing-over as playing the notes – as another pianist once said to me, having just played the work, “It’s all slightly mad, isn’t it?” – and splendidly delivered Beethoven’s gorgeous growl of impulsive drollery right at the end. And from this we were taken to a world of grander, more ceremonial and ritualized fun-and-games, the enigmatic two-movement Sonata No.22 (Op.54).

Comparing this performance with Houstoun’s Trust recording of the work, made in 1994, I noted the more open and varied touch throughout the first movement’s exuberant octave hammerings. I also felt a stronger sense of narrative throughout – here, the introductory minuet-like dance was beautifully augmented on each of its appearances with grace-notes and other accoutrements, and thus transformed into a wondrously-adorned processional. The pianist allowed it a moment of glory before gracefully delivering a succession of plaintive, fading chords, and letting it all go.

As for the moto perpetuo-like second movement, Houstoun has always played this music superbly, as here. From the beginning there was a finely-controlled but burgeoning excitement, Houstoun bringing out Kreisleriana-like voices from the occasional held notes, and varying the tones and intensities throughout different episodes. I enjoyed the wonderful “lurches” into different ambiences, before the pianist refocused the music’s bearings, girded its loins for a final reprise, and made an all-out dash for the finish line, to exhilarating effect.

So – we were now “primed” as it were for that Everest of the pianistic literature – the “Hammerklavier”. The music was hurled across the firmament for us at the very start, Houstoun’s hands leaping excitingly through voids of time and space. His fingers didn’t quite encompass every note cleanly in the subsequent figurations, but the hint of strain suggested a no-holds-barred commitment, and the titanic nature of the effort required to bring those sounds into being for us. The energies generated and subsequently released throughout the whole movement in places suggested to me dancing star-clusters, forming and breaking apart, the pianist’s strength and vision of the whole keeping the ebb and flow of things together. The  fugal sequence had both vigour and weight, suggesting a human mind attempting to come to grips with something elemental and for the ages. A tremendous achievement.

The scherzo was kept “tight”, and the dynamics contained, though circumspection was thrown aside as the madly scampering trio section brilliantly touched off the volcanic climax, the sounds skyrocketting upwards and all over in a brilliant display of surging pianistic exuberance. A few obsessively-repeated chords and a throwaway ending, and we were suddenly in another world of vast spaces and far-flung thoughts, as the slow movement was begun.

When reviewing Houstoun’s recording of this work, I felt that the pianist demonstrated that he was a skilled, committed and thoughtful architect and builder, from the opening notes of this movement shaping the music into a magnificent structure, exquisitely proportioned and finely detailed in all of its parts. His grasp of the different dimensions suggested by the music made for profound contrasts of space, light, meaning and feeling which I felt readily opened themselves to the listener. It was a telling journey through these different vistas, with seemingly endless explorations in and around the music’s structures, upwards and outwards, though I didn’t ever feel I was invited or encouraged by the playing to stop and experience the depths of the stillness at the heart of it all.

Seventeen years on I felt Houstoun’s approach to this music had moved closer to this stillness, though he seemed as disinclined to take that last step into the vortex of allowing the music to direct him, of surrendering to the ineffable and feeling the full depth of the silences between some of those notes. Rather, the music was, I thought, kept on the continuum of a living pulse, with everything admirably weighted and sensitively detailed. Beethoven’s use of a slow waltz-rhythm throughout suggested in its way a kind of life-dance, whose ebb and flow underwent profound transformation, and Houstoun’s invitation to us to share in that dance pared our existence to the music’s essentials for its duration. And though this music was supposed to represent the well of the world’s sorrow, here on the opposite side of its tragic aspect was an antithesis, a kind of cleansing of the spirit and a refreshing of the indomitable will. It was on this plane that I thought the pianist’s achievement in this music was truly memorable.

On a prosaically functional level, a truly transcendental performance of the slow movement can leave one in a kind of emotion-suffused daze, creating the unforgivable solecism of wanting to turn the work into a kind of “Unfinished Sonata” by breaking off one’s listening at that point. Perhaps Beethoven sensed such a possibility, responding with a finale whose opening easeful, recitative-like gestures suddenly plunge the listener into a seething cauldron of fugal interaction, one which largely dominates the movement. Houstoun’s strength and energy really came into its own, here, and his playing vividly delineated the music’s fugal form as a wonderfully jagged cliff-face, whose relief outlines displayed things such as augmentation, retrograde and inversion (as all good fugues ought). With him we climbed that cliff-face, experiencing the stature, grandeur and beauty of the journey, and braving things like suspensions, overhangs and false steps, and pausing for breath at a certain point to take in the full extent of the terrain thus far covered, savour its beauties and terrors, and then plunge upwards and onwards.

Having gone within hailing distance of the goal, the music then intensified the order of its going, requiring the pianist to interweave some of the elements thus far encountered, before finishing with a part-defiant, part-exultant ascent of the B-flat major scale of tenths and trills to the final tonic-dominant cadences of the work’s summit. Resisting the temptation to employ Sir Edmund Hillary’s famously reported description of his and Tensing’s ascent of Everest at this point, I might instead say that Houstoun thus came, saw and on this occasion conquered. His traversal of all four sonatas (but especially the last!) justly drew forth a rapturous response from a near-filled Ilott Theatre, people almost without exception on their feet wholeheartedly acclaiming a stellar achievement.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Houstoun’s second triumphant Beethoven sonata recital

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Michael Houstoun – BEETHOVEN reCYCLE 

Piano Sonatas:
G minor, Op 49 No 1;
F major, Op 10 No2;
B flat major,  Op 22;
D minor, Op 31 No 2 (Tempest);
A major, Op 101

Ilott Theatre, Wellington Town Hall

Sunday 14 April, 5pm

Each of the seven concerts in which Michael Houstoun plays all of Beethoven’s piano sonatas is high-lighted by one of the famous ‘name’ sonatas.  It is a device with far more value than mere marketability.

The order of the sonatas
Many in the audience will have wondered whether Houstoun had a theme or some sort of musical pattern in mind in his choice of what to put in each programme: whether these titles found echoes in the other pieces chosen for that particular concert or was there some other common mood or spirit to be heard in each concert, to what extent was there a chronological pattern. 

In his interview with Tim Dodd on RNZ Concert Houstoun said he followed the order he used in the 1993 programmes. The programme booklet reminded us of how they were arrived at. In marginal quotes, Houstoun drew attention to key relationships, some rather recondite, especially when the adjacent pieces were separated by the interval.

Other than that, Houstoun seemed to be guided simply by an instinct about pieces that might fit together or offer suggestive contrasts. Marked contrast seemed to be an important aim; so the three earliest pieces (Op 2) and the last three (Opp 109, 110, 111) are all in the last three recitals in November; while all three of Op 10 and both of the Op 14 sonatas were in the first three programmes. Otherwise, the programmes were nicely varied between early, middle and late works.  

Though I am reviewing only Programme 2, I heard all three in the first weekend and hope to hear all other four recitals. So far a general impression is of somewhat more impassioned performances than those of 20 years ago; tempi often a little faster in quick movements, though similar, perhaps sometimes even slower, in the adagios and andantes.  But more strikingly, an older Houstoun has had the confidence to exploit extremes of dynamics, daringly juxtaposed, to make the most of tempo changes, of playful or portentous passages, prolonged pauses that almost suggesting a mock memory lapse on the part of pianist or a radical change of mind on the part of the composer.

Op 49 No 1, in G minor
The first piece on Sunday evening (Op 49 No 1) hardly lent itself to displays of wit or mockery. Along with its major key companion, this is probably the young pianist’s first taste of Beethoven sonatas, and Houstoun simply played it with elegance and affection, unaffectedly, with rich bass sonorities, discreet rubato and staccato phrases that enlivened the rhythms. 

Op 10 No 2, in F
That atypical piece out of the way, the real young Beethoven arrived with the second sonata of Op 10; written in the mid 1790s when the composer was about 25 and enjoying a spectacular career as a piano virtuoso. This is no work for the Grade 5 piano student; it demands confident rhythmic acrobatics and fast, elaborate ornaments. It also calls for the pianist to find the wit and originality that a young Beethoven was determined to astonish the Viennese public with. There’s really no slow movement as the second, marked Allegretto, is in brisk triple time. The third movement, with its fugal touches, was driven with unremitting, staccato energy, with a conscious wit with a straight face, which had its effect on the audience if not perceptibly on the pianist.

Op 22, in B flat
The next sonata, Op 22 in B flat, as if aware of Houstoun’s interest in related tonalities, created a sense of regression, moving down a fifth (or up a fourth) from the previous sonata in F major. As with all the slightly less familiar pieces, it was strikingly arresting with its Allegro, very con brio, its flying semiquavers whose technical risks Houstoun succeeds in drawing attention to, rather than making them seem easy as do some pianists, not necessarily better ones. But at least, in the second movement, we could be comforted with the calm and beautiful 9/8 Adagio, with a piquant modulation in the middle.  

Beethoven tends to defy facile characterisations. The Minuet has its sweet and untroubled phases, lilting staccato, while at the same time revealing a satanic mask, which is especially explored in the dark Trio section. Houstoun understands and seems to relish these contrasts and states of unease.  A happy tune colours the Finale, a Rondo, which relaxes tensions and might have left the feeling of its being somewhat facile, if this pianist was virtually incapable of playing even the simplest piece without  a certain dignity and profundity.

The Tempest, Op 31 No 2, in D minor
Houstoun played the Tempest Sonata, the second of the three in Op 31, not as the last in the concert, but straight after the interval. It was followed by the one unfamous late sonata, Op 101; some might have felt it as an anti-climax.

However, to plunge straight into The Tempest after the interval was exhilarating; rather more so than the Op 26 which opened the second half before the Waldstein on the Friday evening. The large gestures of this highly dramatic performance that lent credibility to its title ‘Tempest’ (which was not Beethoven’s) alternating between calm and storm.  Beethoven’s early biographer Anton Schindler believed it to be inspired by Shakespeare’s play, while the programme notes offer the now more common idea that it describes Beethoven’s despair at the realisation of his irreversible deafness.

Its key of D minor which had been the vehicle for darkness, grief and satanic characterisation for Mozart (vide Don Giovanni and the Requiem), was bound to call up such emotions in both composer and those of the audience sensitive to tonality.  Mood and tempo changes create a sense of spiritual confusion, and Houstoun’s powerful playing lent weight to such a theory.  

Though the Adagio movement begins without much ado, not many bars pass before darkness descends, a deep thoughtfulness touched with increasing mystery; acceptance of his fate. There’s no Minuet; the last movement is marked innocently, Allegretto, but here is the storm, portrayed with unflagging passion and staccato-driven, motoric rhythms.

Op 101, in A major
I’d expected the follow-on by the Sonata in A of 1816 to offer something of an ambiguous transition, and the beginning was certainly true to its key’s traditional character: light-hearted, untroubled. I always have the feeling, undisguised in Houstoun’s hands, that the first few notes of the opening theme are missing and his playing seemed dramatise the feeling that we had gate-crashed into the middle of something that was a little bit private.  But nothing much does happen in the short first movement except to put us at rest.

The more usual Beethoven emerges in the next movement. The tempo markings are interesting: the first movement is Etwas lebhaft – ‘somewhat fast’, while the second is simply Lebhaft, adding ‘marschmässig’ – march-like; but the difference between them is far more than that, especially in Houstoun’s hands, a springing, frantic, staccato-driven, march.

Another short Adagio (Langsam) precedes the fourth movement (though the way the programme note is set out suggests the two are one movement; and incidentally, what a splendid programme booklet Chamber Music New Zealand has produced, worth every cent!). Houstoun seemed to be feeling his way into this slow and beautiful movement, preparing secretly for the arpeggios that accelerate into the last movement, marked ‘Geschwind’ (‘swift’, a wonderful word that has no comparable feel in English; for me it always calls up the last stanza of Goethe/Schubert’s Erlkönig: “Dem Vater grauset’s, er reitet geschwind”).

In this movement all the pent-up energy, now joyous, come to a climax and is released, though controlled through a certain amount of fugal writing. In spite of its enigmatic earlier aspects, the sonata ends on a note of high excitement, even if there remains a touch of cosmic doubt.

Coda
It proved a wonderful conclusion to a great concert, another exposure to a Beethoven pianist with something more to say than mere technical virtuosity and a high level of sensitive musicality.  Do we understand that we are host to a Beethoven interpreter of international stature, who has made a profound exploration of some of the greatest works of art of all time;  who brings a sense of drama to the music, unafraid to reach to the extremes of expression, at which the composer himself would surely have given a gruff sign of approbation? And a  pianist who has continued to explore and discover, who has determinedly pursued his individual perceptions that brings to every episode, every movement, new awakenings and revelations?

For the second time, the overwhelmed audience came to its feet with long applause.

Oleg Marshev with lovely programme on Waikanae’s Fazioli piano

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Preludes Book 2 (Debussy)
Pictures at an Exhibition (Mussorgsky)

Waikanae Music Society subscription recital

Waikanae Memorial Hall

Sunday 7 April, 2.30pm

The third in the Waikanae Music Society’s 2013 series of nine concerts presented an international pianist in one of what was apparently very few New Zealand recitals.

The audience was of around average size for Waikanae, perhaps 350.

Book 2 of Debussy’s preludes contains music that is less familiar than Book I. The reasons are plain enough: fewer pieces of distinctive character, more ‘impressionist’ or scene-painting pieces whose strengths emerge, for all but those with a psychological affinity with the composer, only after several hearings, or by studying them at the keyboard (not an approach available to those with less than Grade 8 skills at the very least). And then, their magic is likely to take root, seriously; and a performance like this is the kind that could accelerate the process of enchantment.

The pieces call for extraordinary refinement and subtlety, qualities that Marshev is greatly endowed with. In the first piece, Brouillards, a wash of arpeggios ending with a sequence of widely spaced octaves, dynamic effects seems to emerge from the far left of pianissimo. Dead Leaves are captured at considerable length in dense chords, coloured blues-like with 6ths, while a habanera rhythm sustains the Spanish/Moorish quality of the third piece – a sensitive portrayal of the sounds of a country Debussy never really visited.

One finds oneself smiling indulgently at some of the fanciful titles and the music they are put with. Les fées sont d’esquises danseurs is a case where the title rather outstrips the piano’s capacities to suggest the indefinable and unsubstantial, no matter how delicate and exquisite the touch at the keyboard; and a more perfect rendering than this could hardly be imagined.

One of the few comic touches was Général Lavine which stands out more for its eccentricity and unexpected effects than much lasting musical interest – for me at least. The same goes for Hommage à S. Pickwick Esq. of which I can actually recall more outlandish and grotesque performances. A comparable exercise at satire is La terrasse des audiences du clair de lune, but slightly removed from comprehension through its need for the event that inspired it to be explained; for all that, it remains one of the more colourful and entertaining of these preludes. It ranks in character with the last prelude, Feux d’artifices (fireworks) that in many ways provides a cyclopedia of the varied technical and colourful devices that enrich the whole collection.

An external diversion was not well timed to accompany Canope, a portrait of an Egyptian burial urn, an image that overlapped awkwardly with the skittering of seagulls on the roof of the hall.

The gulls departed soon enough, though they might have usefully provided complementary effects for episodes of Pictures at an Exhibition – The Ballet of the Unborn Chicks or The Little Hut on Chicken Legs.

The work as a whole is an interesting reminder of the richness and extent of western European music, and culture in general, that took root in Russia through the 19th century, evidence that more recent regimes seems to be determined to depreciate. Though familiar piano music of the 19th century is limited to Tchaikovsky, there were others, like Balakirev (Islamey for example), Liapunov, Arensky, Tcherepnin, as well as Mussorgsky, before the obvious later figures like Rachmaninov, Medtner, Scriabin and Prokofiev.

Nevertheless, Pictures at an Exhibition does rather emerge from nowhere, in Russian terms, and its genius is attested to by the several successful orchestrations by later composers, though it’s the original piano version that excites me most.

The combination of a pianist with such refinement of touch, command of dynamic subtleties, with the Fazioli piano made this a performance to remember. The Promenade began promisingly, commanding attention without punishing the piano, it led to a virtuosic picture of weird creatures, Gnomes, with erratic rhythms, crabbed motifs, irregular patterns, contrasting with the gentle, mournful depiction of a troubador’s song at an Old Castle.

The astonishing variety of images that Mussorgsky creates, some frenzied and unsettling, some slow and steady like Bydlo or the Catacombs, others painting colourful people like children playing in the Tuilerie gardens or the two Jews; all called for virtuosity and precise articulation; nothing was tasteless or excessive.

The Finale really comprises The Little Hut on Chicken Legs which merges into the Great Gate at Kiev, rehearsing aspects of what went before and building to a climax in which nothing could be seen as conventional peroration or a ritual ending.

Here are there, minor slips happened, and one was near the end, but the challenges of this unusual piece with its grand chordal acceleration to the end, have tripped up others.

There was one encore: Alexandr Siloti ‘s transcription, in B minor, of Bach’s Prelude in E minor from Book II of the 48 Preludes and Fugues.
It was a privilege to hear this exquisite yet highly colourful and dramatic performance.

 

Streeton Trio return triumphantly to Waikanae

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Waikanae Music Society

Haydn: Piano Trio in E, Hob. XV/28
Schubert: Piano Trio no.1 in B flat. D/898
Elena Kats-Chernin: Wild Swans Suite (2002, arr. 2013 for piano trio)
Mendelssohn: Piano Trio no.2 in C minor, Op.66

The Streeton Trio: Emma Jardine (violin), Julian Smiles (cello), Benjamin Kopp (piano)

Waikanae Memorial Hall

10 March 2013, 2.30pm

The Australian Streeton Trio made a hit in Waikanae last year, and they certainly maintained or even enhanced their reputation this time, albeit with a different cellist; their regular cellist, Martin Smith, injured his wrist in an accident, and so was replaced for this tour by Julian Smiles.

The Haydn trio was unfamiliar to me, and proved to be an enchanting work containing quite a lot of fun.  The opening allegro revealed great clarity from the players, as they alternated rather folksy pizzicato phrases (the pizzicato echoed on the piano also) with lyrical ones.  The trio was titled by Haydn “Sonata for the piano-forte, with accompaniment for the violin and violoncello”; this title the performers observed, not only when the piano had solo passages.  The rhythmic variety of this movement was just one of its many delights.

The solo nature of the piano writing was even more to the fore in the allegretto slow movement.  It characterised by baroque elements, and the playing style of the strings, using little vibrato, was appropriate.  It was certainly the most sober of the three movements.

A cheerful allegro finale rounded off the work with playing that was both delicate and lively; vintage Haydn, given a very polished performance.  The forte chords that concluded the movement would have been a wake-up call to any lulled to slumber by the gentle elegance that preceded them – and by the warm hall.

The Schubert trio is one that I am perhaps too familiar with.  I have a recording of the Odeon Trio performing it, and had a cassette tape for many years of the Beaux Arts Trio playing the same work, which accompanied me frequently in my car.  However, it is a very different experience to hear the work played live in concert, to see the players negotiating their instruments with apparent ease and expertise, and to hear the nuances of the music in space.

The sparkling first movement is wonderful for the cellist.  In this long movement there is much delicious interweaving of the parts.  The beautiful opening cello solo with piano accompaniment sets the pensive tone of the andante slow movement.  This wonderfully gentle movement was played with finesse and subtlety.  The many imaginative figures were given their due, and performed sympathetically and with beauty of tone.  Nevertheless, there were a few slightly untidy passages here and in the finale.

The scherzo (allegro) was taken at a fairly fast pace; its trio was quite lovely.

The rondo finale tripped along delightfully, with its dance-like idioms.  There was an impressive fluttering technique employed by the cellist as part of the many luscious elements in this movement.

The Streetons played with excellent balance, no one instruments dominating, and gave the audience a marvellous taste of Schubert at the height of his powers.

After the interval, we were treated to an Australian composition.  I had come across the name Elena Kats-Chernin before – last year, in the concert by the Vienna Boys’ Choir.  They sang Land of Sweeping Plainswritten especially for them by this Tashkent-born, Moscow and Sydney-trained composer.  The lavish printed programme for that concert contained three coloured photographs of the composer, two of them with members of the choir.

The piece we heard on Sunday was an arrangement by the composer of music she wrote in 2002 for a ballet based on Hans Christian Andersen’s story.  The first movement, ‘Green Leaf Prelude’ began with attractive watery sounds from the piano, followed by pizzicato cello, and on violin.  These passages led to long bowed notes on violin with a melody on cello, later joined by the violin, while the piano continued its watery accompaniment.

The second movement (‘Eliza’s Aria’) consisted of a jerky dance, the piano again sounding aquatic.  Pizzicato cello with bowed violin featured here, and then the roles were reversed.  The sustained melody was similar to the previous pizzicato tunes.

The third movement (‘Brothers’) was notable for dotted rhythms on all three instruments.  This is not a profound work, but evocative, jolly, and well crafted.

Mendelssohn’s genius is nowhere better demonstrated than in his chamber music.  The first thing I noticed was his brilliant piano writing – though at the beginning of the Piano Trio no.2, I found the piano a little over-pedalled for my taste.  The allegro was vigorous, but there were many subtle passages intervening.

The andante second movement had a profound opening on piano; this was lyrical beauty at its best.  As the excellent programme note stated “It is graceful, reminiscent of Mendelssohn’s Songs Without Words… evokes images of A Midsummer Night’s Dream”.

A complete change of mood for the scherzo had the strings trotting along together, accompanied from glorious cascades from the piano.

The allegro appassionato finale lived up to its name; in places, it could almost have been written by Brahms.  The entire performance was very satisfying, and richly deserved the audience’s enthusiasm, which gave rise to a wonderful encore: the romantic andante second movement from Mendelsssohn’s first piano trio, in D minor.  It began with an extended piano solo – another song-without-words-like sequence of exquisite beauty, to close a memorable concert full of nuances that expressed so many emotions.

Melanie Lina – celebrating her “L’isle Joyeuse” at St.Andrews

Posted on by Peter Mechen

St Andrews Lunchtime Concert Series presents:

MELANIE LINA – a piano recital

BEETHOVEN, CHOPIN, GERSHWIN, DEBUSSY

St.Andrews-on-the-Terrace, Wellington

27th February 2013

I didn’t manage to get to hear the very beginning of Melanie Lina’s St.Andrews lunchtime concert recital, crashing in (metaphorically) at what seemed the stormiest point of the Waldstein Sonata’s first movement development section, ostensibly a good place in which to make a late entrance as an audience member!  In truth, I had foreseen that things would keep me from making the starter’s call, so had arranged for my Middle C colleague, Rosemary Collier, to record her impressions of the first movement, to “tide the review over” so to speak! It turned into what I thought was a fascinating comparative exercise – had a well-known Biblical figure been present, he would have washed his hands for a second time, and reiterated his well-known definitive mantra, “What is truth?”.

Rosemary traced the music’s course in Melanie Lina’s hands from “dark opening sonorities” to “more ecstatic sounds”. Commenting on the pianist’s technique, she said that the skills and musicianship on display were of a high order, though she felt some blurring of figuration in the early part of the sonata, due, perhaps to slight over-pedalling.  This was underpinned by the tempo set by Melanie Lina, an “Allegro con brio” with plenty of the latter, and perhaps a faster allegro than is usually the case in performances of this sonata.

Nevertheless, Rosemary found herself admiring “a good variety of tonal colours”, bringing out the music’s drama. Occasionally it was felt that the piano made a clattery sound, specifically the notes in the second octave of the treble – was some restoration of the felts on the hammers needed in that much-used part of the keyboard? She made the point that Melanie Lina’s sound was rather less “clattery” than some she had previously heard. I must confess that, when I arrived my first thought was how INVOLVING the pianist’s sonorities were, the tones bright and focused but commanding a range of emphases which nicely coloured the lines and their range of intensities.

Had I not known the pianist’s identity (rather like tuning into a radio broadcast of a performance mid-movement) I would have forwarded the opinion that she/he was Russian – I could feel a pronounced degree of what commentators have called in the past “imaging”, a quality which characterizes the playing among members of the Russian piano school. This allies the music’s sound with a poetic or narrative idea, however abstracted or disguised, awakening potentialities in listeners for equating the music with their own experiences of similar ideas and/or emotions.

So, mid-development, the music’s drama was palpably and full-bloodedly engaged. Melanie Lina then contrasted this with a “Tempest Sonata-like” sequence of charged expectancy, the left-handed pulsating of the music supporting the right hand’s playfulness, and the crescendo bringing us to a swirling pitch of excitement before setting the reprise upon its wonderfully clear-headed course once more – such characterful, involving playing! The lyricism of contrasting episodes was given its due, but not allowed to languish, impelled forwards by the playing’s drive, and giving the dynamic contrasts all that they were worth – this was Beethoven after all!

Occasional finger-slips merely added to the excitement and sense of risk-taking in this dynamic performance, the “swirling” effect just before the last, breath-catching lyrical statement of the second theme again quite Russian in its utterance (shades of Richter and Gilels), a lovely meditative moment before the concluding pay-off.

My colleague drew attention to the slow movement’s beautiful legato, creating a mood at once delightful and soulful, a judgement I agreed with – here was music which seemed to me both abstractedly poetic and unashamedly operatic, the lines a veritable love-duet, as much demure as ardent, with tones matching the music’s different characters. I particularly loved Melanie Lina’s delineation of those three obelisks of sound at the movement’s beginning, a framework around which the music then wove its poetic interactions. I thought the pianist seemed momentarily to lose a little of her poise when approaching the finale (outside, perhaps some workmen’s occasional and annoying noises off were partly to blame at this point) – the character of the sounds seemed to recede and lose its focused edge and “charged” quality.

Happily, equanimity was restored with the finale’s beautifully ambient trilled tones which opened up the vistas and gave the bell-like melody space to ring resoundingly – a great moment! Lina didn’t need to hurry the reprise of the opening, though, as the slight tempo-nudge at the reprise impaired a sense for me of heavenly bodies going about their cosmic business – there was ample opportunity within a few measures to intensify the trajectories with the recapitulation of the trills and the powerful left hand – but the broken octaves that followed were very excitingly delivered, the composer at once setting a more earthy set of impulses alongside sublime order, a dynamic of contrasts well-realised by the pianist.

“Poetic and dramatic as required….a magnificent rendition” was Rosemary Collier’s overall comment regarding the finale, commenting further that  the pianist’s tempo was a little speedy for an Allegretto, resulting in a lack of weight as a whole. I felt that the pianist successfully realized Beethoven’s characteristic fusion of serenity and volatility, encompassing things like the breathtaking plunge into a new world-view with those massive chords changing the whole colour of the music, then gliding the music along a more winsome, syncopated pathway. The reprise was joyous and celebratory, though the pianist’s tempo did make for a relative “labouring” of the triplet figurations, and a touch of hectoring tone in places, perhaps due to that problematic piano register. There came that prophetic, Schumannesque moment of recall almost at the end (a lovely “reminiscing” effect), and the post-horn-like chords to finish.

In the wake of this performance the other item which really grabbed my attention was Melanie Lina’s astonishing playing of Debussy’s L’isle joyeuse. Here, as with the Beethoven, was, I thought, something of a grand tradition revisited, the pianist’s scintillating tones at the outset instantly at one with both idea and image of something shimmering and impulsive, all contours somehow both delineated and merged into one another, with everything made beautifully liquid. The pianist’s thematic shaping of the work’s “big melodic idea” grew beautifully from out of the textures, and, like Saint Francis de Paule of medieval times, who was said to have walked upon the water, rode the swirls and agitations triumphantly. I thought Lina’s command of detail, rhythm and colour realized the piece brilliantly, with a ringing flourish at the end whose sheer élan took away one’s breath with astonishment.

These items framed the remainder of the recital, works by Chopin and Gershwin. Again, the playing was brilliant, though in places, almost too much so – I felt the effect was sometimes too unyielding, too frenetic. The Chopin Waltz (the Op.42 A-flat Major “Grand Waltz”) needed more elegance and liquid flow for Schumann’s imagined countesses, Lina’s cascades of notes delivering too agitated and insistent an effect (the piano could possibly have been part of the problem). Her playing of the first (in C Minor) of the Op.48 Nocturnes was more successful, bringing out the orchestral contrasts of the opening with the hymn-like central section, though I felt some “straining on the leash” as the pianist moved towards the agitated chordal triplets, building the mood inexorably into something of a storm – it was evidently quite a night! Perhaps for some tastes the turbulence was over-wrought, though one could just as easily regarded the intensities as part of the pianist’s refusal to take a single note for granted.

Still, I thought the Three Preludes of Gershwin’s responded better to the pianist’s unflagging energy and intensity than did the Chopin items (Lina is, after all, American-born and trained, and would have doubtless been steeped in a kind of home-grown context for this music). Her playing of the dreamy middle Prelude was particularly atmospheric and evocative, and provided some relief from her brusque, hard-edged, totally unsentimental rendition of the opening piece (Gershwin himself played his music this way, judging from existing recordings). A busy, athletic evocation of the Third Prelude’s New-World glitter and bustle completed the set on a high note.

A word about the program notes, which contained a brief “recent undertakings” bio of Melanie Lina, and notes on the music, written by the pianist – the latter were a delight, in the form of a letter to us, the recital audience, putting each of her program choices into a context explaining its appearance, and telling us a great deal about her as an interpreter in the process. She told us of her youthful experiences with the “Waldstein” Sonata, and how she recently came back to it as the result of hearing a broadcast (to our great good fortune), delighting in its orchestral range and scope. With Chopin she talked of the quality of “singing with the fingers” when playing his music in general, and of the festive delight of some of his Waltzes, including the A-flat Major one played in the recital. She called the C Minor Nocturne “deeply dramatic”, a description borne out by her own performance.

Most interestingly, in tandem with talking about Gershwin’s music as being from her homeland, Melanie Lina expressed the intention to play more New Zealand music as well (one wonders if things like Douglas Lilburn’s Chaconne, John Psathas’s Waiting for the Aeroplane, and Philip Dadson’s Sisters Dance are already in her sights).

Having an interpreter of her abilities willing to play such repertoire would be cause for great joy – which leads me to the exuberance with which she wrote about the recital’s concluding item, Debussy’s L’isle Joyeuse, telling us about her midwest childhood spent far from any ocean, and her miraculous grown-up relocation to “an island in the Pacific” which she now calls home, indeed, a “joyous isle” that for her invests Debussy’s music with a special significance.

One hopes Wellington has not seen and heard the last of Melanie Lina, after such an exciting and stimulating solo concert.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Freddy Kempf’s Gershwin with the NZSO – poet-pianist with a brilliant orchestra

Posted on by Peter Mechen

NEW ZEALAND SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA presents FREDDY KEMPF PLAYS GERSHWIN

GERSHWIN – Second Rhapsody for Piano and Orchestra / BERNSTEIN – Prelude, Fugue and Riffs

GERSHWIN – I Got Rhythm Variations / An American in Paris / SHOSTAKOVICH – Tahiti Trot

GERSHWIN  – Rhapsody in Blue (orch. Grofe)

Freddy Kempf (piano)

Matthew Coorey (conductor)

New Zealand Symphony Orchestra

Michael Fowler Centre, Wellington

Friday, 7th December, 2012

A splendid program, expertly delivered, with the qualification that, to my mind pianist Freddy Kempf’s playing was notable more for poetry and introspection than glint and incisiveness, particularly in the “Rhapsody in Blue”. There were places where I wanted the piano to assert itself to a greater, somewhat brasher extent, particularly as the orchestra, under the energetic direction of Australian conductor Matthew Coorey, was “playing-out” in the best American style.

As with the players’ response a couple of months ago to Miguel Harth-Bedoya’s direction of Bernstein’s West Side Story Dances, here was a kind of untramelled spirit unleashed which took to the music with a will and realized much of its essential energetic joie de vivre. This came across most consistently throughout a vividly-projected rendition of An American in Paris – I wanted the motor horns at the beginning to “honk” more stridently, though it became obvious as the performance unfolded that the conductor was purposely “terracing” the score’s more overtly vulgar aspects to telling overall effect.

It seemed to me that any orchestra that could whole-heartedly “swing” certain music along in such a way that the NZSO players could and did on this occasion (as happened also with the Bernstein work I’ve mentioned) would be capable of bringing those same energetic, colourful and expressive qualities to any music it cared to play. Under Matthew Coory’s direction, the music’s story of the homesick traveller struggling to regain his emotional equilibrium in a foreign land, and eventually making the connections he needed, was here, by turns, excitingly and touchingly recounted, enabling the work to “tell” as the masterpiece it is.

Of course the brass has to carry much of the music’s character via plenty of on-the-spot ensemble work and virtuoso individual playing – and the solos delivered by people such as trumpeter Michael Kirgan delivered spadefuls of brilliance and feeling (even the one or two mis-hit notes had plenty of style and élan!). Not to be completely overshadowed, both winds and strings contributed soulful solo and concerted passages, balancing the blues with the brashness of some of the energies, though horns, saxophone and even the tuba also had episodes whose sounds tugged at the heartstrings.

What was caught seemed to me to be the “rhythm of the times”, putting me in mind of memories of watching some of those 1930s American films with their amazing song-and-dance sequences. Obviously this spirit had world-wide repercussions, as evidenced by Shostakovich’s contribution to the evening’s entertainment, via his Tahiti Trot, which was nothing less than a thinly disguised orchestral setting of Vincent Youman’s Broadway hit Tea for Two, completed by the composer in 1928.

Where Shostakovich’s work delighted with the wit and delicacy of its setting, Leonard Bernstein’s raunchy Prelude Fugue and Riffs from over twenty years later pinned the ears back with its percussion-driven brass declamations at the outset, irruptions alternating with echoes, and its in-your-face burleske-like gestures. It was all by way of preparing for a jazzy fugue whose peregrinations seemed to follow its own rules of expression, before returning to the all-out burlesque posturing and an ensuing “riff” whose manic energy threatened to sweep away the whole ensemble. It was the solo clarinet which finally called a halt with a single note. Again, I felt awed at the energies released by these normally straight-laced, classically-disciplined musicians, all of whom were suddenly demonstrated impressive “crossover”-like skills, and producing performances that to my ears sounded and felt creditably idiomatic.

A few further words about the concertante Gershwin items – the most interesting, by dint of being the least familiar, was the Second Rhapsody, first played in 1931, seven years after the original Rhapsody in Blue was first performed. Originally written as part of a film score, Gershwin set out to portray the bustling, concrete-jungle character of a big city (specifically New York), with a particular emphasis on the city’s upward-thrusting building activities, leading to the film-sequence being dubbed originally “Rhapsody of Rivets”. Gershwin’s later expansion of the score as a concert-piece retained the original music’s energy and rhythmic drive, but added and developed a contrasting lyrical character in places. The result was a work which its composer described as “in many respects….the best thing I’ve ever written”.

Freddy Kempf’s performance again delivered the more soulful moments of the score with plenty of heart-on-sleeve feeling, and he seemed here more into the “swing” of the energetic moments – also, his concertante approach seemed to me to suit this more sophisticated work better than with the first Rhapsody’s more “blue-and-white” character. While not as richly-endowed with memorable themes, this later work has a much more “interactive” spirit between soloist and orchestra, more like the later Concerto in F, the tension of the exchanges towards the end here magnificently terraced. I particularly enjoyed the chromatic, Messiaen-like orchestral lurches leading up to the final “all-together” payoff.

The I Got Rhythm Variations, perhaps the most lighthearted of the three, made a sparkling mid-concert makeweight, Kempf’s deft touch and whirlwind tempi for his solos reminiscent of Gershwin’s own, very unsentimental playing-style preserved on a few recordings. Again the orchestral playing under Matthew Coorey’s direction sounded right inside the music, by turns pushing, coaxing and simply letting it out there. How wonderful to have an orchestra in Wellington which can “swing it” just as whole-heartedly as it can deftly turn a Haydn or Mozart phrase, or rattle the rafters with a Brucknerian or Wagnerian climax. Well done, pianist, players and conductor, for giving us such a great concert.

Talented piano duettists combine wit and virtuosity for St Andrew’s audience

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Nicole Chao and Beth Chen (piano duettists)

Souvenirs de Bayreuth (Massenet and Fauré)
Preludes Op 23, Nos 4, 5 and 6 (Rachmaninov) – played by Beth Chen
Mephisto Waltz No 1 (Liszt) – played by Nicole Chao
La belle excentrique (Satie)

St Andrew’s on The Terrace

Wednesday 5 December, 12.15pm

These two pianists, born in Taiwan, gained their master’s degrees at Victoria University, and have studied elsewhere. They have returned to Wellington with a host of awards and prizes in their brief-cases.  They have both become highly polished players who have recently joined forces to play piano duets, and duos, no doubt, which they do with a unanimity of feeling and technical mastery that is not usually acquired in so short a time.

Their programme combined a couple of satirical duets with solo pieces from the normal, yet highly demanding, repertoire.

Messager and Fauré put together as set of five pieces drawn from Wagner: ‘Fantasy in the form of a quadrille on themes from Richard Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen’. Unlike certain French (and other) composers, the two friends – teacher and pupil – were enraptured by Wagner’s operas and had seen them in Munich, Cologne, Bayreuth and London.

We were offered no hint as to the respective contributions by the two composers (Messager wrote many operas and operettas, the still popular ballet Les deux pigeons, and conducted the first performance of Pelléas et Mélisande).

The first piece opened with loud chords and continued its brief course in dramatic fashion. The character of the quadrille varied from piece to piece, all danceable no doubt, but more likely to raise smiles; but more likely to raise smiles for the intention was to send up a few of the Leitmotive in a genial, light-hearted way.

Beth Chen played three of the preludes from Rachmaninov’s Op 23 set; hints of sentimentality were to be heard in No 4, but what kept the piece alive especially was the way the sounds produced by the two hands were kept so distinct in their colour and mood, yet created such  a perfect vocal blend.

No 5, in G minor, is the second best-known of the preludes; she played its slightly non-bellicose march carefully, which lent a greater force to the climactic phases. No 6 is rhapsodic in character and Chen gave it a relaxed though scrupulous performance, with sensitively placed rubato; again the two hands took up sharply contrasting roles – bright chords in the right hard, the left playing legato arpeggios. These were highly accomplished and authoritative performances.

Then it was Nicole Chao’s turn, with the first Mephisto Waltz, and it was brilliant: the sinister excitement of the first heavy chords, the dangerous, galloping rhythms; the scarlet and black colours of a medieval Satan in the hair-raising rushes of chromatic scales, and then the sudden beguiling calm.  Her playing was a dazzling display of speed, agility and clarity, getting to the heart of Liszt.

The pair returned then to offer another facet of late 19th century French wit, whose musical model was Satie. La belle excentrique [oui, il s’écrite comme ça] describes four characteristics or behaviours of a type of woman only to be found among the French. The Moon March, for example, suggested someone coping with the low gravity that exists on the moon or possibly with three too many drinks. The High Society Cancan with its scraps of tunes that interrupt each other, toy playfully with the spirit of Offenbach. The performances were a splendid substitute for a liquid lunch.

These two pianists await, though I doubt whether they do consciously, an invitation to join Chamber Music New Zealand’s nationwide concert series or even as duet or duo pianists, in the tradition of the Labèque sisters, in Bach, Mozart, Dussek or Poulenc, with the Wellington Orchestra or the NZSO.

 

Bryant-Greene and Atkins give enjoyable recital of New Zealand piano music

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Anthony Ritchie: Olveston Suite
Jenny McLeod: Tone Clock Pieces XIX. Moon, Night Birds, Dark Pools
Douglas Lilburn: Sonatina no.1
John Ritchie: Three Caricatures

Buz Bryant-Greene (piano) and Andrew Atkins (piano)

St. Andrew’s on The Terrace

28 November 2012, 12.15pm

It was refreshing to have a programme entirely of New Zealand compositions.  It made for a most enjoyable concert, in fact more so than numbers of piano recitals I have attended.

One infrequently hears music by father and son of the same family (perhaps occasionally the Mozarts, Leopold and Wolfgang), so it was a distinct pleasure to hear music by both John and Anthony Ritchie.  The geniality of the writing of both points to a happy family life.

The son’s suite was charming, and evocative for anyone who has visited the beautifully preserved Theomin home in Dunedin.  I have – and even played the piano there, choosing Sibelius, as a contemporary of the Theomins.
I had never heard this music before, and was thoroughly enchanted.

The first movement ‘Great Hall’, appropriately began with grand chords and lofty notes.  It was followed by ‘Kitchen and Scullery’.  Here, the music was suitably busy, but cheerful, not stressed – this was a large room, so people would not be falling over each other.  In ‘Dining Room’, it was easy to hear the happy, conversational sequences, with some voices declamatory (male?) and some higher and softer (female?).   ‘Writing Room, Edwardian Room’ contained more contemplative, thoughtful tones, befitting for family members sitting down to write letters.

The final movement, ‘Billiard Room, Persian Room’ (which room I recall distinctly) featured music that was lively, with uneven rhythms (perhaps revealing unequal skill or luck), with running – rolling? – passages.  Did the player pot the ball at the end?

‘Great Hall’ was then played again by Buz Bryant-Greene, revealing some insecurities – not of the pianist, but perhaps of the guests, entering the hall.  It was a very satisfying performance, the skill of the player allowing the audience to concentrate on the music and what it was depicting, rather than the playing.

Following this, the pianist spoke to the audience about the programme.

Jenny McLeod has now written many Tone Clock Pieces, the first appearing in 1988.  These are based on the harmonic theory originated by Dutch composer Peter Schat (b. 1935).  The darkly mysterious piece was played with sympathy, subtlety and finesse.  The atmosphere of night was gentle, but full of surprises.

Douglas Lilburn’s Sonatina (of similar length to many sonatas) was introduced and played by Andrew Atkins, whose speaking had much greater clarity than was shown by his colleague, despite his use of the microphone.  He used the score, as was the case with all these pieces – but the programme had been a late substitution for what had been originally planned.

The Sonatina was written in 1946, and received an excellent reading at the hands of Atkins, who proved to have a lovely touch in the soft passages.  The vivace first movement began pianissimo, with Lilburn’s typical dotted rhythm on repeated notes in evidence.  The second movement was marked poco adagio, espressivo, but much of the movement was robust and strong, with great dynamic variety; the espressivo instruction was followed to the full.  The allegro was a difficult final movement, but was played with assurance and skill.  Altogether, it was a fine performance.

Buz Bryant-Greene returned to play John Ritchie’s humorous music.  The opening Toccatina was fun; much of it sounded like the birds and the bees, but it was quite demanding.  The Sarabande was a thoughtful slow dance that contained lovely piano writing, and some fast passages.  The Jig finale featured a no-nonsense opening, then bouncy elves rolled out (this being “Hobbit Day”) to jig around our ears (pointedly?).  It all made up to another fine performance.